Thank you.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee. On behalf of the employees of Air Products globally and in Canada, thank you for the invitation to appear before your committee today.
Air Products is a global corporation with a market cap of over $65 billion and operates in over 50 countries. Our 19,000 employees work hard every day supplying critical products to customers in a variety of industries. Our products enable our customers to be more productive and more efficient. For example, last year our products allowed our customers to avoid the equivalent of 72 million metric tonnes of equivalent carbon dioxide emissions.
At Air Products, our higher purpose is to bring people together to collaborate and innovate solutions to the world's most significant energy and environmental sustainability challenges. Obviously we consider the energy transition one of the greatest challenges of our time.
We are the leading global supplier of hydrogen. Every day we produce and safely transport over 9,000 tonnes of hydrogen via pipeline and trucks. We were a pioneer in the hydrogen for mobility market—we've been involved in over 250 projects over the last 15 years—and we participate in over one and a half million hydrogen fills every year.
We have a strong presence in Canada as the leading supplier of hydrogen. Our Alberta Heartland Hydrogen system began operations in 2006. Today we have three world-scale plants connected by an over 50-kilometre pipeline network supplying the refining and petrochemical sectors. We also have a hydrogen system, including liquefaction, in Sarnia.
Our sustainability-driven offerings for gasification, carbon capture and hydrogen are essential and necessary components of any realistic energy transition plan to reduce carbon intensity while also meeting the world's growing energy demand.
A prime example of translating our vision into reality is our announcement just last week of a world-scale energy complex in Edmonton, which will begin with a transformative $1.3-billion net-zero hydrogen production and liquefaction facility to be on stream in 2024. This project is an example of what we can achieve when all three levels of government work to create a common solution, bring investment, and in this case provide over 2,500 good-paying construction jobs when they are desperately needed.
This first-of-its-kind investment enabling the production of net-zero hydrogen from natural gas was made possible by Canada's clean energy diversification strategy and regulatory framework that made it clear that clean hydrogen will be a key enabler to Canada's being carbon-neutral by 2050.
During the announcement ceremony last week, which included Minister O'Regan and Minister Champagne, our chairman, Seifi Ghasemi, stated, “I can't think of a better place to invest our money for the long term than Canada. You are leading the world in the vision for energy transition.”
While we are clearly supportive of the federal government's leadership, I'd like to suggest a few overarching considerations.
First, with regard to hydrogen, consider focusing on carbon intensity, not colour. Much of the world still assumes that green hydrogen made from renewables is better than blue hydrogen derived from fossil fuels, mainly natural gas. We believe the net-zero complex we announced last week proves that blue hydrogen can be produced with a carbon intensity equal to green. Where that's the case, the policy should be agnostic to how the hydrogen is derived and focus on its carbon intensity. This will allow the market to determine the best option.
Second, in tax policy, focus on CO2 reduction efficiency, not capital investment. Finance Canada is currently conducting a consultation on tax policy to incent carbon capture and storage. We had hoped Canada would follow the U.S. lead with a tax incentive similar to the U.S. 45Q tax reduction tied to the volume of CO2 sequestered. Finance Canada's proposed capital investment tax credit approach runs the risk of prioritizing capital investment inefficiency over CO2 reduction efficiency. We hope this approach gets reconsidered.
Finally, address the historical bias against multi-facility solutions. For over 70 years, Air Products has been a pioneer in the outsource model of industrial gases and energy supply. For the refining sector, our outsource model is recognized as a global best practice for the safe, reliable and capital-efficient supply of critical gases like hydrogen. Unfortunately, federal tax and environmental policies have in the past created an unintentional bias against our multi-facility offerings. This bias has even made its way into the proposed clean fuel standard, which we're working hard to address with officials at Environment and Climate Change Canada. Given that every tonne of CO2 reduction matters, we urge you to avoid the flaw everywhere you can.
Thank you again for the opportunity to come before the committee today. I look forward to answering any questions you may have.