Good morning. And welcome to the Air Products’ Fourth Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. Today’s call is being recorded at the request of Air Products. Please note that this presentation and the comments made on behalf of Air Products are subject to copyright by Air Products and all rights are reserved. Beginning today’s call is Mr. Simon Moore.

Thank you, Simon. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Air Products’ fourth quarter 2022 earnings results teleconference. This is Simon Moore, Vice President of Investor Relations, Corporate Relations and Sustainability. I am pleased to be joined today by Seifi Ghasemi, our Chairman, President and CEO; Dr. Samir Serhan, our Chief Operating Officer; Melissa Schaeffer, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Sean Major, our Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary; and Sidd Manjeshwar, our Vice President and Corporate Treasurer. After our comments, we will be pleased to take your questions. Our earnings release and the slides for this call are available on our website at airproducts.com. This discussion contains forward-looking statements. Please refer to the forward-looking statement disclosure that can be found in our earnings release and on slide number two. In addition, throughout today’s discussion, we will refer to various financial measures. Unless we specifically state otherwise, when we refer to earnings per share, EBITDA, EBITDA margin, the effective tax rate, and ROCE both on a total company and segment basis, we are referring to our adjusted non-GAAP financial measures, adjusted earnings per share, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted effective tax rate, and adjusted return on capital employed. Reconciliations of these measures to our most directly comparable GAAP financial measures can be found on our website in the relevant earnings release section. Now, I am pleased to turn the call over to Seifi.

Thank you, Simon, and good day to everyone. Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to be on our call today. I am extremely proud to say that Air Products, with grit and determination, has again made great progress this year despite macroeconomic headwinds. We exceeded our financial goals, had great results, and at the same time, reached many key milestones that significantly advanced our growth strategy. I would like to thank each one of our talented, dedicated, and motivated employees at Air Products for their exceptional efforts. I am proud to be working alongside them as they continue to deliver strong near-term results, as well as executing our long-term strategy. Before I discuss our results, I would like to share some good news. In his opening comments, Simon mentioned that Mr. Sidd Manjeshwar is joining us on our call today. In addition to Sidd’s existing responsibilities as our Corporate Treasurer, he will also be taking on the additional responsibility for leading our Investor Relations team. As we shared last quarter, Simon is planning to retire at the end of March 2023. For the next few months, Simon and Sidd will be working closely together to ensure a smooth transition. Sidd brings a breadth of knowledge and expertise across finance disciplines, and since joining Air Products in April of 2021, he has played a key role in supporting our financial policies and strategies. I know he will be an exceptional and excellent resource for our investors and analysts as we continue to communicate and execute our growth strategy. Sidd, congratulations from all of us, and would you like to say something at this stage?

Thank you, Seifi. I appreciate your kind words, and I am humbled and honored to be part of this tremendous team and to be taking on these additional responsibilities. I am very much looking forward to meeting with our analysts and investors, and to continuing the work Simon has done to engage them and share our exciting growth strategy. Thank you once again, and I look forward to connecting with everyone.

Thank you, Sidd. And now please turn to slide number three. Before I discuss our results, I would like to highlight our safety performance, which is always our highest priority. We continue to make progress, but we can always do more to ensure the safety and well-being of our employees. Our ultimate goal is zero incidents and accidents. Now please turn to slide number four. For fiscal year 2022, our business delivered strong earnings per share of $10.41, an increase of 15% compared to last year. Price and volume both improved across the regions, and the Jazan project contributed as expected. Our team delivered these impressive results despite a $0.24 per share headwind from currency and a challenging macroeconomic environment. These results for sure confirm the resilience of our business portfolio and the absolute commitment of our people to deliver near-term results. Now please turn to slide number five. These excellent results confirm once again that Air Products has the capacity to deliver near-term performance while executing our ambitious long-term growth strategy. On slide number six, you see that since 2014, our goal has been to deliver an average EPS growth of 10% per year. In the last eight years, we have exceeded this goal and delivered 11% over this time period. As you can see on slide number seven, we have consistently delivered positive earnings growth since 2014 regardless of the macroeconomic conditions. Our on-site business with its take-or-pay contracts gives us downside protection, and our merchant business, having volume and price flexibility, can provide upside potential. In addition, our backlog of nearly $20 billion will add significant long-term growth in the future. Now I am on slide number eight. For fiscal year 2023, our guidance is to continue this trend and deliver adjusted earnings per share of $11.20 to $11.50. I will discuss our guidance in more detail later in the call. Now please turn to slide number nine. The strength and stability of our business provide a secure steady cash flow, and we are committed to reward our shareholders by paying a healthy dividend. The whole team is very proud that we have provided 40 consecutive years of dividend increase to our shareholders. This extraordinary achievement is a testament to our people and their strength and stability of our business. On slide number 10, you can see that our dividend has grown 10% per year on average over the past eight years, mirroring our earnings growth. We expect to return more than $1.4 billion to our shareholders in calendar 2022 and still have significant cash flow to support our growth opportunities. I would like to point out that on slide number 11, which is still my favorite slide, about three quarters of the decline since the peak margin was due to higher energy cost pass-through, which increases our sales but does not impact profit. On slide number 12, you can see a summary of our management principles, which I have shown to you every quarter for the past eight years. These principles have guided and will continue to guide our performance as we go forward, and we intend to follow these policies consistently as we move ahead. Now please turn to slide number 13 for a brief overview of our latest green hydrogen project that we announced recently. We took another significant step forward toward a clean hydrogen future by announcing our investment of about $500 million in a new green hydrogen project in Massena, New York, located on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. The facility will produce about 35 metric tons of green liquid hydrogen using almost 100 megawatts of hydroelectric power provided by the New York Power Authority. We are excited about this project since it broadens our renewable energy sources to include hydropower in addition to solar and green energy. It also demonstrates the growing support for the energy transition in the United States, which has been further reinforced with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. We are actively pursuing other project opportunities for green hydrogen in the United States, driven by this world-leading legislation. I look forward to sharing more information about these projects as we move forward. Now please turn to slide number 14. As you know, we announced our sustainable aviation fuel project with World Energy in April. This project is another great example of the investment opportunities that are further supported by the Inflation Reduction Act legislation. We are, as a result of that legislation and the incentives set for sustainable aviation fuel, expanding our scope and now we will increase our investment from $2 billion to $2.5 billion in this project. We still expect that this project will contribute more than the minimum returns that we have promised you before. Projects like these are aligned with our energy transition strategy and will continue to drive our earnings now and well into the future. Now, with that, I would like to turn the call to Melissa Schaeffer, our CFO. Melissa?

Thank you, Seifi. As Seifi mentioned, our business performance performed very well despite the macroeconomic challenges this fiscal year. Our on-site business, which generates about half of our total company sales, once again held firm, while our merchant team successfully managed through the significant energy cost increases. Our people worked hard to overcome supply chain challenges across the regions, key care facilities running, and our customers supplied. I would like to thank the entire Air Products team for their hard work and a job well done. Now please turn to slide 12 for an overview of our full year results. Underlying sales were strong, up 14%, with significant contributions from both price and volume. Overall, price increased 6%, which corresponds to a 15% increase in our merchant business. Year-over-year price improved every quarter in our last three largest regional segments and across most of our major product lines. Our volume grew 8%, driven by improved hydrogen, new plants, merchant demand, and increased sales of equipment activity. EBITDA was up 9% due to favorable price, volume, and equity affiliate income, which were partially offset by a higher cost and unfavorable currency. EBITDA margin was down just over 400 basis points and was negatively impacted by over 400 basis points by energy cost pass-through, which drove approximately half of the total sales increase but added no profit. The impact of the energy cost pass-through was particularly noticeable in the Americas and Europe, where we have a meaningful hydrogen business. ROCE has climbed steadily in the past five quarters reaching 11.2%, which is 110 basis points higher than last year. We expect ROCE to further improve as we bring new projects on stream and continue to put the cash on our balance sheet to work. Adjusting for cash, our ROCE would have been 13.6% this quarter. Now please turn to slide 13 for a discussion of our full year EPS. Our full-year adjusted EPS from continuing operations was up $1.39 or 15%. Volume was favorable at $0.80 and was particularly strong in Asia and the Americas. The increased sales of equipment in our Corporate segment also helped drive higher volume. Price more than offset the significant energy cost increases, adding $0.81, driven by our strong price action in our three largest segments. Our other costs were $0.84 unfavorable and were driven by external factors, such as inflation and inefficiencies caused by COVID restrictions in certain parts of China, as well as a supply chain disruption across the region. We also incurred additional costs purposefully to support our future growth. These include resources required to develop projects and bring them on-stream, as well as investments in facilities such as our new helium storage cavern, which will generate significant value in the future. We continue to closely monitor our costs and are focused on productivity actions across our businesses. Currency lowered our earnings by $0.24 or 3% as the U.S. dollar strengthened against most key currencies in the latter half of the fiscal year. Since the revenue and cost are denominated in their respective local currencies, this is primarily a translation rather than a transaction impact. Equity affiliate income was up $0.74, primarily due to the first phase of our Jazan project, which contributed as we committed. Our effective tax rate of 18.2% was 70 basis points lower than last year, and we expect an effective tax rate of 19% to 20% in FY 2023. Interest expense was lower, adding $0.05 to earnings, primarily due to a reduced debt balance. Now please turn to slide 14 for a review of our fourth quarter results. In comparison to last year, we achieved double-digit growth for both sales and profits as our teams worked hard to overcome considerable macroeconomic headwinds. Each region found its own success and achieved better results through its respective key drivers, which will be detailed later in the regional review. Our underlying sales were up 17% with about equal contributions from both volume and price. Volumes are up 9%, primarily in Asia and the Americas, driven by new plants, recovery in hydrogen, and better merchant volumes. For the fourth consecutive quarter, we achieved double-digit increases in merchant pricing, which was up 20% compared to last year. As cost pressures persist, we continue to work hard on pricing in each region. Currency translated from the strengthening U.S. dollar negatively impacted our results this quarter, reducing sales by about 6% and EBITDA by 5%. Despite this headwind, EBITDA increased 10%, and favorable price, volume, and equity affiliate income more than offset higher costs. The 450-basis-point decline in EBITDA margin was primarily attributed to energy cost pass-through, which impacted margins by about 450 basis points. Sequentially, volumes improved across all segments and price increased primarily due to actions in our Europe segment. EBITDA was up 6% sequentially, absorbing 3% of currency headwinds, and favorable price and volume more than offset higher costs. Now please turn to slide 15. Our fourth-quarter GAAP EPS was $2.56 per share and included a negative impact of $0.32 for two non-GAAP items, both of which were non-cash. First, we recognized a $0.27 per share loss on the divestiture of our business in Russia, which we exited as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as we had previously announced. This charge is separately presented as business and asset actions on our P&L. We also recognized a loss of $0.05 per share for the impairment of two small equity affiliates in Asia, which is included in the equity affiliate line item. Excluding the non-GAAP items, our fourth-quarter adjusted EPS was $2.89 per share, an increase of $0.38 or 15% from the prior year. We achieved this excellent result despite a negative $0.15 or 6% currency impact. Price, volume, and cost together contributed $0.46. Volume contributed $0.33 and was particularly strong in Asia and America. Price, net of variable costs, was favorable $0.39, with Asia, Europe, and the Americas each achieving significant price improvements. Price has improved throughout the year due to the outstanding efforts of our regional teams who helped us improve our pricing, net of variable costs, from a modest negative impact in the first quarter to a positive impact in each quarter since then. Other costs were $0.26 unfavorable. Almost half of the cost increases this quarter were due to higher incentive compensation, which is performance-based and reflective of our strong results. The remaining increase was primarily due to inflation, supply chain disruptions, higher planned maintenance, and the addition of resources needed to support our growth. Currency was negative $0.15, which was about $0.05 worse than we had expected when we provided Q4 guidance in July. The Jazan joint venture drove the improvement of equity affiliate income. However, many of our other equity affiliates compared unfavorably due to the strong performance last year, in part due to the lower medical oxygen demand for COVID this year. Now please turn to slide 16. The stability of our business allows us to generate strong cash flow despite the challenging environment. In fiscal year 2022, we generated more than $3 billion of distributable cash flow or almost $14 per share, which is up 15% compared to last year. From our distributable cash flow, we paid over 45% or roughly $1.4 billion as dividends to our shareholders. This leaves more than $1.7 billion available for high-return projects, 20% more than last year. This drawn cash flow, especially in uncertain times, enables us to continue to create shareholder value through increasing dividends and capital deployment for high-return projects. Slide 17 provides an update of our capital deployment. As you see, our capital deployment potential has increased to about $37 billion through fiscal 2027. The $37 billion includes over $8 billion of cash and additional debt capacity available today, more than $17 billion we expect to be available by 2027, and $11 billion already spent. We still believe this capacity is conservative given the potential for additional EBITDA growth, which would generate additional cash flow and additional borrowing capacity. As always, we continue to focus on managing our debt balance to maintain our current targeted AA2 rating. So you can see, our backlog has grown to nearly $20 billion, which will provide substantial growth in the future. We have already spent 30% and have already committed 73% of the updated capacity we show here. We have made great progress and still have substantial investment capacity remaining to invest in high-return projects. We believe that investing in these high-return projects is the best way to create shareholder value for the long run. We continually evaluate our capital deployment options and determine the best way to use available cash entrusted to us by our shareholders. Before I turn the call back to Seifi, I would like to mention that starting the first quarter of fiscal 2023, we will exclude the non-service pension impact from our adjusted results. These non-service-related components and our defined benefit plans, including effects of the changing interest rates and movements of the capital markets, are unrelated to our operations. By excluding these items, we believe that we can better provide visibility to our underlying results. The recap of earnings per share by quarter for fiscal year 2021 and 2022 is included in our reconciliation tables available on our website. The EPS guidance for the first quarter and the full year of fiscal 2023, which Seifi will discuss in more detail later, reflects this change. Now to begin the review of our business segment results, I will turn the call back over to Seifi. Seifi?

Thank you, Melissa. Now please turn to slide number 18 for our Asia fourth quarter results. Sales and profit both improved double digits despite the continued currency headwinds. Volume and price together were up 19%, but they were partially offset by 7% weaker currencies. Volume by itself was up 15%, benefiting from new, small- to mid-sized traditional industrial gas plants in our on-site business across this region, as well as an increase in spot opportunities for sales. Merchant price was 9% stronger than last year, which increased the region’s overall sales by 3%. Price was up across the key countries and most major product lines. Continued COVID restrictions in certain parts of China modestly reduced volumes and created supply chain inefficiencies that contributed to higher distribution costs. EBITDA was up 13% even after absorbing 7% of negative currency, as favorable volume and price more than offset unfavorable costs and a lower contribution from our equity affiliates. Sequentially, the strong volume drove both sales and profit increase versus the previous quarter. Now I would like to turn the call to Simon to talk about our European fourth quarter results. Simon?

Thank you, Seifi. Now please turn to slide 22. Power cost recovery via price for our merchant business is a primary focus to manage the ever higher energy costs in Europe. Our on-site business has contractual pass-through, which enables us to pass the energy cost to our customers, and almost all of our natural gas usage is for on-site hydrogen production. As the chart shows, power costs for Europe this quarter soared to more than five times the level at the beginning of 2021. Our commercial team has tirelessly implemented price increases to compensate for these costs in our merchant business, turning a headwind at the beginning of the year into a tailwind by year end. Although we have fully recovered the higher power costs for the year, we are keeping a watchful eye on energy costs heading into the winter season, and we remain focused on power cost recovery in this region. Now please turn to slide 23 for a review of our Europe results. In addition to significant energy cost increases, unfavorable currency movements also pressured our European businesses. All major local currencies were weaker against the U.S. dollar by double digits. Compared to the prior year, price increased 19% for the region, resulting from a 30% increase in merchant pricing. Prices were higher in all key sub-regions and product lines. Our volume was flat this quarter, as a favorable contract amendment with an on-site electronics customer offset modestly weaker demand across our businesses. Additionally, our results no longer reflect our immaterial Russia business, which was divested in August. Negative currency reduced sales by 15% and EBITDA by 12% compared to last year. Despite this currency headwind, EBITDA improved 8%, as positive price and better mix more than offset higher costs. Higher energy cost pass-through negatively impacted EBITDA margin by about 750 basis points. Excluding this impact, margin was slightly higher than last year. Compared to the prior quarter, price contributed 5% via our ongoing price actions. Volume added another 5% driven by better hydrogen activities following a planned customer turnaround last quarter and the previously mentioned contract amendment. Despite a 5% currency headwind, EBITDA was up 5% as better price and volume more than covered the higher costs. EBITDA margin was relatively flat, excluding the negative impact of higher energy cost pass-through. Compared to Q1 of this year, Europe’s operating income has improved about $50 million or about 50%, thanks primarily to our team’s successful pricing efforts. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Dr. Serhan for a discussion of our other segments.

Thank you, Simon. Now please turn to slide 24 for a review of our Americas results. Strong underlying sales accounted for half of the nearly 40% sales increase compared to last year, while the other half was due to higher energy cost pass-through, which had no profit impact but diluted our margins. Price improved for the region by 8%. This is equivalent to a 21% increase in our merchant business. Prices improved in all key product lines over last year. Our team in the Americas did an excellent job raising prices to more than cover the higher energy cost. Volume grew 12%, primarily due to improvements in merchant and hydrogen. We saw an increase in helium volume this quarter, and the demand for hydrogen has been climbing steadily in the past several quarters. We expect hydrogen to follow this recovery path as we move into 2023. Planned maintenance activities have declined compared to last quarter as expected, but they were higher compared to last year. Maintenance activities were significantly below average in the fourth quarter last year. EBITDA grew 8% over last year, driven by positive price and volume, partially offset by higher costs and lower equity affiliate income. Higher energy cost pass-through negatively impacted EBITDA margin by about 650 basis points. Sequentially, volume was up 4% and improved across all product lines. Price was also favorable, 1%, more than covering the higher variable cost. EBITDA increased 7%, mainly due to better price, volume, and lower planned maintenance, which more than offset higher of our costs. Now please turn to slide 25 for a review of our Middle East and India segments. Sales and operating income in this segment are modest since our Middle East and India wholly-owned operations are smaller in size. The segment EBITDA is, however, significant since it includes the affiliate income related to the design joint venture and our India joint venture INOX Air Products. For the quarter, sales were higher versus last year due to acquisitions. Operating income converted unfavorably to last year due to mainly unfavorable contract settlement from last year. We also expect planned maintenance activity to increase next quarter. The over $40 million increase in equity income included our share of the Jazan joint venture net profit, which is delivering as we expected. We have been receiving cash distributions from the joint venture. Please turn to slide 26 for our Corporate segment. This segment includes our sale of equipment businesses, as well as our centrally managed functions and corporate costs. For our sale of equipment activities, our LNG business historically has been under curved, but our non-LNG related project activities have grown in recent years to become major contributors for this segment. The cadence of the project activities and the timing of sales and profit recognition can vary the segment’s results. Our ongoing effort to support our growth strategy has also increased the centrally managed functions and corporate costs. For the fiscal year, the segment EBITDA improved over $20 million, but fourth quarter sales and profit were lower than last year primarily due to our sale of equipment project activities. We also added resources to support our growth strategy. As mentioned before, increases for potential LNG projects have jumped recently, but they will not drive our near-term results as these projects take time to develop. We are working hard to sign new projects to maintain the good momentum in this segment. At this point, I would like to turn the call back to Seifi to provide his closing comments. Seifi?

Thank you, Dr. Serhan. We believe that investing in high-return projects is a better choice for our shareholders over share buybacks in the long-term. We are also confident that we can deliver on near-term results while achieving our long-term goals. Although the projects that we seek to execute are large and take time, we have the competencies and the people to execute these projects and have been diligently working on them for many years to get to where we are. Now Air Products has entered a new phase of our company's evolution, in which we expect a steady stream of meaningful contributions from these new projects going forward and for years to come. By choosing capital deployment over share buybacks, we believe that we have traded quick gains in the near-term for greater reward in the future. Now please turn to slide number 27. Economies around the world continue to face considerable obstacles. The conflict in Ukraine persists, COVID restrictions in China may continue, and we see that inflation, currency, and supply chain issues will remain as headwinds. As always, we will push for price increases to compensate for additional costs, pursue additional volume opportunities, and obviously, pay close attention to our costs. With that background, for fiscal year 2023, we expect our earnings per share to be in the range of $11.20 to $11.50, representing an 11% increase at midpoint over last year. This includes an expected roughly $0.50 of negative currency impact. I would also like to add that our projections for next year are based on the fundamental assumption that the economies around the world performed as we see them today. That means we don’t have a crystal ball, so we have not projected any economic growth around the world, nor have we projected a significant recession. Our guidance is based on what we see today in the economies in the Americas, Europe, and China. For the first quarter of fiscal 2023, our earnings per share guidance is $2.60 to $2.80, up 5% to 13% over last year. Please also note that our prior results for the first quarter benefited from a gain of roughly $0.20 related to the finalization of the Jazan separation unit joint venture. In terms of CapEx, we see our CapEx expenditure for next year to be approximately $5 billion to $5.5 billion, including the approximately $1 billion for Phase 2 of the Jazan project. Now please turn to slide number 28. As you may recall from our last earnings call, I have been hosting in-person discussions with our employees across the regions to share our strategy and answer their questions. My goal is to talk with our more than 21,000 employees around the world over the course of the next year in small groups. I am happy to say that our employees around the world share our core values and focus on our common goals. Their commitment and motivation are truly a long-term competitive advantage. As I stated at the beginning of this call, I am proud to be working alongside them to make Air Products the leader in the clean energy future for the world. Now, we are more than pleased to answer your questions.

Thank you very much, sir. I will now move to our first question, which comes from Steve Byrne from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yeah. Thank you. I wanted to ask a little bit about this greenfield project up in New York. The capital costs at $5 a watt seem a little high. Is this an undeveloped site, and maybe more importantly, what do you see as the primary demand for this product? It’s a pretty remote location. What would be the end markets that you are going to be selling this liquid hydrogen into?

Excellent question. Good morning. First of all, in terms of the capital cost, this is a greenfield site. Number two, it includes, if you are comparing it, for example, to what we are doing at NEOM, it includes liquefaction, because we believe that the future of hydrogen for mobility is in liquid forms rather than gas hydrogen. Therefore, the facility is designed to include the liquefier, and it also includes auxiliary investments in order to develop the site and in terms of how we get the product to the customers. The primary market that we are targeting is, obviously, hydrogen for mobility. The site might seem remote, but once you have liquid hydrogen, the cost of distribution of liquid hydrogen is not that significant. We right now have liquid hydrogen production near Toronto in Canada and sell it in California. So the location we chose is because of the proximity to the power and the site that was there and access to the water. So I am not concerned about the distribution costs because that is not going to be that significant in the overall scheme of things. And besides that, 35 tons a day, considering that any heavy truck on average uses about 60 kilograms per day, you need about 600 trucks, and that will consume the output of this facility. So we are very optimistic about it, and we are very thankful to the State of New York, to NYPA, and to the Governor for facilitating us in locating in this location and using hydropower.

And Seifi, one follow-up for you on the European pricing results in merchants up 30%. Your two large competitors reported something similar. That’s really impressive. Can you comment on how much of that would be a surcharge that’s potentially reversible, and would you characterize your primary merchant customers as the hydrogen cost is relatively modest in their cost structure and thus they can absorb a 30% increase?

Well, the price increases in Europe are mainly on liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, liquid argon, and helium, and obviously, hydrogen, all related to the cost of electricity. And, in addition to that, there is general inflation. So the cost increases are a reflection of the increase in our overall cost. So if electricity prices go down, it doesn’t mean that all of our costs have necessarily gone down. Therefore, we are going to try to hang on to the price increases for as long as we can because a lot of it is justified based on inflation rather than just purely power costs.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now move on to our next question over the phone, which comes from Jeff Zekauskas from JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thanks very much. I am sure, Seifi, in your spare time, you read the Inflation Reduction Act. In calculating the tax benefit for your Louisiana facility, is it $85 a ton times 5 million tons or $425 million a year, or is it a bigger number or a smaller number?

Yeah. Good morning, Jeff. The numbers are very clear in the Inflation Reduction Act with respect to CO2 sequestration. For every ton, you get $85, and obviously, our project in Louisiana is going to produce 5 million tons a year of CO2 that we plan to sequester, so your math is exactly correct. We will get a benefit of about $425 million, $430 million a year for 12 years in doing the sequestration after tax. That is correct.

Okay. The second question is for Melissa. In your cash flow statement, you have other adjustments for the year of negative $304.9 million, which we can round to negative $305 million. What does that refer to? Additionally, your undistributed equity earnings are negative $215 million compared to what I believe is $481 million of equity income. Will that improve in the future? What is the first figure, and will the second figure get better?

Yeah. I can answer that question, but you wanted Melissa to answer. That’s not a problem. Melissa, would you please take that question?

Yeah. So the other investing activities, is that your question, Jeff?

The other adjustments, because other adjustment is negative $304.9 million, what’s that?

Okay. Thank you. So that is largely intercompany CTA, Jeff. There’s a portion of that associated with one of our large projects' deferred costs, but the massive majority is associated with our intercompany CTA.

So does that change next year?

There will be a decrease next year related to the large project's deferred costs, but it won't change significantly now.

Okay. And the undistributed earnings of equity method investments, are we going to get closer to the equity income?

So, Jeff, that’s largely associated with our project for JIGPC, and so the fluctuations in there are all just the timing of the distributions from that joint venture.

Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Yeah. Thank you, Jeff.

Thank you, Jeff.

Thank you. We will now move on to our next question on the phone, which comes from Mr. John Roberts from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Thank you and welcome, Sidd. Seifi, for the clean hydrogen, other than sustainable aviation fuel, do you expect to have primarily a merchant pricing model where you don’t have any volume guarantees?

For the hydrogen business? No, I think it will be a mixture, because I think some customers, even when they are using it for fuel, like large trucking firms and all of that, would want to and they have talked about the possibility of long-term contracts to ensure supply. So I think we will have a combination of both, John.

Thank you. I will pass it on.

Sure. Thank you.

Operator, will you please go to the next question?

Certainly, sir. Thank you. We will now move on to our next question over the phone, which comes from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is David Wang here for Dave. I guess, on the SAF project, what’s the expanded scope on the SAF project include, and is any of the increased investment due to any project cost inflation?

The main reason is that the total capacity of the plant is approximately 340 million gallons a year. But the portion that in the SAF has been increased, because with the IRA, as you know very well, there is going to be a $1.25 incentive for making SAF. So we have changed the design of that plan to make more SAF, and that is adding to the cost. Okay, Dave?

And then it looks like the Debang project in China has been delayed from the second half of 2023 to the first half of 2024. Can you talk about what’s causing the delay?

It’s basically COVID-related and the COVID shutdowns that China is going through over there. Next question, please?

Thank you. We will now move on to our next question over the phone, which comes from Mr. Josh Spector from UBS. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Seifi, I was wondering if I could clarify your assumptions for next year. I mean, particularly where you say no recession predicted. If you are kind of run rating current demand, I mean, I think it’s arguable that Europe is in a recession, China is obviously underperforming. Are you assuming that that continues, or are you assuming any improvement in those markets?

No. We are not assuming any improvement in the markets. We are assuming improvement in our results, but we are saying that we have made our forecast for next year based on what we see today, that you are right, economic activity is down in Europe. It’s down in China, and it’s debatable where it is in the U.S. We are basing our assumptions on currently what we see, that’s correct. We are not assuming any significant economic growth, and we are not assuming any significant deterioration from where we are. Where we are is not a good place to be, but we are not expecting that to get much worse.

Thanks. That’s helpful. And if I could just clarify, within Europe, what are the base volumes down? So I am not sure how much that contract amendment helped volumes, so just curious about the base level there?

You mean the contract amendment with respect to what? I didn’t get it?

On European volumes, you talked about volumes flat with the base business down that helped by the contract amendment for the volumes. So I am just wondering what the base volumes are in Europe today or in your September quarter?

Are you referring to our on-site business or our merchant business? I think I am not relating to the contract amendment. Simon, can you help me maybe? Yeah. Any follow-up?

Yeah. Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, in Europe, we said our volumes were roughly flat. We said we had a positive contract amendment, and so our base volumes were down slightly. We didn’t quantify that because of the details around the contract amendment, but the base volumes were down modestly, Josh.

Right.

Okay. Thank you.

Sure. Okay.

I will now move on to our next question, sir, which comes from John McNulty from BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Thanks for taking my question, Seifi. So, I guess, first one would just be, when you think about the opportunities around the IRA bill and the potential for green versus, say, blue hydrogen and carbon sequestration. I guess when you look at your backlog of opportunities, not the ones that you have already announced but future ones? I guess which way would you say Air Products may be leaning? Is there more opportunity, would you say, in the blue arena, in the carbon sequestration arena, or would you say green is kind of going to be the next big push for you guys? How would you characterize it?

Yeah. Good morning, John. Very good question. I would like to say, all of the above. That means that the IRA is very favorable about pursuing green hydrogen opportunities and we will do, as you saw with the announcement about the project in New York, and we will do additional green hydrogen projects in the United States. And then the carbon sequestration and the $85 a ton will help us do additional blue hydrogen projects. We are, as you know, we are committed to the transition, and the IRA provides opportunity for us to do both of those things.

Okay. Fair enough.

Is that okay, John?

Yeah. No. That’s fine. And then, I guess, the second question would just be, I saw you had signed, I guess, an agreement with one of the offshore port projects in the U.K. There was another one earlier in the year, I believe it was in the Netherlands. I guess, can you speak to the confidence that you have around those regions actually taking in green ammonia, green hydrogen, and the demand for it? Are you getting more comfortable with the demand environment in Europe for your green project most likely coming out of NEOM?

Yes. Since the war in Ukraine, there have been substantial discussions regarding the necessity for green energy. Certain countries in Europe are highly committed to green initiatives, while others are also exploring blue options. The heightened conversation surrounding demand for green and blue hydrogen in Europe is quite evident. You are absolutely correct in your observation.

Okay. Thanks very much for the color.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you. We will now move on to our next question over the phone, which comes from Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Seifi, with the New York project announcement, there’s a reference to potentially building a fueling station network in the Northeast. Could you talk a little bit more about that and what would sort of get you over the line on that project?

Well, obviously, we have the liquid hydrogen. In order to sell it, we would need hydrogen refueling stations at different locations so that the trucks can come and stop by and get fuel. There are a lot of options about how we are doing that, and we are exploring all of those options. This is something that we know how to do. I think we already have about 112 of these stations or more than that around the world. We have patents. We know how to build these things. We know how to design these. And I have to say that I think we are at the forefront of technology for these kinds of especially liquid stations. So we will be building those in order to be able to sell the product.

Okay. And just as a follow-up post the IRA, there’s been a lot of announcements, no surprise, for projects in the U.S. How are you thinking about the risk of CapEx inflation in the United States post the IRA?

Well, I think, in the context of the U.S. economy, even if you add up all of those projects, they are real projects rather than just MOUs. But I mean, it’s not enough to affect the inflation of the cost of a plant that you are going to build in the U.S., I don’t think so. We are not focused on that. We don’t think that’s relevant.

Thanks very much.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you. We will now move to our next question over the phone, which comes from Mike Leithead from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Just one clarifying question, I think, for Melissa. But, Seifi, if you want to answer, that would be great, too. The pension adjustment you are now making for adjusted EPS. I think in your reconciliation, you disclosed it was a $34 million income in fiscal 2022. I understand you plan to exclude it from adjusted EPS going forward. But Melissa, what is your best estimate of what that line item might be for 2023?

Yeah. Melissa should answer that. She does a better job than I would do on this. Melissa?

Yeah. So for the non-service components, if I look back at FY 2022, that was about $0.15 benefit. But we are forecasting for FY 2023 an anticipated $0.35 headwind moving forward.

Got it. And just to clarify, the $0.35 is just in that one year; it’s not year-over-year, $0.35, correct?

That’s correct. It’s readjusted every year.

Great. Thank you so much.

We will provide a reconciliation table for that.

Thank you. We will now move on to our next question over the phone, which comes from Mike Harrison from Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit, Seifi, about what you are seeing in Europe with regard to natural gas prices. There’s been a recent decline there, obviously that impacts the pass-through. But do you think that maybe changes your ability to get pricing, and do you have any encouraging feedback from customers that they are going to be running harder now that they are seeing some relief on natural gas costs?

Yeah. Good morning, Mike. I think the natural gas prices increases in Europe have moderated, but there’s still natural gas prices in Europe are around $30 per million Btu, which is six or seven times what they used to be. In terms of the natural gas prices, as you correctly said, is mostly attached to cost for us. The relevant thing becomes if that higher natural gas cost affects the cost of electricity, which they do. And we haven’t seen the electricity prices moderating as much as obviously or other people would like to see it, but I do not expect a significant change. But energy prices, as we all know, are pretty unpredictable. It depends on a lot of things, so I don’t want to speculate on that. But the one thing that I hope, Mike, we have demonstrated is that we have the ability, the agility, and the determination to be flexible and react to that and recover the cost increases, which we have done. I think that’s the good news.

All right. Thank you for that. And then my other question is on the hydrogen business in the U.S., kind of two pieces to this question. First of all, are you starting to see some better utilization and better hydrogen spot volumes from your refinery customers as we see diesel stocks being relatively low? And can you comment at all on the maintenance outages that you are expecting in Q1 compared to Q4 levels? Is it going to be a greater cost than you saw in Q4?

Sure, Mike. I would like to have Dr. Serhan answer that question. He mentioned something about that in his prepared remarks. But Dr. Serhan, would you like to kind of expand on your remarks about hydrogen demand?

I mean, definitely, it’s been picking up as we stated before in the last few quarters. So we are at the level now in our pipeline system in Texas, Louisiana really to the level before COVID and is still even recovering further. The refineries, our customers basically have high utilization. The demand is very high. And definitely, we see more opportunities for additional volume, and we are really doing our best to add even more capacity to our pipeline system so we can supply our customers.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. We will now move to our next question over the phone, which comes from Duffy Fischer from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Yes. Good morning, guys. First question is just around the APAC business. The volumes there were very strong, up 16% relative to only up 2% last quarter. And Seifi, I think you called out a number of smaller traditional ASUs starting up. So is it fair to anniversary that number over the next three quarters that APAC should be very strong just because of the business that we have built in already?

Hi, Duffy. How are you? You are asking a very good question, and thank you for noticing. The fact that we have grown our traditional business shows that we are not just focused on large projects in that part of the world. Theoretically, what you are saying is correct. The only unpredictable factor here is what will happen with the shutdowns in China, as currently one of the provinces we operate in, Shanxi Province, has found some COVID cases in coal mines, leading to a complete shutdown in that area. These developments do impact our business in the short term and are entirely unpredictable. However, if we assume that such events do not occur, the introduction of new facilities has certainly contributed positively last quarter and will continue to do so in the future.

Perfect. And then maybe one just on your crystal ball because you have seen a few cycles. When you see the data you have coming in, when you look at the world around you and you look at your customers, how do you think this cycle plays out kind of through this quarter into the early part of next year? Is there another leg down for your broader customer base, or do you think we have kind of put in the trough here in the calendar Q4 and things get better as we get into next year?

I am hesitant to make predictions because our business is a leading indicator and we don’t have any inventory, so I can provide insights on the current situation. However, forecasting what will happen in the next few months, especially in China and the U.S. with various factors at play, is quite challenging. For our guidance, we base our assumptions on the current state rather than predicting any changes. We will have to wait and see. I apologize for not being able to provide specifics on that.

No. That…

That was specific enough.

Fair enough. Thank you, guys.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We will now move on to our next question over the phone, which comes from Christopher Parkinson from Mizuho. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Great. Thank you so much. When you are looking at the world right now, can you just give us a quick update on where your rough estimates are for merchant operating rates in terms of just what you are seeing in the macro? Thank you.

Sure, Chris. Good morning. Yes.

Good morning.

I can give you that. I mean, right now, if you look at all of Asia, we are at around 77%, 78%. Europe is, depending on which country you are, it goes somewhere from as high as maybe 81%, 82% in the U.K. to as low as 72%, 73% in certain parts of Europe. And in the U.S., we are at around 77%, 78%.

Very helpful. Seifi, while I understand that you don’t have a crystal ball, there has been considerable fluctuation in regional macro activity this year, driven by various factors in Europe and China. If we return to the earlier question about China, what’s your best estimate regarding the outlook for the Chinese economy after the Lunar New Year next year? What are you hearing from the ground and from your customers? Any insights would be appreciated. Thank you.

Well, Chris, thank you very much. Obviously, in China, everybody is, obviously, when they talk to you, nobody wants to be pessimistic, that everybody wants to be optimistic. So it’s very difficult based on the input that you get talking to different people to make an estimate of what the real economy will do. I do not expect a significant change up or down. I think it will be steady. But who knows what’s going to happen? But right now, my best estimate is exactly what we have put in our guidance, that things will stay where they are currently in terms of utilization and in terms of the GDP growth, okay.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chris.

Thank you very much. We will now move on to our next question over the phone, which comes from Kevin McCarthy from Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. This is Cory Murphy on for Kevin. Two questions on your project pipeline. First, the press release highlighted $1.3 billion of major projects in electronics, and on slide 30, I see $900 million in Taiwan. What are the major projects you have in electronics? Any color you can provide on timing, location, and future activity would be helpful? And then second, it appears as though the net zero hydrogen project in Alberta increased in size by C$300 million to C$1.6 billion. Why is that, and what impact might that increase have on your project return expectations?

Sure. Regarding the Canadian operation, the increase was due to some changes in scope and finalizing details with our customer about their requirements. The return on that project remains strong as we adjusted prices accordingly. Therefore, I don't foresee any negative impact, and we will share more information about that project in the upcoming weeks. As for the electronic projects, I can't provide additional details beyond what we've disclosed due to confidentiality agreements with our clients. They prefer that we do not discuss the projects to maintain secrecy about their locations and operations. However, it's worth noting the $900 million project in Taiwan with a large semiconductor manufacturer, which gives you a clue about its nature. I can’t be any more specific than what I've already mentioned because of the restrictions imposed by our customers.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Yeah.

Thank you. We will now move on to our next question over the phone, which comes from Laurence Alexander from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Thank you. This is Dan Rizzo on for Laurence. Thank you for taking my questions. You mentioned a little bit about COVID disruptions affecting supply chain and some projects in China. I was wondering if they are affecting your operations or your customers’ operations as well.

Well, the reason we mentioned is that they did affect our operations because it caused, most of these lockdowns affect our distribution costs and sometimes it causes some of the plants to have to shut down. So the reason we mentioned it is because they did have an effect on our operations. Yes.

And just a final question, just given the current environment with interest rates, is debt pay down a focus at all? I mean, I know you have a solid rating, but I was just wondering if it’s something that you are considering given the potentially elevating costs?

Our debt primarily consists of bonds, totaling approximately $7.5 billion to $8 billion. Most of this debt is in the form of corporate bonds with fixed interest rates, and we will repay them according to the established payment schedule. We provide disclosures so that you can see when significant amounts of our debt are due for repayment.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will now move on to our next question over the phone, which comes from Eric Petrie from Citi. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, Seifi.

Hi, Eric, how are you?

Good. Any update or expected potential milestones from your MOU with Cummins in developing fuel cells for heavy-duty trucks?

They are working on it and have the truck and the development, and we are looking forward to receiving the trucks. I think they are a bit delayed concerning the schedule they promised us. However, we continue to work with them. And I must say that…

Great.

We also are working with other people, too. It’s not just Cummins.

Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s call. Thank you very much for your participation. You may now disconnect.