INTERVIEW - Hydrogène: Benoit Potier, PDG d’Air Liquide, est l'invité de BFM Business

Yes, my first reaction would obviously have been not to put it on, but I think we have to wear it. We have many people in healthcare in Europe, in France, around the world, and I think we need to set this example. So I made this choice to wear the mask tonight. I should also point out that here we have an extremely strict health protocol; everything is disinfected between different speakers.

First of all, I would like to say that the first ventilators — there were 10,000 manufactured by a consortium of four companies, delivered out of the roughly 10,000: about 8,000 simple single-tube ventilators to put it simply, and 2,000 more sophisticated ventilators. They were delivered. These ventilators are used — the simpler ones before the most powerful intensive care and after recovery — so they are actually useful, and that's good. France therefore has this reserve, and they are used today. They are in the hands of the Ministry of Health, the Directorate General of Health, who allocates them to different hospitals. So some are working, others are in reserve to be used if needed. I also want to say that we have maintained the production rate of the most sophisticated ventilators intended for intensive care units. So we have retained the significant production capacity we set up for the first wave, to be able to produce new ones if needed.

We have actually had a number of orders, particularly from abroad, which we have fulfilled. So we are in a production phase with about a month's worth of orders. We are capable of meeting demand today, and there is slightly growing demand since the second wave.

We are currently able, based on what we have been asked, to meet it. And how many have you been ordered in France? I don't have the figure; I can't give it to you. What I know is our production capacity, which is several hundred. So we are actually able to produce them. I would like to make a second clarification if you allow me. I believe we learned with the first phase that, in fact, some patients with COVID can be treated with a higher oxygen flow, and a number of patients who would have been treated with ventilators during the first wave will now be treated with additional oxygen supplementation. This allows us to diversify the care offer a little for COVID patients. That's an important clarification.

Absolutely. I think it's a quite exceptional adventure. We talked about it together on these sets very early in 2017. At that time we were 13 in the cold of Davos. Today we are 100 companies that have joined the Hydrogen Council, multi-sector, multi-country, and we have contacts with all countries to develop this market. I am delighted to see that hydrogen has become a priority for Europe, for Germany, for France, and for a number of other European countries.

Hydrogen is a simple product. It does require a certain number of precautions, but you could say that electricity at the time of its invention was also very simple and quite complicated to use. We came to master it completely. So I think that hydrogen is one of those energies, one of those energy vectors, that humanity will master in the 21st century.

Partly yes. I think a revolution as important as those you mentioned. You have to understand that hydrogen does not exist in its natural state; it has to be produced, produced cleanly, in a low-carbon way, and it has to be transported, conditioned, and delivered where it is needed. That's a know-how, a chain that Air Liquide has been doing for more than 50 years now. So we actually have all the experience, which is why we can speak with reasonable confidence that hydrogen will establish itself as an energy vector — not the only one, but an energy vector in the 21st century. I have believed in it personally for a long time, and I think it is coming.

Yes, because I think you're right. The third quarter is interesting; it was practically balanced compared to the previous year, at -1% (actually -0.9% to be precise). So we have recovered a lot compared to the second quarter. That shows Air Liquide's resilience, its ability to also maintain growth markets: electronics, healthcare, Asia, China, Taiwan, Korea, a number of countries around the world. So that's Air Liquide's base, what we have been doing for a very long time. That's what gives us our resilience, our ability to progress continuously. And then we have these markets of the future. Hydrogen obviously is part of it, but healthcare is also a growth vector for the future, and electronics technologies, as well.

I think there is a difference between large groups with a long history, capable of building a solid business over time, and startups or new technologies that are always much more attractive at the beginning. I think history separates those who are actually able to build for the long term from those who are more ephemeral. I hope a number of startups will not be ephemeral and will continue to develop. But I think it is quite logical, in the current state of hydrogen development, to see Air Liquide doing well on the stock market. We were still at or near our historical maximum one or two months ago. So we are actually well valued. But it is quite logical to see startups or small companies soar on the stock market due to project developments.

Not all investments are focused on hydrogen. We still need to continue developing geographically in a number of other businesses. But we do intend to put a certain number of billions on the table in the coming years to develop in hydrogen. It is becoming a very strong axis of our development.

Because I think all the companies in the world that were forced to lock down reflected on their core business, and most concluded that they needed to transform their core business. All those with slightly polluting industrial processes said to themselves that they needed to move to the next stage and use clean energies. In that respect, hydrogen, but also oxygen produced from renewable electricity, are areas where we will develop. So today, since the start of the school year, since the end of summer, we have an enormous number of requests from our customers to help them build their clean core business of tomorrow.

Redo it completely? No. But amend it in the direction of what are the consequences of the crisis, the pandemic, in the fields of health, digital, and energy transition.

That's a bit difficult to tell you. I sense you don't want to tell us. So I'll rephrase: some reluctance to say because I don't know precisely. But even an order of magnitude would suffice.

Is it black gold that you have in your hands? No, that's something else. Try to understand well what we have in our hands. It's the knowledge of this product, the experience, the technologies, the credibility vis-à-vis markets and customers. If industrialists or individuals want to buy hydrogen and make it useful to them, Air Liquide is capable of providing them with solutions. And we are among the few who can do it.

That's why we decided to postpone the Capital Markets Day. We had planned it in 2021; we are actually postponing it to 2022 to use the 2021 base as a reference for the next five-year plan.

Our concern, and Air Liquide, since we participated in the World Hydrogen Council, we have had discussions with Europe, obviously with the government in France. Our concern is that every euro spent in this area should be well spent. So that's really my concern. How can we verify that? By federating industrial ecosystems, by making sure that large, medium, small, regions, states put money where it is needed: developing the right technologies for Europe. That's important: those that will go directly to the market and those still in research. So that's a first axis: encourage projects that are flagship projects. That's the second axis. And third, make sure we don't end up in the situation we had with solar panels, which was to favor world technologies while offering the French market.

Europe has made an excellent plan, presented in July of this year, and Europe is extremely motivated. We have many discussions. Ahead? I think yes, because I think federating the European market as Europe has attempted to do is a global advance, whereas the United States as a country has not yet done it, and Japan, China, Korea, which are quite advanced, have remained individualistic. So yes, I think if Europe confirms its intention, Europe will be ahead.