UPPER MACUNGIE TWP., Pa.- Air Products (APD) is raising the bar when it comes to its financial future.<\/p>\n
The industrial gas company, headquartered in Lehigh County, lifted its full-year forecast following a strong earnings report for the second quarter of fiscal 2026.<\/p>\n
The report comes on the heels of a pair of new business developments for APD. Last week, the company said it would build, own and operate a new air separation unit (ASU) in the city of Cocoa in Florida. An ASU is a facility that separates air into its main components: oxygen, nitrogen, and argon.<\/p>\n
This week, Air Products announced it had been selected by Samsung to build, own and operate multiple production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system for a new semiconductor fabrication plant in South Korea.<\/p>\n
“We are focused on investing in our backlog of traditional industrial gas projects and have strengthened our project pipeline in electronics and aerospace,” said CEO\u00a0Eduardo Menezes, in a webcast Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
Turmoil in the Middle East<\/p>\n
Menezes began his remarks by acknowledging the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East. “I want to take a moment to express my appreciation to the entire Air Products team, especially the more than 3,000 employees of our direct operations and minority-owned joint ventures in the Middle East,” he said. “During this period of uncertainty, our people have continued to show dedication, staying focused on safety, reliably serving our customers and supporting critical projects and operations.”<\/p>\n
Menezes said the company has been able to “effectively manage” the market dynamics that have emerged due to the conflict, adding that its NEOM\u00a0green-hydrogen-based ammonia production facility in Saudi Arabia has not been impacted.<\/p>\n
Helium, though, has taken a hit.\u00a0Qatar produces about 30% of the global helium supply, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Last month, QatarEnergy suspended helium production following attacks on its facilities.<\/p>\n
Helium is an important product line for Air Products, with high demand in industries like electronics, aerospace and medical.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Menezes said the company has activated its contingency plans, which includes drawing product from an underground storage cavern in Texas. “The cavern contains a significant volume, allowing us to provide high supply reliability to our customers when one of our sources is unable to produce, as we are now experiencing.”<\/p>\n
Air Products is also leaning on a subsidiary, the Lehigh Valley-based Gardner Cryogenics, which makes tanks to store and transport helium.<\/p>\n
The numbers<\/p>\n
Air Products reported second quarter GAAP operating income of $753 million and GAAP EPS (earnings per share) of $3.19, each up over 130%,\u00a0after reporting a loss in the same period a year earlier.<\/p>\n
The results topped Wall Street expectations, according to the Associated Press. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $3.05 per share.<\/p>\n
The posted revenue of $3.17 billion in the period also beat Wall Street forecasts.<\/p>\n
Second quarter sales of $3.2 billion increased 9%.<\/p>\n
The company now anticipates full-year adjusted EPS of $13.00 to $13.25, compared to the previous forecast of $12.85 to $13.15 per share.<\/p>\n
In the markets<\/p>\n
Shares of Air Products (NYSE: APD) were listed at $301.86 in early trading on Thursday. They’re up more than 25% since the start of the year.<\/p>\n
The company has a market capitalization of $67.35 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPPER MACUNGIE TWP., Pa.- Air Products (APD) is raising the bar when it comes to its financial future.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,60,18184],"class_list":["post-180899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-business","tag-western-lehigh-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}