By Andrey Sychev and Bartosz Dabrowski
(Reuters) - Linde, the world's largest industrial gases company, said on Thursday it sees potential to invest more than $50 billion worldwide in the next 10 years as governments turn to green energy.
That includes potential investments of more than $30 billion in the United States, which the company flagged last year, citing the country's biggest-ever Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) climate package.
Chief Executive Sanjiv Lamba said on a conference call on Thursday that investments globally will be mainly in the transport, industrial and energy sectors.
"Our expectation is that in the next two to three years, we will be making investment decisions anywhere between $9 to $10 billion worth of the projects we're developing," Lamba added.
Since the start of last year, Linde has signed deals with BASF, Evonik, OCI and BP (LON:BP) to develop clean hydrogen projects, as countries look to cut back on emissions and scale up renewables across polluting sectors in an effort to meet the European Union's net-zero emissions goal by 2050.
The company on Thursday raised the top end of its 2023 earnings guidance, citing higher pricing and continued productivity initiatives across all its businesses.
The U.S.-German company reported 10% first-quarter sales growth in the Americas, which accounted for nearly a third of its revenue in the first quarter, while the Europe, Africa and Middle East (EMEA) region grew just 1% compared to the same period in 2022.
The group expects its adjusted earnings per share (EPS) to grow 9%-13% this year, after previously guiding for growth of between 9% and 12%.
Total sales were stable at $8.2 billion in the first quarter, but earnings rose 17% to $3.42 per share, above Refinitiv's mean estimate of $3.13.
For the next quarter, Linde targets EPS in the range of $3.40-$3.50, corresponding to 10%-13% annual growth.
(This story has been refiled to remove duplicate wording in paragraph 4)