Air Products To Feature Advanced Industrial Gas Solutions

Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (NYSE:APD) recently announced that it will display its advanced industrial gas solutions for the agrochemical and specialty chemical manufacturing markets at the Specialty & Agro Chemicals America slated to be held in Charleston, SC, from Sep 4-5.

The company’s R&D and technical support teams are taking a total solutions approach, which will enable producers to improve their process safety, efficiency and economics. Air Products invited the conference attendees to stop by its booth and speak with an industry specialist regarding specific challenges and processes.

Air Products offers advanced industrial gas solutions for a wide range of applications, including hydrogenation, inerting and blanketing, oxygen enrichment, reaction cooling, particle size reduction as well as water treatment.

The company’s range of industrial gases provides a variety of supply options to cost-effectively and efficiently address the requirements of small as well as large-volume users.

The company has announced plans for building two new liquid hydrogen plants in Texas and California. The move enables it to address the growing hydrogen demands in chemical processing and other markets. These plants are expected to come online in 2021.

The company operates state-of-the-art testing labs in Allentown, PA. For example, its Cryogenic Grinding Lab enables testing of a customer's product on production-scale equipment to determine the feasibility of using cryogenics in their process.

Moreover, its Hydrogen Reactions Lab aids customers in used re-refining, renewable diesel and transmix markets to optimize existing hydrotreatment processes. The company also has a Clean Energy Lab for facilitating the full-scale testing and development of actual combustion systems.

Air Products’ shares have rallied 35% in the past year against the industry’s decline of 45.6%.

In third-quarter fiscal 2019, the company revised adjusted earnings per share (EPS) guidance for fiscal 2019 in the range of $8.20-$8.25 from the previous expectation of $8.15-$8.30. This suggests more than 10% rise year over year at the midpoint.

It expects adjusted EPS for fourth-quarter fiscal 2019 in the band of $2.26-$2.31, which indicates year-over-year rise of 13-16%.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Air Products currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks in the basic materials space are Kinross Gold Corporation (NYSE:KGC) , Alamos Gold Inc (TSX:AGI) and Arconic Inc (NYSE:ARNC) , all sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Kinross has an expected earnings growth rate of 150% for 2019. The company’s shares have surged 73.4% in the past year.

Alamos Gold has projected earnings growth rate of 320% for the current year. The company’s shares have rallied 61.4% in a year’s time.

Arconic has an estimated earnings growth rate of 50% for the current year. Its shares have moved up 15% in the past year.

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