Air Products will exit energy-from-waste business
Trexlertown-based Air Products said Monday it is shutting down its troubled energy-from-waste business in the United Kingdom. (CONTRIBUTED PHOTO / THE MORNING CALL)
 Anthony Salamone Contact ReporterOf The Morning Call
Air Products plans to pull out of energy-from-waste business
TREXLERTOWN – Air Products said Monday it is shutting down its troubled energy-from-waste business because it hasn't efficiently resolved operating and design challenges.
The Trexlertown-based company said in a news release it expects to take a pre-tax charge of $900 million to $1 billion, with earnings per share to be recorded as 3 cents to 4 cents higher during the last two years, as the unit was unprofitable.
Its energy-from-waste segment includes the Tees Valley projects in the United Kingdom, which Air Products began undertaking in August 2012, spokesman Art George said. The projects promised to power more than 100,000 homes while reducing landfill waste and generating high-tech green jobs.
Air Products CEO Seifi Ghasemi said the company "pushed hard" to figure out the technology but was disappointed in the outcome. The project's technology, called advanced plasma gasification, aimed to use very high temperatures to convert waste into a fuel gas called syngas.
"Air Products is focused on our core industrial gases business," Ghasemi said in the news release.
George said Air Products is in the processing of assessing what effect exiting energy from waste will have on operations at its Trexlertown headquarters. He said he had no further details.
Air Products is reportedly in talks to sell its performance materials division to a German company for $3.5 billion. Air Products' performance materials division makes chemicals and additives for numerous industries, including construction and adhesive coatings. The chemical additives it makes are used in many consumer products, including chairs, car seats, shoes and insulation. It has been scheduled to be spun off with its electronic materials segment in September to form a new company, Versum Materials.
The company has declined to comment on the Versum reports.
The energy-from-refuse segment will be accounted for as a discontinued operation effective in Air Products' second quarter, which ended March 31. The company expects to discuss the move's financial impact when it announces fiscal second quarter earnings on April 28.
Air Products is one of the Lehigh Valley's two Fortune 500 companies, with 19,700 people worldwide. More than 3,000 people work in the Valley. Its shares fell nearly $2 to $143.48 in morning trading. |
