Air Products Has Changed. Your Procurement Process Probably Hasn't.

I'm the office administrator for a 40-person metal fabrication company. I manage roughly $800K in annual purchasing across 12 vendors, and one of my most important suppliers is Air Products. I've been doing this since 2020, and here's what I've seen: the industrial gas industry has changed more in the last five years than in the previous twenty. Most procurement professionals are still treating gas supply like it's 2019, and it's costing them.

The weirdest sign of this shift? The search traffic. Every once in a while, I check our website analytics (yes, the purchasing person does that too, don't judge) and I see queries like air-dry hair products for straight hair landing on our supplier profile page. Or is chrisley still alive? hitting our blog about welding gas. People genuinely don't know what "air products" means anymore — and honestly, there's a reason for that.

When I tell people we buy from Air Products, they picture a guy in a truck dropping off cylinders. Fine, that's part of it. But the air products company of 2025 is a completely different animal from the gas supplier I inherited in 2020. Let me walk you through what I've learned from the purchasing side.

The Hydrogen Shift Isn't Coming. It's Here.

The biggest change is hydrogen. I remember when I took over purchasing in 2020, hydrogen was a specialty item only certain labs and chemical plants used. Now? Our modest Midwest fabrication shop is fielding client questions about hydrogen-ready equipment and hydrogen fuel management — what the industry calls H2FM. I first saw that acronym in an Air Products sustainability report and I honestly had to look it up. Now I see it in RFPs.

That matters to a buyer because hydrogen solutions aren't priced like bulk liquid oxygen. They're engineered systems, not commodities. When Henry White from our Air Products account team first sat down with me in 2022 to explain their hydrogen roadmap, I almost tuned him out. I was thinking: we're a welding shop, why do we care? But by 2024, we'd bid on three projects involving hydrogen fueling infrastructure. We won one. That changed how I evaluate gas suppliers.

(Should mention: we didn't buy any hydrogen equipment ourselves. But having a supplier who could answer client questions made us look sharp in bids. That intel has real value, and it cost us nothing extra.)

Membrane Technology: The Quiet Game-Changer

Here's where I hit my limits. I'm not a chemical engineer, so I can't speak to the thermodynamics side of gas separation. What I can tell you from a procurement perspective is how the cost structure has shifted.

Air Products' PRISM membranes are the perfect example. Traditionally, if you needed nitrogen on site, you got a tanker delivery. Simple. But membrane-based on-site generation lets you make nitrogen from compressed air at a fraction of the delivered cost. Our usage isn't high enough to justify it — I can only speak to mid-size operations like ours — but I've talked to purchasing managers at larger plants who switched from delivered gas to on-site generation. The economics aren't close after about 18 months.

This is the part of the industry evolution that most buyers miss. The fundamentals of safety and reliability haven't changed. The execution has transformed. What was best practice in 2020 may not apply in 2025.

Supply Chain: Not Just a Trucking Problem

Another angle I see from my admin-buyer seat: delivery logistics. In the old days, gas delivery was simple. Call, order, truck arrives, tank refilled, invoice later. The 2021-2022 supply chain disruptions changed that permanently. Now I verify delivery commitments in writing before signing anything.

I learned this the hard way. In 2023, a previous supplier — not Air Products — failed to deliver argon for three weeks due to what they called "logistics constraints." I said we need the order this week. They heard whenever convenient. Result: delivery ten days later than I expected, a pushed project deadline, and a very awkward conversation with my VP about why a $5,000 gas order could stall an $80,000 customer job.

Since then, I track delivery-time performance on every gas order like it's a production metric. Because it is.

I Hear the Pushback. Here's My Response.

At this point, someone always says: "That's nice, but we just need gas at the right price." Fair enough. I'm not arguing that every fabrication shop needs a hydrogen-ready supplier or on-site nitrogen generation.

What I'm arguing is simpler: the suppliers who evolved are the ones who understand their clients' businesses, not just the molecules they deliver. When I consolidated our gas vendors in 2024, I didn't just compare cost per cubic foot. I looked at who could answer technical questions, who could produce the compliance documentation our clients started requiring, who actually showed up on the delivery date they promised. That's a different evaluation matrix than the one I used in 2020.

Air Products made the shortlist because they brought industry-specific expertise. Henry White could talk to our engineers in their own language — and translate for me, the non-technical buyer. That communication capability is exactly what's missing from the commodity-style suppliers who still think they're just in the trucking business.

What Hasn't Changed

I want to be careful, because the "everything is different now" narrative gets overhyped. Some things in this industry are stubbornly constant:

• Safety is non-negotiable. I don't care how advanced the tech is. If handling protocol isn't flawless, I don't want your gas near our facility.
• Price still matters. I answer to finance. A 10% premium needs a very good story attached.
• Reliability beats technology. A supplier who can't deliver on schedule is useless, regardless of how impressive their membranes are.

What changed is not the fundamentals. What changed is how those fundamentals are delivered. The suppliers who treat gas as a pure commodity and themselves as order-takers are losing ground to those who bring solutions, data, and sector knowledge.

Where Prices Actually Stand in 2025

For context, here's a snapshot from publicly listed pricing, as of January 2025: a standard 150-cubic-foot argon cylinder runs roughly $45-70 at major suppliers depending on contract volume. Bulk liquid argon for high-volume users is approximately $0.35-0.55 per standard cubic foot. These rates fluctuate with energy costs, so verify current quotes before budget planning.

I don't have a crystal ball. But I can tell you this: in the last year, about half the vendor RFP responses I reviewed included something about hydrogen, sustainability, or on-site generation. Five years ago, that number was maybe one in ten, if I'm remembering correctly.

Even the search confusion I mentioned at the top — people typing air-dry hair products for straight hair or is chrisley still alive? and accidentally finding industrial gas companies — makes a kind of sense now. "Air" used to mean just, well, air. Now it means energy. Purity. Environmental strategy. The brand has outgrown the old mental model.

My Advice

If you're a buyer managing a vendor list that includes gas suppliers, here's my honest recommendation: update your evaluation criteria. Don't just compare volumes and unit prices. Ask about hydrogen capability. Ask about on-site generation economics for your usage tier. Ask for delivery performance data, not promises.

The industry is evolving. The air products company of 2025 isn't your grandfather's gas supplier. And the buying process that served you well in 2020? It's quietly becoming a liability.

I'm not saying switch suppliers tomorrow. I'm saying the next time you review vendor performance, assess your gas provider the way you'd assess a technology partner. Because that's what they've become.