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Posted December 13, 2018

Absolute Air to build air separation plant

Absolute Air announced plans to build a merchant air separation plant (ASP) to serve its partners and customers in the upper Midwest area.


The plant will be located on a contracted site in the Minneapolis metropolitan area.

“We expect the facility to be on-stream in 2020,” said Ned Pontious, president of Absolute Air, a partnership of five locally owned independent gas and welding supply distributors, as well as the Independent Welding Distributors Cooperative (IWDC).

The plant will produce oxygen, nitrogen and argon for use in customer applications such as metal fabrication, blanketing, purging, combustion, chilling and freezing. The partners view the investment as a proactive move to assure an ongoing and more economical supply of oxygen, nitrogen and argon against the backdrop of continuing consolidation of international industrial gas producers, according to a statement announcing the plans.

The five distributors involved in the project are Mississippi Welders Supply, Minona, Minnesota; Toll Company, Plymouth, Minnesota; Minneapolis Oxygen, Minneapolis; A-OX Welding Supply, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Huber Supply, Mason City, Iowa. All are located in the upper Midwest area to be served by the plant, and together represent 30 business locations with more than 50,000 customers in a seven-state region.

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