Air Liquide further strengthened its position in Germany with a major long-term supply contract with ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe in the Rhine-Ruhr area, one of the largest and leading industrial basins in Europe. Deliveries under the agreement include 4,600t of oxygen per day, plus nitrogen and argon, which will be supplied to ThyssenKrupp’s steelworks based in the Duisburg cluster.
The gases will be supplied via Air Liquide’s 500km long local pipeline network, which already serves customers in the steel, chemical and petrochemical industries in the Rhine-Ruhr area. This pipeline is fed by Air Liquide Air Separation Units, including Air Liquide’s 2,400t-per-day-capacity oxygen production plant, which was started up in Germany in 2012.
Guy Salzgeber, vice president, Western Europe and member of Air Liquide’s Executive Committee, commented: “This new contract marks a further step in our longstanding cooperative relationship with ThyssenKrupp, one of the leading producers of steel in Europe. We are proud to have been selected as a key provider in the metal industry and look forward to bolstering our relationship with Germany’s largest steelmaker. This milestone illustrates our strategy of expanding in industrial basins and our ability to capitalise on our existing assets to gain new markets.”