One might describe the packaged gases business as being the business end of the industrial gases sector, where the product is very often stored, transported and administered at its end use. It’s a critical step in the supply chain and as such, also a very visual barometer for market demand.
We may remember the calls to action for specific cylinders to cope with the sheer need for medical oxygen at the start of the Covid pandemic. In April 2020, gasworld was told of a demand ‘somewhere between 30-40 times more than usual’ for medical oxygen cylinders, by Czech Republic-based Cylinders Holding. That was at the relative start of the pandemic, and equated to demand for around 35,000 finished medical cylinders for the month of April, compared to around 1,000-1,500 medical cylinders on a ‘normal’ monthly basis.
So here we have a business on the frontline of market demand, which begs the questions, what’s happening at the sharp end of packaged gases themselves?
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