Linde plc (LIN)

Linde is a public limited company formed under the laws of Ireland, with principal offices in the United Kingdom and the United States, and it is the largest industrial gas company worldwide. Its primary products are atmospheric gases, meaning oxygen, nitrogen, argon and rare gases, and process gases, meaning hydrogen, helium, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, electronic gases, specialty gases and acetylene. It also designs and builds the equipment that produces industrial gases and sells gas production and processing services, including olefin, natural gas, air separation and hydrogen and synthesis gas plants. Customers come from healthcare, chemicals and energy, manufacturing, metals and mining, food and beverage, and electronics. In 2025 the three geographic segments, Americas, EMEA and APAC, produced 90% of sales, with the rest largely from Engineering.

Making the gases

Atmospheric gases are the highest volume products, made from ambient air by air separation, most often cryogenic, with the rare gases krypton, neon and xenon produced along the way. The filing states that Linde is the market leader in non-cryogenic air separation, including vacuum pressure swing adsorption and membrane separation for producing oxygen and nitrogen on a customer's site. Most conventional hydrogen comes from natural gas or methane through steam methane reformation or auto-thermal reforming, while low-carbon hydrogen is made primarily from methane with the carbon emissions captured and sequestered underground, and renewable hydrogen by electrolysis from renewable energy and water. Hydrogen is also recovered from existing chemical and petrochemical processes and cleaned to ultra-high purity. Carbon monoxide comes from reforming natural gas or naphtha, most carbon dioxide is an industrial by-product from chemical plants and refineries or is recovered from natural sources and purified to commercial and food grade, helium is drawn from helium-rich natural gas streams in the United States and elsewhere, and acetylene is mainly a chemical by-product.

How it is delivered

There are three methods, often integrated and served from the same plant, with the choice set by the lowest cost way of meeting the customer's volume, purity and usage pattern. On-site plants are built on or next to the largest customers, mostly for oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen, supplying by pipeline under total requirement contracts typically running 10 to 20 years with minimum purchases and price escalation, and those plants usually also make liquid product for the merchant market rather than serving a single customer. Merchant covers liquid oxygen, nitrogen, argon, hydrogen, helium and carbon dioxide delivered by tanker truck into storage Linde owns and leases to the customer, under three to seven year requirement contracts, with oxygen and nitrogen held to a small radius by distribution cost while argon, hydrogen and helium travel much further. Packaged gases go to small-volume customers in cylinders under medium to high pressure, including specialty gases and mixtures, generally on one to three year contracts or purchase orders.

Engineering

The Engineering business plans, designs and builds plants for air separation, hydrogen, synthesis, olefin and natural gas, used in petrochemicals and chemicals, refineries and fertiliser plants, to recover air gases, treat natural gas and produce noble gases. It supplies plant components to outside customers or to Linde's own gas business, which then operates the plants under long-term supply contracts, and its technology covers production, liquefaction, storage, distribution and application of hydrogen.

Energy, places and people

Energy is the single largest cost item in producing and distributing industrial gases, mostly electricity, natural gas and diesel fuel for distribution, with price swings handled contractually through pricing formulas, surcharges, cost pass-through and tolling arrangements. Raw materials for hydrogen, helium, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and specialty gases are largely bought from outside sources. Approximately 64% of 2025 sales came from outside the United States, and subsidiaries operate in approximately 50 countries across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, approximately 15 in Asia and the South Pacific and approximately 20 in the Americas, with equity method investments in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Research and development runs mainly from Pullach in Germany, Tonawanda in New York, Burr Ridge in Illinois and Shanghai. Linde had 65,177 employees worldwide at 31 December 2025 and holds collective bargaining agreements with unions at numerous locations.

From Linde's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025. The filing