Merchant Gas Fleet · 35 Plants
A six-month, two-plant, Finance-gated pilot of the coordination layer. Human-in-the-loop, read-only, kill switch at month six.
Recommendation
Merchant-gas operations leak $2.5–4.0M per plant, per year across four margin pools. Across 35 plants that rolls up to $90–140M/yr. The leaks sit across silos — APC cannot close the gap.
Chemicals and refining are 30–50% deployed on AI. Industrial gas is at zero coordinated fleet deployments. By 2028 this becomes table stakes at contract renewal.
Approve $1.8M Phase 2 — a 6-month, 2-plant, Finance-gated pilot of the coordination layer. Phase 1 is done. Four kill-switch gates at month 6 cap downside at the pilot budget itself.
The 30-year arc of operations
Merchant gas · North America
Industry structure
Top 5 suppliers hold ~60% share. Price, scale, geography — exhausted as margin levers. Operations is the only one left.
The competitive context
of manufacturers have deployed AI in production environments.
Production-grade AI across major chemicals operators.
productivity gain from end-to-end AI in industrial operations.
Autonomous optimization across major refining operators.
fleet-scale coordinated deployments disclosed.
Announcements, not coordinated fleets.
A mature industry lagging its peers on a terminal technology pays a margin tax every year the gap stays open.
LMB E2E diagnostic · Airgas internal
Per-plant, per-year ($K)
Per plant, per year
$2.5–4.0M
35-plant fleet, gross
$90–140M/yr
Not estimates — bookkeeping from our own diagnostic.
The coordination gap
Sees: flows, pressures, compressor health.
Manages boil-off and production balance.
Sees: trucks, customers, orders, ETAs.
Manages emergency routes and spot purchases.
Sees: vibration, trends, health signals.
Manages predictive maintenance and downtime.
Sees: power markets, demand response.
Manages peak pricing and load shed.
APC optimizes inside the fence line. The leaks happen across it.
This is not an AI bet. It is a coordination bet.