Messer Group and CVC Capital Partners Fund VII acquired most of the North American gases business of Linde plc and certain Linde and Praxair business activities in South America, launching a new name in the Americas market. With over 70 production facilities and approximately 5,400 employees in five countries (U.S., Canada, Brazil, Colombia and Chile) across North and South America, Messer Americas is one of the largest industrial gas companies in the region. As part of The Messer Group, the company offers over 120 years of proven expertise in the safe and reliable production and delivery of industrial, medical and specialty gases.

To continue a trend we started in 2017, Industrial Heating will highlight a topic on our website and list the most-popular articles under that topic according to page views.

Air Liquide and its U.S. subsidiary, Airgas, opened the Advanced Fabrication Center (AFC) at the Air Liquide Delaware Innovation Campus in Newark, Del. The AFC focuses on helping industrial customers adopt new manufacturing technologies and more efficient and cost-effective production processes. It will deliver a continuous flow of development projects, innovations and exploratory R&D. Air Liquide’s manufacturing expertise in welding gases and advanced fabrication processes will be on display at the center.

Air Products announced plans to build a new liquid hydrogen plant at its La Porte, Texas, industrial gas facility to meet increasing product demand from several markets. The facility will produce approximately 30 tons per day and will draw its hydrogen to be liquefied from Air Products’ existing Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline system network. Once liquefied at La Porte, the hydrogen will be delivered to customers in industries including metals and electronics. The plant is scheduled to be on-stream in 2021.

Praxair Inc., in accordance with its proposed business combination with Linde AG, signed an agreement to sell the majority of its businesses in Europe to Japan’s Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corp. for approximately $5.8 billion. This agreement is conditioned on the successful consummation of the Praxair-Linde merger and other regulatory approvals. The assets to be sold include Praxair’s industrial gases businesses in Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. and include approximately 2,500 employees.

As a responsible corporate neighbor and partner, decisions made within Honda of America Manufacturing Inc. (“Honda”) affect not only the local community but have far-reaching ramifications both nationally and internationally.

Airgas Inc. signed a long-term agreement to build an air-separation unit (ASU) to supply tonnage oxygen, nitrogen and argon via pipeline to Nucor Steel Tuscaloosa Inc.