Crude Neon (ASU Byproduct)

Ukrainian specialty gas company (Odesa/Odessa, Ukraine); one of the two major Ukrainian semiconductor-grade neon producers before and during the 2022 Russian invasion. Cryoin's Odesa facility processes crude neon from Ukrainian steel mill ASUs into semiconductor-grade product (5N purity — 99.999%) for export to Asian and European chip manufacturers. Unlike Ingas in Mariupol, Cryoin's Odesa facility was not directly destroyed in the early months of the war — Odesa, while subject to missile attacks, remained under Ukrainian control. Cryoin reportedly supplied approximately 20-30% of global semiconductor-grade neon pre-war. Cryoin's continued operations represent a tenuous supply lifeline for semiconductor manufacturers — operating in a country at war, subject to electricity shortages, and under constant threat from Russian missile strikes on Ukraine's energy infrastructure (which Russia systematically targeted starting in late 2022). Each Russian strike on Ukrainian power infrastructure disrupted Cryoin's neon purification operations.

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.

World's largest industrial gas company; provides gas odorant distribution and blending services globally including ethyl mercaptan. Air Liquide distributes and markets mercaptan gas odorants to LPG and natural gas utilities. Also a leading producer of industrial gases (oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, noble gases) for healthcare, industry, and energy. Air Liquide is listed among the top ethyl mercaptan market participants; primarily as a specialty gas blender/distributor rather than a primary mercaptan chemical producer.

Ukrainian rare gas producer (Odesa, Ukraine); specializes in extraction and purification of rare gases from ASU byproduct streams including neon, krypton, and xenon for semiconductor and industrial applications. Iceblick was a smaller Ukrainian rare gas producer that continued operations during the 2022 invasion alongside Cryoin. Ukrainian rare gas companies — Ingas, Cryoin, Iceblick — collectively formed a cluster of rare gas expertise in Ukraine that had developed over decades around the country's Soviet-era steel mill ASU infrastructure. This cluster, which took decades to build, was built on crude rare gas streams that had been vented to atmosphere as waste at Soviet steel plants until Ukrainian entrepreneurship in the 1990s-2000s captured and purified them for sale.

American specialty and rare gas company (HQ Cincinnati OH; part of Air Liquide Americas distribution network); one of the largest US specialty gas distributors with neon purification and distribution capabilities. MESA serves US semiconductor (Intel, GlobalFoundries, Texas Instruments) customers with high-purity neon. Post-Ukraine crisis, MESA and similar US specialty gas companies became key intermediaries connecting available crude neon supply from new sources (China, South Korea, Czech Republic) with US chip manufacturers seeking supply chain diversification.

Ukrainian rare gas company (Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast); was the world's largest supplier of semiconductor-grade neon before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Ingas produced crude neon from the Mariupol Ilyich Iron & Steel Works (one of Ukraine's largest steel plants) — a massive ASU byproduct stream that was purified to semiconductor grade (5N+ purity) for sale to chip manufacturers globally. Ingas reportedly supplied approximately 25-30% of global semiconductor-grade neon. The company's facilities in Mariupol were effectively destroyed or seized during Russia's brutal siege of Mariupol in March-April 2022 — the same siege that made Mariupol's Azovstal Steel Plant famous for the Ukrainian military's last stand. When Ingas stopped operating, a significant fraction of global semiconductor neon supply disappeared overnight. TSMC, Samsung, Intel, and other major chip manufacturers scrambled to find alternative sources.