Air Products, the LNG equipment-maker and industrial gases company now branching out with mega-projects in the Middle East linked to the NOEM smart city project in Saudi Arabia and with a gasification business in China, reported a 6 percent increase in fiscal first-quarter net income.
The company reported net income of $584 million compared with $549.6M in the same three months last year.
Air Products, which is a leader in the industrial gases sector, reported fiscal first-quarter sales of $3.2 billion, up 6 percent over the prior year’s $2.99Bln on 7 percent higher pricing, 3 percent higher energy cost pass-through and 2 percent higher volumes.
The LeHigh Valley, Pennsylvania-based company, also achieved the financial close and transfer of the second group of assets for the $12 billion gasification and power joint venture with Saudi Aramco, ACWA Power and the US firm’s Saudi unit, Air Products Qudra, in the Jazan Economic City in Saudi Arabia.
“Higher pricing across the largest segments drove the results, complemented by favorable volume growth, primarily in Asia and the Americas, from higher on-site and merchant demand,” said the company.
LNG projects
The US company is also the leading supplier of LNG equipment for the majority of plants operating worldwide,
Air Products equipment is lined up for several LNG projects under development, including Qatar’s LNG production expansion, Sempra Energy’s Costa Azul LNG export terminal project in Mexico and the currently delayed TotalEnergies-led Mozambique onshore project in Cabo Delgado province.
The company increased its quarterly dividend on its common stock by 13 cents per share to $1.75 per share.
“We continued to advance mega-scale hydrogen energy projects globally, including the joint venture with AES Corp. to invest about $4 billion to build, own and operate the US's largest green hydrogen facility in Wilbarger County in Texas,” explained Air Products.
The Canadian federal and provincial governments also announced C$475 million (US$357M) in project funding for the Air Products multi-billion-dollar landmark net-zero hydrogen energy complex in the oil and gas province of Alberta.
“The committed team at Air Products worked hard to deliver strong results this quarter, overcoming significant economic weakness, currency challenges and other headwinds,” said Chairman, President and Chief Executive Seifi Ghasemi.
“We are proud to have reached significant project milestones, including completing the second phase of the $12Bln Jazan gasification and power project, continuing to make good progress on the project financing for the NEOM (smart city) green hydrogen project, and announcing plans for the largest green hydrogen project in the US to be located in Texas,” added Ghasemi.
“Importantly, we again increased the dividend, as we have done for more than 40 consecutive years and expect to pay out more than $1.5 billion to our shareholders in 2023,” stated Ghasemi.
