May 21 2008
East Coast Oxygen, a 50/50 production joint venture between Air Products and Linde North America, has expanded the production capacity of its facility in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The new liquefaction unit, which was recently commissioned, boosts production capacity by almost 600 tons a day and makes this plant one of the largest liquefied nitrogen, oxygen and argon gases production sites in the United States.
Gases produced at the Bethlehem plant are trucked to merchant customers throughout the northeastern U.S. for use in applications such as food chilling and freezing, chemical production and metals manufacturing.
Tom Ward, Air Products’ vice president, North America Gases, said, “This expansion is consistent with Air Products efforts to leverage its existing North America asset base in order to meet the growing needs of its diverse customer base in the region.”
“This location already provided us with easy access to customers throughout the region. This expansion gives us a cost effective means of improving our ability to supply a growing customer base and to strengthen our East Coast supply network, which runs from Maine to Georgia,” said Pat Murphy, president, Linde North America.
The Bethlehem JV plant originally began operating in 2000.