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Our gases are increasingly essential to better environmental performance, quality and productivity in our Merchant customers’ processes.
 While gases generally are a small portion of their overall cost stack, Merchant customers
rely on our oxygen, nitrogen, argon, hydrogen, helium and other industrial and specialty gases to help them do what they
do better in two distinct ways. First, we offer the most economical mode of supply possible, from packaged gases to liquid
bulk to small cryogenic and noncryogenic on-site plants. Second, we bring extensive technology know-how to the markets we
serve—from steel and food freezing to welding and water treatment to metals processing and glass. We help our customers
reduce energy use and lower emissions while improving their efficiency, quality and performance in an increasingly competitive
marketplace.
We also bring the benefits of a global organization to bear in each of the four geographies we serve—North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America—and in countries such as India, South Africa and Mexico, where we sell merchant products through joint ventures. We manage what is, by nature, a local business, using a consistent global platform for R&D, offering development, marketing, customer service, logistics and business management. This allows us to quickly share best practices, analyze the business using our single instance of SAP, and run cost-efficient local operations.
Going forward, with our leading supply positions in Korea, Taiwan and China and tremendous manufacturing expansion across Asia, we expect continued double-digit growth in the region. In more established markets in North America and Europe, we are debottlenecking our plants and selectively expanding certain facilities to meet high demand. And we continue to lead by moving into new growth areas such as Poland. Meanwhile, we are building our portfolio of offerings in packaged gases to meet the needs of customers who have special gas purity, safety, or cylinder handling and weight requirements. And we are developing small-scale plant offerings for manufacturers who require volumes that can be provided economically by liquid or bulk delivery.
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