Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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We’ve been accounting on about $50. So that additional $35 enhances the returns on that project. And then we will do significant amount of green projects in the United States. We did announce the project in Northern Texas and we definitely are working on other mega projects to produce green hydrogen in the United States. The IRA credits for $3 for green hydrogen production. First, the fact that if you make an integrated facility, you also get credit for the renewable power that you generate makes it very attractive to make these investments in the U.S. We are extremely well-positioned with our pipeline in the Gulf Coast and with our know-how and with our distribution capabilities to do things that other people cannot do because anybody who can already take advantage of the credit if you can do something with the hydrogen.

I mean people can run around and say, okay, I’m going to build a plant to produce green electricity and produce hydrogen. But then what do you do with the hydrogen. Air Products is one of the very few companies who knows what to do with the hydrogen, the other hydrogen company. Therefore, we are in a very unique position to take full advantage of the IRA registration. We are very pleased with that. That was a very significant step forward in the United States. And then the very good news for us is that, that has prompted other countries to take action. And I think yesterday or the day before that, you saw an announcement from the European Union that they are going to have a program of about €280 billion to promote the same kind of things which would, obviously, be very good for us because we are a global company.

Seifi Ghasemi: Okay, Chris. It’s very helpful, Seifi. Thank you so much.

Seifi Ghasemi: Thank you.

Operator: We will take our next question from David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank.

Unidentified Analyst: Thank you. Good morning. This is Anthony on for David. Seifi, you mentioned in your slides, your new capital structure and the changes on the capital costs and contributions to NEOM, what is the return on this project versus what you were expecting when you first announced the project in July of 2020?

Seifi Ghasemi: Well, the thing is that I have three partners, and I don’t want to speak for them and disclose the return on the project. But the thing that you have to take a look at is that we don’t look at the return on the project because we are going to take the offtake and sell that and make money on that, and that is how we take a look at the return on the total investment. So on that front, the return on that is going to be in accordance with what they have given you a guidance, which is for every dollar that we invest, you should expect about $0.10 of operating income. So you have to look at total supply chain from Air Products’ point of view. In terms of the specific return on the product, that is up to my partners to decide whether they want to disclose that or not.

I don’t want to disclose that because for us, that doesn’t mean anything. It’s the total supply chain. The important thing that you need to focus on is the fact that we are off-taking the ammonia at the same price that it was negotiated in 2020. Okay?

Unidentified Analyst: Yes. Understood. And as a follow-up on the green ammonia, if you did not lock in this price to purchase, how much higher do you think it would be today versus when the project comes on stream?

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