LNG

Chart Industries, the US designer and manufacturer of engineered equipment for liquefied natural gas, clean energy and industrial gas markets, has received a Korean Gas Safety (KGS) certification and approval for liquid hydrogen bulk transport trailers.

Baker Hughes, the LNG equipment-maker and energy services company, reported an increase in first-quarter revenues to $4.83 billion and a 70 percent jump in operating income to $279 million while forecasting LNG final investment decisions on up to 150 million tonnes per annum of projects in the next two years.

The company, which has main offices in Houston and London, reported net income of $72M in the quarter to the end of March 2022 versus a loss of $452M in the same three months of 2021.

“Our first quarter results reflect operating in a very volatile market environment during the first few months of 2022,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, Baker Hughes Chairman and Chief Executive.

“On the positive side, we recorded strong orders from Turbomachinery and Process Solutions (TPS) as the LNG order cycle continues to unfold,” stated the CEO.

The company said TPS orders totalled $3Bln for the second consecutive quarter, driven again by strong orders in LNG.

“We believe that we are at the beginning of another constructive LNG cycle, which is being expedited by the current geopolitical situation, particularly for US LNG projects,” stated Simonelli.

“As these market dynamics play out, a number of projects should accelerate, and we now believe that 100 to 150 MTPA of LNG FIDs will be authorized over the next two years with additional FIDs becoming more likely in 2024 and 2025,” declared the CEO.

Record orders

Orders in the quarter were $3.0Bln, up $1.6Bln year-over-year and a new quarterly record for TPS.

Simonelli said that equipment orders were up $1.5Bln year-over-year, driven by a significant award to provide an LNG system for the first phase of US company Venture Global’s Plaquemines LNG project, located south of New Orleans on the Mississippi River in Louisiana.

Service orders in the quarter were up 8 percent year-over-year, primarily driven by growth in contractual and transactional services, partially offset by lower order volumes in upgrades.

Overall orders in the quarter were $6.8Bln, up 3 percent versus the three months to the end of 2021, driven by Oil Field Equipment and TPS, partially offset by a decrease in Digital Solutions and OFS.

Year-over-year, revenue was up 1 percent compared with $4.78Bln in the prior-year quarter, driven by increases in OFS and Digital Solutions, partially offset by decreases in OFE and TPS.

Adjusted operating income was $348M, which excluded $70M of restructuring, separation and other charges.

Russia issue

As regards the conflict in Ukraine, Baker Hughes said Russia represented roughly 4 percent of total company revenue in the first quarter.

“We recently announced that we have halted all new investment in the country,” said the company.

Oilfield Services revenues in the quarter amounted to $2.5Bln, down 3 percent from the previous three months.

“International revenue was down 7 percent sequentially led by declines in the North Sea, Russia Caspian, the Middle East, and Latin America,” said Baker Hughes.

Moving to the Oilfield Equipment division, the company said that orders for the quarter were $739M, double the $394M achieved in the same three months of 2021.

It added that the strong orders performance was driven by subsea production systems (SPS), supported by a large subsea tree contract in Asia, along with growth in flexibles, surface pressure control and services.

“As a reminder, we removed Subsea Drilling Systems from consolidated OFE operations when we completed the merger with MHWirth in the fourth quarter of 2021,” Baker Hughes explained.

The company concluded that revenue in the division was $528M, down 16 percent year-over-year, primarily driven by SPS, SPC and the removal of SDS, partially offset by growth in services and flexibles.

Air Products, the leading provider of LNG equipment and processing and industrial gases, reported a fiscal quarterly increase of 5 percent in sales to $2.4 billion, though net income remained flat over the three months as orders included one for Mexico’s first LNG export project.

Air Products, the US maker of LNG processing equipment and a leading industrial gases provider and plant developer, said it would invest $250 million in a project in Jiangsu Province in China as part of its gasification growth strategy and would also boost its Chinese merchant supply capability.

Air Products of the US, the maker of LNG processing equipment and a leading industrial gases provider and plant developer, has completed the buyback of two air separation units from China’s Shanxi Jinmei Huayu Coal Chemical Co.

The Italian Nidec Industrial Solutions group has signed a contract with Siemens Gas and Power of Germany whereby the Italians will supply variable frequency drive systems and motors for the Arctic LNG II project planned in northern Siberia by Russian natural gas company Novatek and its partners.

Air Products, the leading US LNG equipment-maker and industrial gases company, has completed the world’s largest industrial gas complex at Jazan in Saudi Arabia to provide gas to the Saudi Aramco refinery.

The Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania-based company built the plant under a joint venture with Saudi company ACWA Holding.

It will supply 75,000 metric tonnes per day of gases, including oxygen and nitrogen, to the Saudi Aramco facility.

Air Products industrial gases business is carried out alongside its LNG and equipment products such as LNG main cryogenic heat exchangers and its proprietary propane pre-cooled mixed refrigerant liquefaction process.

In addition to building and designing the Saudi industrial gas complex, Air Products owns 25 percent of the completed plant and ACWA Holding the remaining 75 percent.

“For the Air Products team members involved to complete this project with the extensive worker hours required, facing varied challenges, and to do so without a lost time injury is a truly exceptional milestone,” said Samir J. Serhan, Executive Vice President of Air Products.

“Going forward, when a prospective customer is interested in Air Products’ expertise, we can point to a map and say, let me tell you what we accomplished at Jazan,” stated Serhan.

The work on the Jazan project was carried out by the main Air Products engineering centres located in the UK, the US, China and India with the active engagement of other employees in Saudi Arabia. 

“The now mechanically complete industrial gas complex is expected to be brought on stream in phases in 2019,” said the US company.

Air Products said the Jazan gases complex took around three years to complete and is significantly larger than anything built to date by the company.

“On top of that, there was the massive recruitment effort to bring the construction workforce and others to the remote location, train them, and have them understand our focus on safety,” added Serhan.

The Jazan project effort required the hiring of sub-contractors for almost all of the construction scope.

“At peak construction periods, a workforce of 6,000 people were at the site. The result was a multi-national team of people from over 30 countries filling the varied roles necessary for the project,” said Air Products.

Air Products, the US LNG equipment-maker and industrial gases company, has signed an agreement to acquire the General Electric gasification business, including more than 1,000 patents relating to GE gasification technology.

Chart Industries, the US-based global manufacturer of engineered equipment for the LNG, industrial gas and energy industries reported solid third-quarter results and said it expected more LNG project orders through 2019 as developers moved to its products.

Trelleborg of Sweden has announced a partnership with leading Australian engineering consultancy Synertec to meet growing demand for more accurate and efficient LNG custody transfer measurements.