Viewpoint – Page 8
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FeaturesSouth East Asia: Home to the new Silicon Valleys?
The global electronics business continues to grow and evolve, and the traditional home to this evolution has been San Francisco’s Silicon Valley. But with the rapid emergence of the Tiger Economies in South East Asia and the many advantages these markets offer, this tradition is being challenged by a new ...
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Features
Medical gas growth: Still in healthy shape
Whether its homecare, pharmaceuticals or conventional healthcare, the medical gases business has been one of the stronger pillars for industrial gas growth in recent years, against a backdrop of economic and industrial headwinds.
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CGA publications – Free with paid GAWDA distributor membership
In retail terms, you’d consider it an amazing “two-for-one” sale or a “buy one/get one” bargain. It represents a $1,600 value (if you had to pay in real dollars), but it’s many times worth that amount in terms of the plethora of timely, relevant, and applicable information on standards and ...
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Cold – A valuable product that shouldn’t be wasted
Cold is an absence of energy. So it’s not surprising that our global need for cooling has largely been overlooked by policymakers as they wrestle with the energy challenges that we face. But this oversight simply can’t continue.
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Sold to the lowest bidder
A sales rep brought in a request-for-quote (RFQ) from a local municipality. When these types of bids come out, the government affords access to the previous contract terms, pricing, and conditions; when the RFQ is awarded, you also receive bid results.
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Oil: A new nadir in pricing ahead?
If it isn’t tapped here, it’s tapped there. If it isn’t one well, it’s another. As long as it’s available and plentiful, oil will always be the subject of man’s intense efforts to exploit it. And yet, that same certitude in production continues to breed uncertainty in today’s oil markets. ...
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What price for an oil bounce-back?
The Air Liquide Board of Directors met on 29th July 2016, during which meeting the Board reviewed the consolidated financial statements for the first half of the year ending 30th June 2016. The Board will no doubt have been delighted with the group’s Gas Services business, but surely ...
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GAWDA Membership Recruitment Effort Firmly Underway
If you’ve ever thought about joining the Gases and Welding Distributors Association (GAWDA), now is a perfect time to look into the many benefits and advantages that membership provides. The Association has launched a drive to recruit new members into the organization in an effort to strengthen, grow, and diversify ...
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Features
Mind the gap
I was asked to make a call with a new sales rep on business we had lost a year earlier. The customer was nice enough to give us an email recapping our past deficiencies including major gaps in communication with his previous lab manager and our account rep (who we ...
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Iran: All quiet on the Western front?
The lifting of international sanctions against Iran sparked excited speculation for the flood of investment that lay ahead. Five months on and talk of the expected gold rush seems to have slowed. So where are we at with Iran’s new wave of growth?
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Concluding the conquest: Airgas acquisition officially complete
So the ink is finally dry on the biggest deal in the industrial gases business in years, with the key signatures committed to contracts and glasses raised across both sides of the Atlantic. It’s official: Air Liquide has acquired Airgas, at a total enterprise value of $13.4bn.
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Features
Upheaval of the US cryogenic tank and trailer landscape
On my way back from the GAWDA conference last week in Savannah, Georgia, I couldn’t help but think about how much the cryogenic tank and trailer industry in the US has been transformed in only a few short years. It’s barely recognisable from what it was only even a year ...
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Energy-from-waste – A troubled technology?
Until very recently, Air Products’ Tees Valley energy-from-waste facilities were held aloft as two of the most innovative renewable energy projects in the world, and the first of their kind in the UK. Now, however, as the company prepares to exit the market at a cost of up to $1bn, ...
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The ‘Brexit’ – a step into the unknown for the gases industry?
Most would agree upon the effects of collapse in oil prices over the last 18 months as it has fallen to as low as $30 per barrel. Similarly, many would acknowledge that the UK steel sector remains on a knife-edge and may be yet to reach its nadir. But the ...
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Social responsibility – How capitalism can make it sustainable
John Keynes and Winston Churchill were both exceptional proponents of free markets and capitalism. Keynes proffered that, “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the wickedest of men will do the wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”
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Linde's 2015 results: What impact of low oil prices?
The Linde Group’s newly released 2015 results show a group revenue rise of 5.3% to €17.9bn and a similar increase in operating profit, up 5.4% to €4.1bn.
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A serenity in semiconductors
Why increasing stability and a trend for interdependence in the global semiconductor business could be good news for the industrial and specialty gases industry.
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The grand arrival of a new frontier
The Middle East is no longer emerging as the New Industrial Gas Frontier. It’s already here, it’s underway - the New Industrial Gas Frontier has arrived. And a record crowd for this gas world conference here in Dubai again affirms that.
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Features
Getting real about carbon capture
Why would anyone want to bury carbon dioxide (CO2)? Proponents of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will argue that it’s better to bury CO2 than release it into the atmosphere if the object is to combat global warming. But surely it would be better not to create the problem ...
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Technology and ingenuity can solve the climate challenge
Today we face the dual challenge of achieving both energy security and a positive climate outcome. Renewables are a vital part of the abatement and energy security story. While there is no doubting their importance, they are not the whole answer in the timeframes we face. Energy efficiency is a ...
