UPPER MACUNGIE TWP., Pa.- Lehigh County-based Air Products is still weighing its options when it comes to a stalled project that’s been billed as the company’s largest U.S. investment.<\/p>\n
The Louisiana Clean Energy Complex, also known as the Darrow project (named for the city where it would be built), came with a $4.5 billion price tag when it was first announced in 2021. It would produce low-carbon hydrogen (sometimes called blue hydrogen) and ammonia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The complex was originally expected to be operational this year, but the project was put on hold in early 2025, following the ouster of then-CEO Seifi Ghasemi. His successor, Eduardo Menezes, has pushed a back-to-basics approach for the industrial gas company.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Menezes discussed the Darrow project and other topics during a fireside chat\u00a0at the Bernstein 42nd Annual Strategic Decisions Conference, a multi-day investor event that brings together company heads and leaders from various sectors.<\/p>\n
“The main issue of this project,” Menezes said, of the Louisiana complex, “is the fact that we decided to build a plant without a customer. We decided to build an ammonia plant, and our products would be basically commercialized ammonia. We’re not going to do that.”<\/p>\n
Instead, Air Products found a potential partner to own and operate the ammonia side of the business: Yara International, a Norwegian company that produces and distributes fertilizers and nitrogen-based chemicals, including ammonia.<\/p>\n
Assuming the partnership and larger complex move forward, “this becomes a regular hydrogen project for Air Products,” Menezes said.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Air Products is doing its homework on the pros and cons of the deal, Menezes said. “”I think the right way to think about it is, if it’s a good project, we’ll do it, if it’s not a good project, we’re not going to do it.”<\/p>\n
Meantime, Air Products’\u00a0NEOM green hydrogen project in Saudi Arabia, which was also announced under Ghasemi, is progressing and is expected to start production early next year.<\/p>\n
During the fireside chat, Air Products Chief Financial Officer\u00a0Melissa Schaeffer was asked for her take on Menezes’ tenure so far. She commended him for helping the company return to efficiency across the board.<\/p>\n
“I think the organization got distracted with these large projects that we just talked about, and it’s really refocusing the organization on how to be competitive at what we do best, the core industrial gas,” Schaeffer said.<\/p>\n
Shortly after Menezes was named Air Products CEO in February of 2025, the company announced it was withdrawing from three major projects in the U.S.: a green liquid hydrogen facility in Massena, New York; a carbon monoxide project in Texas; and a\u00a0Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) expansion project in Paramount, California.<\/p>\n
The company may be in too deep in Louisiana to abandon the Darrow project now; that remains to be seen. If it does happen, it’ll most likely be a once-and-done for Air Products. “These very large projects, it’s a completely different animal, and I don’t see us doing a lot of these projects going forward,” said Menezes.<\/p>\n
Air Products, with its global headquarters in Upper Macungie Township, is one of only two Fortune 500 companies based in the Lehigh Valley. PPL Corporation is the other.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UPPER MACUNGIE TWP., Pa.- Lehigh County-based Air Products is still weighing its options when it comes to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[33694,119,121,120,90527,90524,79841,9832,90526,90525,90528],"class_list":["post-205762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-air-products","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-darrow","tag-eduardo-menezes","tag-industrial-gas","tag-louisiana","tag-louisiana-clean-energy-complex","tag-nitrogen-based-chemicals","tag-yara-international"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205762","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=205762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}