Air Products sees big opportunities from restructuring

Corning Painter, executive vice-president of industrial gases at Air Products, said that China’s ongoing economic restructuring and upgrading will be “a big positive” for the company.

“In China, marketing is very easy as the government puts forward a clear guideline for development,” said Painter during a recent visit to the company’s China headquarters in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai. “You just have to read their work plans and understand their impacts on our customers.”

Air Products provides atmospheric and process gases as well as equipment related to manufacturing markets, including refining and petrochemical materials, metals and electronics. The US-based company, which has been in operation for more than 75 years, is also the world’s leading supplier of liquefied natural gas processing technology and equipment.

Some of its milestone accomplishments after it first entered China in 1987 include providing hydrogen fueling technology for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, supplying helium to fill the large balloons for the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and producing enriched oxygen for passengers on the world’s highest passenger trains running on the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

Since its establishment, Air Products has expanded from its first joint venture in Shenzhen to around 140 facilities across the country, which is the company’s second largest market in terms of scale, revenue and R&D investment, Painter said.

And the company is continuing to grow — China accounted for 14 percent of the company’s global turnover of $8 billion in 2017, up by 12 percent

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In light of the increasing standards of healthcare in China, Air Products experienced an increase in sales for liquid helium, which is used in magnetic resonance imaging scanners to keep the superconducting magnet at -269C.

With China targeting industrial transformation as part of its growth strategy under the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20), Air Products has identified great market potential in the coal gasification industry.

Painter pointed out that coal gasification, the process that converts coal into syngas, carbon monoxide and hydrogen for further processing into higher value chemicals and transportation fuels, will hence be “a huge opportunity” the company can capitalize on as it would help alleviate pollution.

China’s National Energy Administration already has plans to produce 50 billion cubic meters of gas from coal by 2020, enough to satisfy more than 10 percent of China’s total gas demand.

Painter added that coal gasification would allow China to tap into its stranded coal deposits scattered thousands of kilometers away from the country’s main industrial centers. In addition, transporting gas would be significantly cheaper than transporting coal.

“Air Products has been actively supporting China’s coal gasification market and collaborating with leading domestic companies to produce cleaner fuels and higher value-added downstream chemicals.”