Air Products, the world-leading industrial gases company which has been serving Guangdong in South China for 30 years, has signed a second long-term oxygen and nitrogen supply contract with a leading global materials supplier in the province.
Under the agreement, Air Products will build two cryogenic air separation plants in Guangdong to produce both gaseous oxygen and nitrogen.
The new plants are scheduled to come on-stream in 2018. Together with an existing plant, which started-up in 2017 and was the company’s first of its kind built in China, Air Products will significantly increase gas supply capacity.
Saw Choon Seong, China president, Industrial Gases at Air Products, said: “The new investment and capacity expansion will give Air Products an even stronger position to supply the strategic high-tech materials industry in the important Pearl River Delta region.”
Air Products was one of the first multinational industrial gas companies to enter the China market when it set up its first plant in Shenzhen in 1987.
Following 30 years of continuous growth and investment, it has 2,500 employees and more than 140 production facilities in the country.
In Guangdong province, the company operates a supply network across the Pearl River Delta to support the growing demand from more than 30 industries.
In a separate development, and in the presence of Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, and Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, Seifi Ghasemi, Air Products Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Li Xiyong, Chairman of Yankuang Group Co., Ltd., signed an agreement for a $3.5 billion coal-to-syngas production facility to be built in Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, China.
The agreement was signed in the Great Hall of the People as part of the Trade Mission to China led by the US Department of Commerce.
Under the agreement, Air Products and Shaanxi Future Energy Group Co., Ltd. (SFEC), a subsidiary of Yankuang Group, intend to form an Air Products majority-controlled joint venture company which would build, own and operate an air separation, gasification and syngas clean-up system to supply the SFEC site.
The air separation units are expected to produce approximately 40,000 tons-per-day (TPD) of oxygen to support the production of 2.5 million nm3/hour of syngas. SFEC will supply coal, steam and power and receive syngas under a long-term, onsite contract.
Air Products currently supplies SFEC’s Phase 1 project in Yulin with 12,000 TPD of oxygen. The addition of Phase 2 would make the complex one of the largest coal to fuel and chemicals facilities in China, with SFEC Phase 2 producing four million tons-per-year of liquid fuels and downstream chemicals.
The project is expected onstream in 2021 and Seifi Ghasemi said: “This new agreement confirms Yankuang’s trust in us, built on the supply reliability we have delivered for their Phase 1 project. It is another excellent example of Air Products’ strategy to grow profitably by deploying capital into world-scale industrial gas projects.”
Li Xiyong said: “We look forward to further extending our excellent partnership with Air Products, leveraging their technology, reliability and expertise to enable us to produce even more high-quality fuel and chemical products that drive growth and support sustainable development.”
