Air Products to Build, Own, and Operate Two New ASUs for Eastman’s Coal Gasification Facility in Kingsport, Tennessee

Air Products (NYSE: APD), a leading global industrial gases company, today announced it will build, own and operate two air separation units (ASUs) to provide oxygen and nitrogen to Eastman’s facility in Kingsport, Tennessee under new long-term agreements. The ASUs are targeted to be onstream in early 2021. 

The units to be constructed will replace Air Products’ 35-year-old ASUs operating at the Kingsport facility. The new ASUs will continue to serve Air Products’ established merchant customer base and growing merchant markets including metals processing, medical, chemicals and food with liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen and liquid argon.

“Eastman has been a customer for three-and-a-half decades and we are thrilled to extend this relationship with new long-term agreements. We strive daily to provide excellent customer service and we believe this extended relationship is a demonstration of that effort. The new facilities will serve Eastman for years to come and will also allow Air Products to supply its current merchant industrial gas customers and build its merchant market client base with additional liquid product capacity,” said Marie Ffolkes, Air Products’ President-Americas.

Air Products has been supplying Eastman in Kingsport since 1983, when Eastman started up the first coal gasification facility in the United States to produce chemicals from syngas. Eastman’s Kingsport facility is one of the largest chemical facilities in North America. The new ASUs will provide Eastman with a long-term reliable supply of oxygen and nitrogen for their gasification process and chemicals operations.