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Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (APD)

Q3 2018 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 26, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Air Products and Chemicals Third 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, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Simon R. Moore - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, Vicky. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Air Products third quarter 2018 earnings results teleconference. This is Simon Moore, Vice President of Investor Relations. I'm pleased to be joined today by Seifi Ghasemi, our Chairman, President and CEO; Scott Crocco, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Sean Major, our Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. After our comments, we'll be pleased to take your questions. Our earnings release and the slides for this call are available on our website at airproducts.com. Please refer to the forward-looking statement disclosure that can be found in our earnings release and on slide number 2. Now, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Seifi. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, Simon, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us on our call today. We certainly do appreciate your interest in Air Products. The talented, committed, and motivated team at Air Products delivered another excellent set of safety and financial results. Our record adjusted earnings per share of $1.95 is up 18% versus last year. This is the 17th consecutive quarter that we have reported year-on-year EPS growth and the fifth consecutive quarter we have delivered year-on-year EPS growth of more than 15%. We continue to be the safest and most profitable industrial gas company…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we will take our first question today from Bob Koort with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Robert Koort - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Thanks very much. I was curious of the strength in affiliates. You mentioned that was a big part of the U.S. or the Americas business and I know its overall up nearly 40%. Can you give us some color on what's going on there? And then, maybe also, Seifi, when you were giving your capital allocation potential buckets, acquisition of gas assets, is the affiliates considered in that bucket? Thanks. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Bob, good morning. Thanks for your question. I'll answer your question number two first and make a comment on question number one and then turn it over to Scott to elaborate. On question number two, when we talk about the $15 billion of investment capacity, that does not include any acquisition or anything by our affiliates. That's just Air Products. Then, with respect to your question number one, we have always said that we see a strong economic activity in India, and that has obviously contributed to affiliates. And we had some obvious growth in Italy and Mexico, which are our big equity affiliates. But, Scott, would you like to expand on that, please? Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah. I'd just emphasize what you already said. It's broad-based, Bob. It's good fundamental business performance in Mexico, in Italy, in India, and actually some of our smaller ones in Asia as well. So, real good performance across the board this quarter from our equity affiliates. Robert Koort - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: All right. Thanks guys. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, Bob.

Operator

Operator

Next is Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks very much. Your volumes in the Americas were up 6%, and your volumes in Americas have been pretty good through the first three quarters of the year. That is all of the numbers have been comparable. But your operating income has been pretty flat. I was wondering what's behind that in that your results versus your competitors seem to be – to show much slower growth in EBIT. And maybe to rephrase Bob's question, your equity affiliates income was $24 million in the Americas versus $14 million in the year ago. Is the $24 million number a new run rate or is there something unusual about that $24 million level? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Okay. Well, there is nothing unusual about the run rate, first of all, Jeff, so we expect our equity affiliates to do well. With respect to the Americas, we have an issue in terms of mix. That means that our volumes are up because we were selling more to customers who have a lower price basically. That is the fundamental reason why you don't (35:32) we are not particularly excited about that, but that is the explanation. Overall, Jeff, you know the business very well. Fundamentally, our prices is going to be the same as other people's prices. We are not going to fall behind on that, because if our prices are lower, we will get significantly higher volumes. But I'd just like to turn it over to Scott to expand on what I said. Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thanks, Seifi. I just want to build – I think I made some comments in the prepared remarks. In Americas, just recall we have a very nice leadership position in hydrogen and we saw some maintenance planned turns. The team did a great job of executing those. But that's driving costs up year-on-year. So that's also a reason why you don't see the operating income growth consistent with the top line. Okay. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Okay, Jeff?

Jeffrey J. Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Good. Thank you so much. Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next is Don Carson with Susquehanna Financial. Please go ahead.

Donald David Carson - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Yes. Seifi, question on your capital allocation buckets. I notice that share repurchase continues to not be on that list. I'm just wondering, especially post Air Products not participating in any of the Praxair, Linde sales in Europe or the Americas, whether you've re-thought your approach to share repurchase. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: No, we have not. Because I mean, share repurchase obviously – what does it do for you? It artificially improves your EPS. We are taking the position that of the cash that we generate, we are giving half of that in dividend to the investors. So, it's not as if we are holding all the cash. So, half of that is going to a very generous dividend policy that we are saying we give 2.5% of stock price as dividend. The other half, we believe very strongly that we have opportunities to invest that capital on projects that we will create significantly more value for the shareholders than buying the shares back, so that is our position. That hasn't changed. And we do not see any change in the outlook for the deployment of the capital, so therefore that's where we are.

Donald David Carson - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Okay. And then a follow-up, you noted that you had record EBITDA margins in the quarter. Are you now at an inflection point given the strong base business volume growth that the incremental loadings are generating very strong incremental margin? So, should we look for a continuation of this strong EBITDA margin performance? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, obviously, we are very pleased with the EBITDA margin for the quarter. But for the long term, we have always told the investors to, please, when you make models for Air Products that our EBITDA range is going to be somewhere between 33% to 36%. It's not going to go down and it will be within that range. Now, some quarters like this quarter, we had 36.3%. I hope it repeats every quarter, but I don't want to give the impression that our margins are now suddenly going to be several basis points higher than what our run rate has been for the last two quarters. And obviously, now our EBITDA margins are almost 300% better than the next people. Okay?

Donald David Carson - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst

Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go to David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Morning, David.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Seifi, on Americas pricing you said, so again, positive in the quarter, any acceleration versus prior quarters? You've announced a lot of price increases. And is that positive North American pricing up around 2% or more or less? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: It's about 2%. But the thing is that usually, we don't like to make too many comments about pricing. But we obviously fully understand that higher prices means higher profit. That's what our organization is focused on that. But we need to have a balance between what we can charge and what the supply-demand situation is. But our utilization rate in the U.S., please consider that it is still in the – around 77%, 78%. Now, in places that our utilization rate is above 80% like in China, we are getting significant price increases as you see.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

And Seifi, on the $15 billion of capital deployment, thank you for the breakdown. If you did it by geography or by country, how would that break down roughly speaking in your best estimate? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, I mean, it's very difficult to kind of pinpoint that. But order of magnitude, obviously we would like to invest as much as we can in the U.S. But right now from what we see order of magnitude, probably about $2.5 billion will be in the Americas, about maybe $2.5 billion to $3 billion in Europe including Russia and then, the balance of it in Asia-Pacific because anything that we invest in India is really equity affiliate. It's not part of the numbers that I've given you.

David I. Begleiter - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you very much. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

And we'll now go to Duffy Fischer with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. Good morning, fellas. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning, Duffy.

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

First question is just on the India plant and its impact on the margins in EMEA. It sounded like you were negative 160 basis points year-over-year, but you said you would be up 100 bps without that. 260 bps of delta seems like a lot of influence from one plant. Can you just walk through the economics and why that's such a big hit to that region? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, since Simon was talking about Europe, I'll have him answer that. Go ahead, Simon. Simon R. Moore - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah. Thanks. Duffy, so two things to remember. First of all, this is a great project, very, very good returns on this project. But the natural gas prices are extremely high in India. I think they're in the range of $12 per million BTUs. So, you have a very large hydrogen plant, very high natural gas prices, so that has a pretty significant dilutive effect on the margins. And I think you've seen that over the last few quarters. We also, by the way, had some additional energy pass-through in Europe. And just one final point is, in Q4, we'll lap this, so you won't see a year-over-year delta next quarter.

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. And then, just to go back to the buckets on the capital allocation, in the $7 billion that you called out as being large energy projects, how much of that would actually be coal gasification in China versus all other? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Duffy, I give more details and, obviously, the investors want even more details. We thought we have gone a long way by actually breaking down that, but out of the $7 billion, I expect approximately $5 billion will be in China.

Duffy Fischer - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you, guys. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go to PJ Juvekar with Citi.

PJ Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Yes. Hi. Good morning, Seifi. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Good morning. How are you, PJ?

PJ Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Good. So, what are margin utilization rates in Europe and Asia where you are seeing positive pricing? And how does that compare to Americas where pricing is still flat? I know you mentioned in the response to earlier question that in America you're selling with lower price – not lower price but lower-price customers. But can you just compare the utilization rates? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Sure. Our utilization rate in the Americas is around 77% to 78%. Utilization in Europe is around 80%. In China, the industry utilization is around 55% to 60%. But Air Products' utilization rate, because we haven't built a lot of merchant plants, our utilization rate in China right now is at around 82% to 84%. So, that is where we are, and you can obviously correlate pricing to the utilization rate. I mean, it's obvious if you're selling a commodity LOX/LIN, and that is totally subject to supply-demand.

PJ Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you for that. And you acquired Shell's coal gasification technology. Has that improved your competitiveness in bidding for coal gasification projects, and are there any projects outside of China that you are looking at? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: PJ, I cannot – now that the deal is closed, this has been a fantastic deal for us and it has created significant opportunities and we are seeing a lot of things that we didn't see before. So, I'm very happy with that acquisition. In addition to that, that has opened up significant opportunities outside of China. Yes, we are very pleased with the acquisition. It was the right thing to do. We have gotten a lot of very capable and very talented people. And that has given us – I think at the end, it will give us a significant competitive edge.

PJ Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Any particular regions outside of China? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Outside of China, it will be – it is places like Indonesia, Australia, Middle East, Europe, it's all over the place, and the United States. But please when I'm talking about Shell, I need to clarify. We bought two technologies from Shell. One is for coal gasification and the other one is for liquid gasification. The liquid gasification is also important because, PJ, as you know very well, a lot of the refineries need to upgrade their bottom of the barrel because of the IMO 2020. One of the ways to solve the problem of dealing with high-sulfur residue is rather than coking it, is to use that liquid and gasify it. That is what Saudi Arabia is doing with the Jazan Project, so that I think will open up opportunities for us because we own the Shell technology for liquid gasification.

PJ Juvekar - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you for that explanation. Thanks. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, sir.

Operator

Operator

We'll go to Christopher Parkinson with Credit Suisse. Christopher S. Parkinson - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Great. Thank you. So, clearly, hydrogen appears to be the key driver of the positive momentum in volumes. Can you just hit on some other key end markets as well? Is anything surprising to the upside or downside versus your initial excitations at the beginning of the year? And then just also any long-term comments on your outlook for, you hit on this a little, on energy and then also environment? Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, thank you very much, Chris. In terms of the day-to-day things, obviously we are seeing economic development in the U.S., which is helping with the utilization rates a little bit, although it's not as robust as we hoped. But in China, the growth has not slowed down and we are growing very well there. In India, we don't consolidate, but the growth rates are very good. And quite frankly, as I think I've mentioned to you before in one-on-one, Europe has been a surprise on the positive side because quite frankly we thought that with the Brexit and all of that, that European economy will suffer. It has not. So as a result, it's not growing very fast, but it is tightening, and you can see that the pricing is improving there. So, those are overall the positive things. Then with respect to the very big projects, yes, we are very optimistic about that. There is significant activity with respect to big projects in China, and in Middle East, in Russia, in the U.S. So, we see a lot of so-called mega projects. Christopher S. Parkinson - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC: Great. And you've also been successful in establishing a…

Operator

Operator

And we'll go to Stephen Byrne with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Stephen Byrne - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Seifi, perhaps Simon pulled a fast one on you and changed the order of the slides and moved the Asia segment to be discussed first instead of last, but I suspect from your commentary about capital allocation by region that was intentional. Would you say in this five-year plan that could become your largest segment? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, first of all, I'd like to make a comment. I've just landed from a 14-hour overnight flight. And I just came to the office. So, I think you need to give me a little bit of a break for not mixing up Gases Americas and Gases Asia. But Simon had the slides in the right order but I just – when I was looking at it, I just said Gases Americas rather than Gases Asia. But right now when you look at our Americas business, I think we disclosed that. That's about a $4 billion business. Our Asia business is right now running at around $2.2 billion, $2.3 billion. With the capital deployment programs that we have, our Americas section will grow. But I think in five years, I don't expect Asia to be double in size, but it might, it might become our biggest region by 2023, 2024. And right now, we are – I mean if it grows with the kind of EBITDA margin that we have, which is 43%, that would be very good.

Stephen Byrne - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Okay. And trust me, Seifi, that was just all in fun. But with respect to Asia and your outlook for coal gasification, obviously it's a strong market opportunity in terms of demand and you have technology. But would you also say that you – in the competitive bidding process, it's maybe a little less intense, particularly on bids that include the gasifier in addition to the air separation units? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: That is not the case. We just lost the big coal gasification project to one of our competitors. I obviously don't want to mention who it is. But if people are telling you they are not pursuing coal gasification in China, you should ask them again. Everybody is there. Everybody is eager to win a project. And as I said, last month, we lost a coal gasification project in China, in southern China, to one of our competitors who claims they are not that excited about China. So, everybody is there, my friend. When people look at these projects and the size and the profitability, they are not going to give us a break, they are following us where we are going.

Stephen Byrne - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next is John Roberts with UBS.

John Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Thank you. First, the question about pricing in Europe and then maybe a follow-up on the environmental CapEx allocation that you've got. In Europe, that record 3% price increase, I can't imagine that CO2 kind of contributed to that and I would think Praxair and Linde are not being that aggressive on price given they're in front of regulators. So, what's allowing you right now to achieve that kind of price versus in past periods? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, I would say good execution but, again, since Simon made comments about Europe, Simon, would you like to answer that? Simon R. Moore - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah. So, John, obviously we can't speak to what the competition is doing. The team is working hard on pricing in the Europe region and we did emphasize that we saw a lot of the strength in packaged gas here this past quarter. So, quite frankly, good job by the team. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: And from CO2 it was very little. Not significant. Simon R. Moore - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah.

John Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

On the $7 billion that you're going to put into energy environmental, obviously, environmental in the past with Tees Valley and some of the earlier projects, you're probably not headed down that path again, but what are you thinking about there when you say environmental? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: What we are talking about is projects that would help with solving environmental issues. The biggest thing that we are referring to is, number one, this IMO20 where people have to do something with the bottom of the barrel and the second thing that we are talking about is coal gasification which is a much more environmentally friendly of using the coal rather than burning it in a power plant to generate power.

John Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. So, you're including coal gasification when you say environmental. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yes.

John Roberts - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Got it. Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next is John McNulty with BMO Capital Markets.

John P. McNulty - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. With regard to the backlog, it seems like it's been kind of static here for, I guess, the last quarter or two. And I know you have a number of opportunities that you highlighted. I guess, at least in terms of where you think the capital is going to get deployed, I guess how are you thinking about the timing of when we may start hearing about some of these and getting the contracts to kind of the finish line? And I think you mentioned it in the beginning that you didn't see the tariff issues necessarily having any impact. And so, I guess, what's holding up some of the announcement on this or is it just simply a timing issue? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, John, you are putting me in a position that – especially my lawyer is sitting here and saying, don't make too many forward-looking statements here. But we are working, obviously, on a lot of projects. But quite frankly, John, this is a formal call. This is not a casual conversation. I'm the chairman of the company, and I'm saying that we feel very confident about deploying the capital. So, I can only say that if I see a backlog of projects that we are working on. Now, when are they going to come to fruition and when are we going to be able to announce them? I mean, I obviously can't predict that, but we definitely have a robust number of projects that we are definitely working on. No question.

John P. McNulty - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst

Fair enough. Thanks very much for the color. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, John.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go to Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Vincent Stephen Andrews - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you and good morning, everyone. And Seifi, I hope you get some good sleep tonight. You're probably pretty tired. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you. Vincent Stephen Andrews - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Just looking at slide 24, the project slide, and I know you guys are out of the – telling us what the EPS contribution is from new projects. But you've got a bunch of stuff that's scheduled to come online in fiscal 2019. So, as we think about our models, if you can give us any update or any color sort of on first half, second half, second quarter, fourth quarter, just sort of any sense or dimension around the start-ups there. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, on that one, Andrew (sic) [Vincent] (57:33), one thing that we have said and we stand behind that is that we want to grow EPS at least 10%. So, you should expect that our guidance for 2019 will be 10% higher than 2018, I mean, unless the world falls apart. But other than that, in terms of the specifics, I think we are very specific in terms of the timing of these things. But to break it down by quarter, well, these are plants, new plants start up. The customer has to be ready and all of that. So, I would be a little bit hesitant to start pinpointing it by quarter. But overall, as I said, on overall basis, obviously we need the contribution of these projects in order to deliver the 10%. Vincent Stephen Andrews - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: And, Simon, you'd like to... Simon R. Moore - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah. Just obviously, Vincent, Seifi again reminded us that we have made a specific comment around the Lu'An project and we'd expect that to deliver at least $0.25 next year. So, yeah. Vincent Stephen Andrews - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Sure. Okay. Thank you. And just as a follow-up, there was something written during the quarter about a CO2 shortage in Europe. Doesn't seem like it was an issue within your results, but any comments there vis-à-vis your results? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, the reason is that we are not very big in CO2 in Europe. So, the whole event didn't have too much of an impact on us at all. Vincent Stephen Andrews - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Okay. Thank you very much. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And next is Kevin McCarthy with Vertical Research Partners.

Matthew DeYoe - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Good morning. This is Matt on for Kevin. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yes. Hi, Matt.

Matthew DeYoe - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Hi. If we were to rewind to this time last year, the company was discussing the possibility of participating in remedy asset divestitures from Praxair-Linde, about like $1 billion in revenue. Since then, Messer and Nippon Sanso seemed to have secured the divested assets. But can you kind of walk through what were the primary reasons for why you ended up taking a pass on the businesses given just the capital deployment targets the company has? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: We didn't take a pass. The regulators decided to give us a pass. We would have – we've always said we were interested in that. But the regulators decided that we should go do other things.

Matthew DeYoe - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

No, that's helpful. Thank you. And then I might have missed this, I was jumping around a little bit. But Gases – Global kind of showed a nice sequential uptick in EBIT despite the ongoing headwinds from the lower Jazan sales. What was behind the improvement there? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Simon? Simon R. Moore - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah. And again, I would just point out that the technical term for Jazan is lumpy, so it just moves around a little bit especially sequentially.

Matthew DeYoe - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

All right. Thanks, Simon. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Sure. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go to Jim Sheehan with SunTrust.

James Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Morning. Could you remind us about what you're expecting from currency that's incorporated into the fourth quarter guidance? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Scott? Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Sure. Hi, Jim. How are you?

James Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Morning. Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: So, year-to-date, we're at about $0.20 earnings per share versus prior year through three quarters. And our view, as always, is we just assume things kind of move sideways from where they are as we're closing the quarter. And so, if we look at that, we think it's going to be flat, maybe a modest headwind in our fourth quarter versus the prior year given where the currencies are now.

James Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. And could you comment on which end markets you're seeing the most strength in besides refining? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Around the – we don't usually comment by markets, but overall, in the U.S. it's really most of the sectors, whether it is food, whether it is steel, whether it is – all of the other things. In China, it is obviously consumer demand for the products that we have around the world. So, it's a mix, it's not any very particular market that suddenly has started contributing to our bottom line. As you know, we have more than 60,000 customers around the world. So, we do not see any suddenly one sector growing 10%. It's just across the board and that's the good thing about our company because we have exposure to all of these businesses.

James Sheehan - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you, Seifi. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we will go to Laurence Alexander with Jefferies.

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

A very quick one and given the end of the call is, can you characterize how your cash tax rate will evolve as your mix shifts around the world or as the types of project shift? But that seems to be affecting the conversion of EBITDA growth into distributable cash flow. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, that's a very good question. And since it's a difficult question, I'll give it to you, Scott, to answer. Michael Scott Crocco - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Yeah. Back to your comment around forward-looking statements, right, Seifi? So, if I just (01:02:46) again for this year in terms of a book for the fourth quarter, we're thinking about 20%, so we'll come in for the year in total a little bit above 19%. And then as we go forward from a cash tax perspective, obviously, we're focused on making more money in all parts of the world. About $400 million or so cash taxes for this year and early indications, you can assume roughly about the same for next year. Again, it depends on the amount, so that depends on the locations. I think in terms of a percent of cash taxes as a percent of pre-tax earnings, kind of the high-teens is what we would say going forward, a reasonable assumption at this point, okay?

Laurence Alexander - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go to Mike Sison with KeyBanc.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Hey, guys. Nice quarter. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Thank you, Mike.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Seifi, volumes have been pretty good this year and just wanted your general thoughts. Do you think this industrial economy is kind of at a pretty good level? Is it getting better when you think about heading into 2019? Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, right now, the way we see it, China is going to continue to be strong, we don't see any sign of a slowdown there. I hope Europe stays where it is, which means that although it's not growing very fast, it's not going down. And the U.S., obviously, it depends on the effect of the tax cut and all of that. But, right now, it looks okay. So, we continue to...

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

And then one... Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Go ahead.

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Well, just as a quick one on 2019, how much volume will come from projects coming on stream? I don't know if – I apologize if I missed that earlier. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, I can't give you an exact number on that because then you'll pretty quickly figure out what you should do next year. But overall, we usually don't give that number out, so if you excuse us for that. We don't like to break that down because then people can figure out exactly what the return on the projects are and all that. That will be...

Michael J. Sison - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Seifollah Ghasemi - Air Products & Chemicals, Inc.: Well, thank you. With that, I think there are no more questions. And I just like to thank everybody again for being on the call. Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to listen to our presentations. We very much appreciate your interest. And we look forward to discussing our results with you again next quarter. Have a great day and all the best. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And thank you very much. That does conclude our conference for today. I'd like to thank everyone for your participation, and you may now disconnect.