Producer
Linde plc
Linde plc (NYSE/FWB: LIN; HQ Dublin, Ireland; operational HQ Guildford UK; ~$32B revenue 2023) is the world's largest industrial gas company. Linde owns and operates one of the two largest liquid oxygen cryogenic tanker fleets globally — thousands of vacuum-insulated trailers delivering LOX to hospitals, steel mills, chemical plants, and semiconductor fabs in 80+ countries. Linde does not primarily manufacture its own tankers (purchases from Chart Industries and other OEMs) but specifies custom vacuum-insulated designs for its fleet. Linde's medical oxygen business (hospital LOX supply) is the dominant fleet use case. Linde also supplies liquid oxygen rocket propellant to aerospace customers including NASA and commercial launch operators.
20
Inputs supplied
13
Goods downstream
15
Facilities
0
Stories
What they make
20 inputs Linde plc supplies
Click an input to see every good that depends on it, every country that produces it, and every other company in the supply chain.
chemical
CO2 (food-grade) →
chemical
Hydrogen (refinery-grade) →
mineral
Liquid nitrogen (helium pre-cooling) →
manufactured
Brazed Aluminum Heat Exchangers (BAHX) →
chemical
Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF₆) — Electrical Insulating Gas →
chemical
Industrial CO2 (Stunning & MAP Packaging) →
manufactured
Cryogenic air separation unit (ASU) →
mineral
Semiconductor-Grade Helium (6N) →
chemical
Neon Gas (Chip-Grade) →
chemical
CO2 for Beverage Carbonation →
chemical
Krypton Gas — Satellite Propulsion & Insulating Glass →
chemical
Xenon Gas — Space Propulsion & Electronic Grade →
chemical
Liquid Nitrogen (industrial grade) →
chemical
Crude Neon (ASU Byproduct) →
manufactured
Helium ISO containers and road tankers →
mineral
Helium-rich natural gas feedstock →
manufactured
Liquid oxygen cryogenic tanker trucks →
chemical
Neon Gas (Semiconductor-Grade, for Excimer Lasers) →
chemical
Monosilane (SiH₄) — CVD Precursor →
chemical
Helium (Grade 5.0 / Fiber-Drawing Grade) →
Where it shows up
Goods downstream
Essential goods that depend on something Linde plc makes, pick one to see the full supply chain.
Food
Beer, wine, and spirits →
Home
Bottled water →
Digital
Fiber optic cables and networking →
Food
Frozen foods →
Digital
GPUs and AI accelerators →
Energy
Gasoline and diesel →
Energy
Home heating oil →
Logistics
Industrial gases →
Health
Medical helium →
Health
Medical oxygen →
Food
Pork and pork products →
Digital
Semiconductors and chips →
Digital
Specialty gases for chip fabrication →
Where they make it
15 facilities
Jackson Dome Natural CO2 - Mississippi →
USLargest natural CO2 deposit in US (98% pure but 5% H2S contamination); primary use enhanced oil recovery; H2S contamination in 2022 caused national US supply disruption; now partially owned by ExxonMobil ($4.9B Denbury acquisition)
Linde Brownsville ASU (SpaceX Supply Plant) →
USTexas · Air Separation Unit (ASU)
$100M dedicated ASU at Brownsville North Industrial Park supplying liquid O2 and N2 to SpaceX Starship operations at Boca Chica under a long-term take-or-pay contract.
Linde CO2 - Manchester, UK →
GBFood-grade CO2 purification and liquefaction; primary UK supply hub for meat and beverage processors
Linde Engineering Headquarters (Pullach) →
DEBavaria · engineering_hq
Global engineering center for ASU design and construction. Linde has built hundreds of large ASUs worldwide.
Linde Freeport Air Separation Complex →
USTexas · Air Separation Unit (ASU)
Part of Linde Gulf Coast industrial gas hub. Produces liquid O2, N2, and Ar for chemical complex and refinery customers along the Texas Gulf Coast.
Linde Gulf Coast Hydrogen Pipeline + Beaumont Cavern →
USTexas / Louisiana · processing
Linde Gulf Coast hydrogen pipeline from Freeport, TX to Lake Charles, LA (~300 miles); serves 50+ refineries and chemical plants; ~1.5 Bcf/day capacity (after Oct 2021 world-scale facility startup). Includes the industry's first and ONLY commercial hydrogen storage cavern in Beaumont, Texas — >4.5 billion cubic feet storage capacity in underground salt formations, equivalent to ~30 days of regional supply. Phillips 66 Sweeny Refinery is a key anchor customer. Source: https://www.linde.com/news-media/press-releases/2021/linde-starts-up-major-new-hydrogen-facility-in-the-u-s-gulf-coast
Linde La Porte Air Separation Plant →
USTexas · Air Separation Unit (ASU)
Merchant liquid production for the Houston Ship Channel industrial complex. Linde doubled liquid merchant capacity here following the Praxair merger.
Linde Noble Gas Recovery - Multiple US Sites →
USXenon recovered from air separation plants at steel mills; US network of noble gas recovery plants; 35% North America market position
Linde SF6 Distribution Network - USA →
USLargest SF6 distributor globally; 60+ fill plants and distribution centers; serves utility, semiconductor, and industrial markets
Linde Tonawanda Air Separation & LOX Distribution (Tonawanda, NY) →
USNew York · manufacturing
Linde Tonawanda, NY facility — a major U.S. air separation unit (ASU) and liquid oxygen production and distribution hub. Tonawanda has been a center of industrial gas production since the early 20th century (originally Union Carbide / Praxair / Linde). LOX produced here is loaded into cryogenic tanker trailers for delivery to hospitals and industrial customers across the Northeast. Source: https://www.linde.com/en/our-company/locations
Linde Ulysses Kansas Helium Plant →
USKansas · manufacturing
One of world's largest helium liquefaction plants; processes Hugoton field natural gas (0.04% He); part of Linde's Hugoton operations that together produce ~20% of global helium.
Linde plc Global Headquarters →
GBSurrey · headquarters
Linde plc registered in Ireland but global HQ operations based in Guildford/Woking area, UK.
Linde – Beaumont Salt Cavern Helium Storage (Texas) →
USTexas
World's largest helium storage salt cavern, commissioned July 2025 at Caliche Development Partners' Golden Triangle Storage complex in Beaumont, Jefferson County, Texas. Capacity 3+ Bcf (>85 MMcm) — roughly 50% of annual global helium demand in a single storage facility. One of only three helium salt caverns in the world. Provides critical buffer against supply shocks; directly relevant during Helium Shortage 5.0 (2026). Commissioned just months before the Qatar crisis.
Linde – US CO2 Distribution Network (Nationwide) →
USMultiple States
Linde operates the most extensive food-grade CO2 distribution network in the US: CO2 liquefaction plants co-located with ammonia producers (CF Industries, Koch/CVR Energy at Coffeyville KS, LSB Industries), ethanol plants (Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska corn belt), and natural CO2 sources (Denbury/ExxonMobil Jackson Dome CO2 wells in Mississippi). CO2 is transported as liquid in cryogenic tankers. Linde holds the market-leading position in US food-grade CO2 distribution. During the 2022 US CO2 shortage (fertilizer plant curtailments + summer demand surge), Linde's network was constrained by limited liquefaction capacity rather than unavailable CO2 sources — a bottleneck at the purification/liquefaction step, not upstream.
Linde – Ulysses Helium Plant (Grant County, Kansas) →
USKansas
One of the world's largest single helium plants; feeds on crude helium from DCP Midstream's National plant (Seward County, KS) and Hugoton Gas Area wells via the Federal Helium Pipeline. Produces Grade A liquid helium for global distribution. Connected to 50+ Linde transfill facilities worldwide. Exact production volume not publicly disclosed. Key US domestic source for fiber optic and semiconductor customers.
What else they do
Business segments
The company's full revenue map, where this supply-chain role fits within their broader business.
Industrial & Atmospheric Gases
60%Specialty & Electronic Gases
15%Hydrogen Production & Infrastructure
10%Linde Engineering (Technology Licensing & Plant Construction)
10%Medical & Healthcare Gases
5%
Intelligence
What's known
Sourced claims about this company's role in supply chains, chokepoints, concentration, incidents, dual-use connections.
Did you know2025
In July 2025 — just seven months before the Ras Laffan drone strike — Linde commissioned the world's largest helium storage salt cavern in Beaumont, Texas, with a capacity of 3+ Bcf (>85 million cubic meters). That is roughly 50% of annual global helium demand stored in one underground salt cavern in Jefferson County, Texas. During Helium Shortage 5.0 (2026), this cavern became one of the most strategically important pieces of industrial infrastructure on Earth. It was, in retrospect, completed just in time.
Linde ↗Concentration2024
Linde plc distributes approximately 35% of US food-grade CO2 — but it produces none of it. Linde is a logistics and purification company that sits between industrial CO2 sources (CF Industries ammonia plants, ethanol ferms, hydrogen plants) and food processing customers. Its infrastructure is liquefaction plants, cryogenic tanker trucks, and storage vessels at customer sites. This means Linde's "market share" of food-grade CO2 is entirely dependent on the operational continuity of its upstream industrial sources. When CF Industries curtails ammonia production (as happened in the UK in 2021 and the US in 2022), Linde has no CO2 to distribute — it cannot substitute one source for another in the short term because liquefaction plant capacity is co-located with specific sources. Linde is the distribution chokepoint for upstream industrial process continuity.
Linde ↗Capacity2023
Linde's carbon dioxide (CO2) business spans applications across industries that most people treat as entirely unrelated: (1) food & beverage carbonation — the CO2 in every carbonated drink, beer, and sparkling water; (2) cryogenic freezing and chilling of food products; (3) enhanced oil recovery (CO2 injection to maintain reservoir pressure and improve crude recovery); (4) welding/shielding gas; (5) semiconductor etching and cooling processes. The same Linde tanker truck that delivers CO2 to a Pepsi bottling plant also delivers to an oil field operator for EOR injection. A gas supplier's CO2 distribution network connects the food and beverage industry to the oil and gas industry to the semiconductor industry through a single compound.
Linde plc ↗Chokepoint2024
Linde, Air Products, and Air Liquide collectively supply more than half of global bulk medical oxygen and lock hospitals into 10–15 year supply contracts backed by ISO 13485 quality systems. Because bulk LOX storage tanks are typically owned or leased by the gas supplier and installed on hospital property, switching suppliers requires physical tank replacement — creating near-monopoly positions at individual hospital sites.
Econopolis ↗Origin2023
Linde plc was formed by the 2018 merger of Linde AG (Germany, founded 1879) and Praxair (USA, originally Union Carbide's gases division). Linde AG traces to Carl von Linde, who invented the cycle for liquefying air in 1895 — directly enabling industrial oxygen, nitrogen, and argon production and fundamentally enabling steel, chemicals, and food preservation industries. The company incorporated in Ireland (for tax purposes) after the merger but operates from Guildford, UK with German and US operational heritage. The 2018 merger was the largest industrial gases M&A in history and required significant divestitures to satisfy EU and US competition authorities.
Linde plc ↗