Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript - Page 8 of 9 - InvestingChannel

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And in the United States, we have to see, but the good news for us is that, we are seeing significant discussion on both, but that it is not as people predicted, that in the U.S. it would all be blue hydrogen. Right now we are talking to companies who are very interested in green hydrogen in the United States, to make their products in the United States, whether it’s a seed or chemical.

Duffy Fischer: Great. Thank you, guys.

Samir Serhan: Thank you.

Seifi Ghasemi: Thank you, Duffy.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Jeff Zekauskas: Thanks very much. I have one question with two parts. The first is, when I look at your results, your volumes are up 3%, your prices were up 4%. When I look at your competitor in Denbury, I think it’s volumes are maybe down 1% and it’s prices are up 7%. And in the different regions, it seems like your volumes are growing at a higher rate than theirs and their prices are growing at a higher rate than yours. Can you reflect on that general phenomenon? And then secondly, Air Products claims to dissociate hydrogen at a 10% loss rate rather than 20%, which is sort of the general view that people have because of the energy you need to crack the ammonia. Can you just quickly explain to us in layman’s terms how you’re able to have a more efficient process.

Seifi Ghasemi: Very good, Jeff. And good morning, to you. Jeff with respect to comparison, you are comparing us to a company which has a different strategy and a different – so I don’t want to comment on their results. You are comparing year-to-year because last year, our pricing was significantly better than the other people. So year-to-year, we are not going to show as much as an increase, because if they had a very low performance last year, this year, year-to-year, it looks better. I think that is the main reason for the price increase. And so that is my general comment on that. But overall, we are very much focused on being a green energy growth company. We are an industrial gas company and at the same time. So we are pursuing a totally different strategy, as you know I have talked before.

The fact that our volumes are up, and I think this will continue to be the trend that we will beat other people on volume growth is because we are investing in the future, and we are winning our share or even better than our share of the smaller projects than people have been talking about. So as a result, volume growth is obviously the key thing we’re focused on. Pricing, we are holding our own. There is no significant difference in the pricing because if it was that the market shares will change. And the market shares are staying stable. So that is the question that I have, first one. On the second question that you have in terms of the efficiency of the crackers that we think we have versus the conventional list that you use 20% to 30% of that.

We have talked about this thing. It is a technology we have been developing but the person who is doing that on a day-to-day basis is Dr. Serhan and I like him to make some comments about that. Samir?

Samir Serhan: I mean it really goes safely to what you mentioned before. I mean it’s that know-how we developed over the last 60 years in producing hydrogen. I mean this is really what – we had this challenge a few years ago. We looked at the market, we saw that there are ammonia crackers, but the efficiency is really not acceptable. You end up wasting lots of the valuable product. And again, we put our team of expert on this. And basically, we developed a product where we feel is very, very efficient. I mean, to a single-digit loss. And that’s really what we have without giving more details. I mean.

Seifi Ghasemi: Well, Dr. Serhan just gave you more information, but you were saying 10% and he’s not talking single digits, which is good news. But Jeff, if I may just summarize, I’m very proud of our team. We do have very good people, and they have developed this technology. And this is going to be a competitive advantage that we will end up having as we go forward on this conversion of ammonia to hydrogen. All okay Jeff?

Jeff Zekauskas: Thank you very much.

Seifi Ghasemi: Thank you. Do we have time for one more question? And please go ahead.

Operator: Our last question comes from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Steve Haynes: Hi, thanks for squeezing me in. This is Steve Haynes on for Vincent. Maybe just a quick one on the fourth quarter guide. I think 4Q usually steps up a bit more seasonally than what you have baked in? I know you just kind of talked about some macro uncertainty in China and in Europe, but is there anything else in there that’s causing a little bit of the more muted 4Q ramp? Thanks.

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