Messer, together with the Alco Bio Fuel (ABF) biorefinery and IJsfabriek Strombeek, is building a second CO₂ recovery plant in Ghent. It is due to go into operation in 2022. In combination with the first plant, which is already in operation, the recovery capacity is then expected to reach 160,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide a year. The biogenic carbon dioxide is a by-product in the process of producing ethanol from biomass. Instead of being released directly into the atmosphere, as is usually the case, it is captured in the two recovery plants and made available for CO₂ applications.

Messer further expanded its carbon dioxide (CO₂) capacities in the south, southeast and mid-west of Brazil: at our Jandaia do Sul site, pure, food-grade CO₂ is being produced from maize for the first time in Brazil - with production taking place throughout the entire year and without seasonal interruptions. The sustainably produced CO₂ allows us to meet the increased demand across various industries. The decision to expand CO₂ capacities at the Jandaia do Sul site is a clear commitment on the part of Messer to further expansion in the Brazilian market. Our CO₂ production site links to the rail network to facilitate logistical access to Curitiba, São Paulo and the ports of Santos and Paranaguá as well as the entire southern region.

At the beginning of 2021, Messer concluded a gas supply contract with Calysseo (Chongqing) Co., Ltd., a joint venture between Adisseo, a global leader in the manufacture of feed additives for animal nutrition, and Calysta, a producer of alternative proteins. According to the provisions of the contract, Messer will build a new air separation unit for Calysseo as the world’s first large-scale FeedKind protein production facility, which will produce 20,000 metric tons of protein a year. The new air separation unit is due to go into operation at the beginning of 2023. Until then, Messer will, for the most part, supply oxygen and nitrogen to Calysseo by pipeline from an existing unit. This unit also has a liquid capacity – for the market in Chongqing – which will allow Messer to further strengthen its leading position.

Xianggang Messer signed a new gas supply contract with its Joint Venture partner and, at the same time, largest pipeline customer, Xiangtan Iron & Steel, for the construction of a VPSA (Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption) unit. The new production unit will facilitate economically efficient production of oxygen to meet the customer’s increased demand for oxygen enrichment for their blast furnace. Increasing the oxygen enrichment ratio means reduced consumption of coke, which leads to greater efficiency and lower emissions in the iron production process.

In China, Messer put an on-site nitrogen generator into operation at Hunan Yuneng New Energy Battery Materials Co., Ltd. (Yuneng) in Xiangtan, Hunan province. The remote-controlled on-site unit allows Messer to supply this major customer with nitrogen to support their long-term growth. Yuneng is China’s leading manufacturer of lithium iron phosphate (LFP), the cathode material for lithium-ion batteries. In mid-2021, Yuneng announced a five-fold increase of its capacities at the Xiangtan site and, at the same time, the construction of a new LFP plant in Anning, Yunnan province. At the moment, Messer is building another nitrogen generator there, which is scheduled to go into operation in the third quarter of 2022. Yuneng has been working with Messer since 2016. The new projects will further strengthen our strategic partnership.

In Colombia, Messer is investing in a nitrogen liquefaction plant at the Tocancipa site, near the capital city of Bogotá, to expand its liquid capacities and meet the increasing demand for nitrogen in the region. The liquefier will supplement the existing air separation unit at the site. 

Messer put another nitrogen production unit into operation for Energoaqua in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. Energoaqua is a service provider and supplier of electricity, heating and industrial gases for a range of companies in the adjacent industrial park. The company has been operating an on-site nitrogen production unit installed by Messer for approximately ten years. Demand at the industrial park has increased greatly since then, which is why Messer has been supplying Energoaqua with additional liquid nitrogen and other industrial gases by tanker for years. The new on-site production facility allows Energoaqua to produce the nitrogen independently with high reliability of supply – with the additional benefit of eliminating the CO₂ emissions and noise pollution associated with nitrogen deliveries by road tanker.

Following the purchase of parts of Air Liquide Czech Republic, the acquired Air Liquide entity and Messer in the Czech Republic merged on January 1, 2021. An important component of the transaction was the takeover of a cylinder gas filling plant and an on-site oxygen production facility. Added to this are 60 bulk tanks installed on site for major customers as well as over 28,000 gas cylinders and 1,200 cylinder bundles acquired as part of the deal. In addition, Messer’s distribution network in the Czech Republic has grown by a further 38 Gas Centers.

Messer is building a second CO₂ purification and liquefaction facility in Lacq with a capacity of 60,000 metric tons a year. The two storage tanks for our new CO₂ recovery plant in southwest France were delivered at the beginning of July 2021. The tanks – 29 meters in length and weighing 53 metric tons – were manufactured in Turkey and transported to Bayonne by sea. From there they were transported onwards by truck, which was done at night in order to minimize the impact on traffic. Work on the construction of our new CO₂ recovery plant began in March 2021. The start of industrial production is planned for July 2022.
The additional production capacity will allow Messer to further enhance security of supply of CO₂ for its customers in France and Spain.

On October 1, 2021, Messer took over regular operation of a nitrogen production facility at Nowega in Rehden, one of the transmission system operators for natural gas in Germany. Nowega uses the nitrogen to ensure the supply of ‘L-gas’ quality natural gas in its network area even in periods of peak demand. Thanks to the nitrogen production facility, the previous road tanker deliveries are no longer necessary, reducing the strain on the road network and cutting noise pollution. Further CO₂ emissions are also avoided thanks to the fact that the nitrogen does not require to be liquefied as part of the on-site production process. In total, Messer and Nowega are contributing to environmental protection by reducing climate-damaging emissions by up to 16,400 metric tons a year. Moreover, the nitrogen production facility has significantly increased Nowega’s security of supply of natural gas.

Messer built a facility for the production of nitrogen and compressed air for the petrochemical group MOL in Tiszaújváros. MOL is building a new polyol production plant in the eastern Hungarian town. Polyols are basic raw materials with a very wide range of uses in the chemical industry. Among other things, they are required for the production of polyurethane plastics. It is the biggest investment in MOL’s history; commissioning is planned for 2022. The new nitrogen and compressed air facility is the most efficient of its kind operated by Messer in Hungary. Messer already operates an air separation unit at the same site.

Messer commissioned a new specialty gases plant in Pančevo’s industrial area, further enhancing efficiency and capacity in this segment in Europe. The plant produces a wide range of high-purity gases, standard mixtures and individual gas mixtures. With high-quality specialty gases products, we meet the exacting requirements of our customers and make our contribution towards a greener living environment. The classic applications for high-purity gases and their mixtures include their use as test gases in research and development, in medicine and in measurement technology, for example for air purity. The new specialty gases plant directly adjoins the helium filling plant operated by Messer in Pančevo since 2011. This eliminates the need for the previous transportation routes to the former specialty gases site.

Messer is investing in a highly efficient CO₂ purification and liquefaction facility in Vojvodina. The crude CO₂ gas – with a high CO₂ concentration and high pressure – comes from a natural gas processing plant. At this facility, the sour gas is conditioned by separating the CO₂ so that it can be fed into the natural gas network. At our CO₂ plant, the relatively high methane content in the crude gas is used to generate electrical and thermal energy. This makes the production of 40,000 metric tons of high-purity liquid CO₂ per year particularly economically efficient. The plant, which is due to go into operation in the fourth quarter of 2022, will allow Messer to further strengthen its provision of a reliable and cost-effective supply of CO₂ to customers in Serbia and the region. It will also create the conditions for a significant expansion of our customer base in the region.

Metalfer Steel Mill is one of the leading manufacturers of steel products for the Serbian construction industry and the only producer of reinforcing steel in Serbia. In view of the increased demand for industrial oxygen, Messer and Metalfer Steel Mill signed a new long-term supply contract in 2021. In future, the oxygen for Metalfer will come from a dedicated VPSA (Vacuum Pressure Swing Adsorption) unit, which is scheduled to go into operation at the end of August 2022. The solution implemented on site will make the transportation of oxygen by road largely superfluous. This will reduce the ecological footprint and lower the company’s costs.

At the Duslo, a.s. site in Šaľa, Messer put into operation an argon production facility based on residual gas from ammonia synthesis for the first time. The purge gas contains the rare gas argon as well as methane, nitrogen and hydrogen. These gases are also recovered by the facility in accordance with Duslo’s quality requirements. Technically, the facility features fully automated operation and maximum energy integration. In full operation, an annual reduction of up to around 500 metric tons of CO₂ emissions can be achieved thanks to shorter transportation routes. Moreover, this investment allows us to increase our argon capacities and further strengthen our market position in this segment. 

Steklarna Hrastnik develops and manufactures engineered glass products from one of the clearest types of glass in the world. This long-established company has been using oxygen in the production process for over 50 years, and since 2013 it has been harnessing the advantages of our oxy-fuel technology. In 2019, Steklarna Hrastnik and Messer signed a supply contract for oxygen from an on-site unit (CryoGox), which went into operation at the beginning of September 2021. Steklarna Hrastnik uses the pure oxygen generated by the on-site unit in glass production in its new G furnace, with a 60 percent reduction in the carbon footprint. Steklarna Hrastnik wants to convert its processes to green technologies, and the new on-site oxygen production unit is another step in this direction.

In April 2021, Messer commissioned a new filling plant in Črnuče, near the capital Ljubljana. It is equipped with state-of-the-art 300-bar filling technology which facilitates automatic control and monitoring of the filling process. The E-ccts customer cylinder tracking system is available for post-delivery tracking. It allows customers to follow cylinder movements in their own company and make a contribution to the sustainable circulation of “returnable cylinders”.

The end of November 2021 saw the successful completion – on time and on budget – of the modernization of the CMG-II air separation unit (ASU) in Vilaseca, in the southern part of Tarragona’s petrochemical industrial park. The main aim of the project was to reactivate an existing air separation unit in an environmentally and, at the same time, commercially attractive way. This was achieved by significantly improving the specific energy consumption of the unit, previously assessed as ready for decommissioning. Messer intends to operate the now completely renovated unit for at least the next ten years. This has made it possible to avoid all the environmental impacts that would have been associated with the construction of a new unit.

The project involved completely overhauling all the process machinery, improving the control system, checking all the pressure vessels, removing obsolete equipment and components and carrying out a comprehensive technology upgrade. The latter comprises using a completely new Front End with a new air compressor and a new adsorptive air purification system. All the work was completed in a record time of ten months and without a single safety or environment-related incident.

The CMG-II ASU was built in 1977. Since the Messer-IV ASU was commissioned in 2009, the CMG-II ASU has been used as a backup supply for our industrial gases pipeline network in the Tarragona Industrial Park.

Existing premises at our Lenzburg site were completely renovated and repurposed for filling and quality control of specialty gases. For specialty gases filling, the facility now houses three universal filling stations, a bundle filling station, a filling stand for reactive and toxic gases as well as a ppb filling station. In addition, there is a separate weighing room. The quality control laboratory was also converted and re-equipped to meet current requirements. A further universal filling station is planned for expanded production in future.

Messer and North Star BlueScope Steel (NSBS) agreed an increase in the supply capacities of gaseous oxygen in Delta, Ohio. NSBS is a leading manufacturer of hot-rolled sheet steel for the automotive, construction, energy and manufacturing sectors. Messer is investing in the construction of a new air separation unit (ASU) to increase the oxygen supply to 700 metric tons a day. This investment underlines our commitment in terms of expanding our on-site business in the U.S. while at the same time conducting a strategic expansion of our US bulk business. Apart from supplying NSBS, Messer will use the new ASU to expand its own liquid capacities in Delta and thereby increase growth and supply reliability for customers in the expanding market of the Midwest. 

Messer announced the construction of an air separation unit (ASU) in central Texas aimed at further expanding its strong supply network for gases in the southwestern part of the country. The new ASU will produce medical and industrial gases that are indispensable for hospitals, food processing and many sectors of industry. The new ASU will operate substantially off energy supplied from an onsite solar panel array. It is the first Messer plant to be powered by a co-located renewable energy source, helping to reduce the company’s carbon footprint.

In 2021, Messer further consolidated its leading role as a supplier of gases to the solar industry in Vietnam. In October 2021, Messer signed a new nitrogen generator contract with JA SOLAR, a global leader in the manufacture of high-performance photovoltaic products, for their solar cell production facility in Bac Giang. Messer also signed a contract for the piped supply of nitrogen to Trinasolar’s new solar cell production plant, which is located next to Messer’s air separation unit in Thai Nguyen. With these investments, we are ensuring a reliable gas supply to both these global market leaders in the solar industry, while at the same time reducing the carbon footprint of our nitrogen and making solar cell production – so important for green energy – “even greener”. 

Messer and its strategic long-term partner in Vietnam, the Hoa Phat Group, signed a new pipeline contract for the supply of oxygen, nitrogen and argon for an expansion of the Dung Quat steel complex. Hoa Phat’s new investment is aimed at significantly reducing Vietnam’s import of flat steel products and supporting the development of the local automotive and engineering industries. In addition to its three existing production facilities, Messer is investing in two new air separation units to supply Hoa Phat with sufficient gas volumes. Moreover, a new rare gas production unit is planned for the production of krypton, neon and xenon. 

In order to heighten our employees’ awareness of the risks and extent of cyber attacks, we launched our first assessment via Proofpoint’s IT security platform as a Europe-wide initiative at the end of March 2021. The topics covered included email scams, safe use of the Internet, creating secure passwords and protecting mobile devices. Based on the individual results from this initial assessment, employees were assigned additional training sessions in a second stage.

As part of the “European Messer Phishing Campaign”, an e-learning program was initiated at the end of the first quarter of 2021. The topics covered by the program are email security, password rules, safe web browsing, phishing, and malware and ransomware.

Messer is currently implementing one of its biggest IT projects yet in Europe: the complete reorientation and reorganization of our IT infrastructure. In the summer of 2021, we transferred our business-critical systems, such as SAP and trip planning for bulk and cylinder gases, to a new external computer center in Frankfurt/Main. The computer center complies with the applicable international IT security standards for protection against virtual and physical threats. Moreover, it has multiple levels of protection against the loss of power, water supply or Internet connection.

Messer has decided to introduce a new unified Customer Relation Management (CRM) system which ensures better efficiency and service quality in the area of sales while at the same time improving process organization. Once it has been rolled out, the new CRM system will support the day-to-day business processes of almost 1,000 Messer employees in Europe in 15 languages. It will also further increase our productivity and efficiency for our customers, enabling us to retain them in the long term.

Messer uses digital applications to optimize business and production processes as well as internal and external communication. As part of the changes to our IT infrastructure, we have decided to use globally established standards for all our national subsidiaries in order to allow us to operate our central IT systems and applications and ensure even better protection of the information they provide. We support our production, bulk and cylinder gas management – from filling to taking back the empty cylinders from customers – with a digital cylinder tracking system. Bulk management is supported, among other things, with a tool for digital on-site processing of liquid gas transport orders. We are rolling out our bulk tank telemetry system to all tank facilities in Europe to improve trip planning, protect the environment and reduce costs.

Environmental protection and cost reduction are also the aims of our Advanced Process Control system, which helps reduce the consumption of electrical energy in the operation of our air separation units through digital process optimization. Furthermore, we are introducing standardized automatic filling systems at all our European sites. This will make it possible to fill our bulk vehicles around the clock without the support of local operators. The system facilitates checking of driver and vehicle licenses. The driver is assigned a filling station, the filling pump and quality analysis are activated, and the necessary transport and delivery documents printed out.

Over the past three years, we have succeeded in introducing largely automated control processes for our facilities. In addition, we have begun to establish central Remote Operation Centers (ROC). In each case, the purpose of this is to group a number of our facilities into clusters that are monitored simultaneously by the operators of large central on-site facilities. There will no longer be shift and weekend working at the facilities being monitored. The first cluster was established in 2021 in Southeast Europe. At the moment, the plants in Škofja Loka (Slovenia), Bor (Serbia), Zenica (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and Resita (Romania) can be monitored from Smederevo (Serbia).

In 2021, Messer in Europe equipped the first helium containers suitable for sea freight with a new telemetry system. It features GPS positioning, allowing the exact location of our containers on the high seas to be determined at any time. In addition, the fill levels and pressure of the tanks are transmitted via GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications). This can help improve supply chain efficiency and facilitate identification of technical problems.

In China Messer is actively using digitalization initiatives to improve internal cooperation, increase operating efficiency, support business growth and reduce costs. “Accelerating the digital transformation” is one of the core elements of Messer’s latest strategy update. One of the highlights of 2021 was the implementation of the Cylinder Business Management System (CBMS), which was introduced at three companies in the fourth quarter of 2020. The CBMS covers the entire cycle of the cylinder business process and also serves as an effective tool for managing cylinder stocks. In 2021, a further six companies successfully completed the introduction of the CBMS.

In Colombia, Messer implemented a tool that contributes to the digital transformation of work processes with our customers. The tool facilitates digital analyses, mobile applications and the integration of social media. It allows our sales team to interact even more effectively with existing and potential customers. Another benefit of the application is that it helps to identify potential new business, implement virtual sales strategies and improve how users experience our website. 

The start-up of a facility was carried out via online communication for the first time. Following the construction of our new oxygen and nitrogen liquefier at Smederevo, Serbia, which was challenging due to the pandemic, engineering teams in Serbia and Germany were in direct contact via live transmissions for several weeks to prepare the start-up via Remote Desktop. The first deliveries of liquid nitrogen and oxygen from the new liquefier took place in mid-April 2021. The Smart Glasses used by Messer in Serbia and Corporate Engineering & Production have, for several months, been a helpful tool in other start-ups and maintenance work as well.

At Messer Americas, digitalization is becoming an integral part of the business strategy and delivered through a wide portfolio of technology enabled transformation projects . The focus is on leveraging technology platforms to enhance our core gas application technologies, improve the customer experience and empower employees . Cloud computing services, mobile tools, data and analysis platforms, robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) are among the many examples where digital technologies offer Messer considerable benefits and transformation potential. 

The "Supplier Information Management" (SIM) platform allows Messer Americas to speed up and simplify the search for suppliers or service providers. Using SIM, our employees have access to an online form that requests the country-specific requirements for each supplier. After completing the entry and submitting it, the request goes through the relevant approval processes via digital workflows and is supplemented with the requested supplier information. SIM has improved process consistency and simplified the process steps.

As part of its digitalization initiative, Messer in the Americas introduced a digital delivery process for customers and a new app for its driving personnel. Installed on digital tablets, it facilitates the entry of trip-related information and electronic proof of delivery (e-POD). Control functions ensure that the right tank is filled, stipulated product specifications are fulfilled, and customer deliveries are completed. The app facilitates quicker trip planning as well as faster invoice processing for our customers.

With the increasing number of air separators and generators at different locations in Vietnam, Messer put a new remote-controlled system into operation at the beginning of 2021 via a highly secure Microsoft cloud server that would allow all production facilities to be put into safe mode if an unexpected external event occurred that could lead to a shortage of operators on site. After the difficult typhoon season at the end of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic with its associated lockdowns, as well as for the prevention of other unexpected situations, this system ensures that expert support can be accessed from other sites at any time. Our Messer production team underwent training in the operation of the system to get to know all the particularities of the individual production sites in Vietnam. 

In 2021, Messer completed the implementation of a new Computerized Maintenance Management System at all its Vietnamese production sites and for all major customers. The entire maintenance planning process, plant monitoring and management, as well as calibration/inspection information and maintenance reports are now digitalized processes. This led to an immediate increase in productivity, cost savings, reduced use of paper and better service quality for Messer’s bulk customers.