China has become a big buyer of these gases in recent years. It used 76 billion yuan ($12.39 billion) of industrial gases last year. The China Industrial Gas Association expects China's demand for industrial gases to reach $15.94 billion by 2016.
"Stable Chinese market growth has further fueled the expansion of foreign industrial gas providers such as France's Air Liquide SA, Germany's Linde AG, the US companies Praxair, Air Products and Chemicals Inc, because they have sophisticated technologies to produce high quality gases and set long-term product goals for energy, water and chemical use," Sun says.
Even though Chinese gas makers outnumber international players in the domestic market, they are still not fully competitive, because they cannot make high-capacity air separation units.
Operating in 80 countries across the world, Air Liquide posted sales of 15.3 billion euros and net profit of 1.6 billion euros in 2012, up from 14.5 billion euros and 1.53 billion euros a year earlier. Charachon says Air Liquide's gas and services sales in China rose 15 percent last year. The country has become the company's fifth-largest global market after the United States, France, Japan and Germany.
To further increase its presence in China, Air Liquide signed a long-term contract with Fujian Shenyuan New Materials Co Ltd in May to supply industrial gases for its caprolactam production project in Lianjiang Kemen Economic and Development Zone in Fujian province.
It will invest in an industrial gases complex of eight units including an air separation unit of 2,000 tons of oxygen a day, a gasification unit, a purification unit of synthesis gas and an ammonia plant to supply hydrogen, nitrogen and ammonia.
They will purify synthesis gas and avoid sulfur emissions, which are responsible for acid rain.
These plants will be operational in 2016 and they will be able to produce 75,000 cubic meters per hour of hydrogen and 250,000 tons per year of ammonia.
Charachon says another sector that Air Liquide has been engaged in is China's photovoltaic industry, to which it provides high-purity gases.
"This industry is facing a number of difficulties, such as overcapacity, potential anti-dumping tariffs from the EU, declining prices and low efficiency. We believe that the truth will come out and there will be consolidation in the industry and the emergence of a few key players."
Charachon believes that China's photovoltaic industry will recover step by step.
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