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Ukraine-News: Linde - Russia sanctions threaten jobs at the Pullach plant near Munich

2022-06-01T18:20:45.915Z


Ukraine-News: Linde - Russia sanctions threaten jobs at the Pullach plant near Munich Created: 06/01/2022, 20:02 Linde is suffering from the EU's Russia sanctions - this could now also have consequences for the employees. © imageBroker/Imago EU sanctions against Russia are costing Linde around 60 percent of its order backlog in plant construction. That could demand jobs. The staff feels like a


Ukraine-News: Linde - Russia sanctions threaten jobs at the Pullach plant near Munich

Created: 06/01/2022, 20:02

Linde is suffering from the EU's Russia sanctions - this could now also have consequences for the employees.

© imageBroker/Imago

EU sanctions against Russia are costing Linde around 60 percent of its order backlog in plant construction.

That could demand jobs.

The staff feels like a victim.

Munich – At the most valuable Dax group Linde, Russia sanctions could very soon cost an unforeseeable number of jobs.

The plant construction division of the world's largest manufacturer of industrial gases, based in the Munich suburb of Pullach, is affected.

The approximately 2,300 employees there are anxiously awaiting a works meeting scheduled for this Thursday, where managers want to comment on the negative effects of the Russia sanctions on employment in Germany.

Until then, the works council and IG Metall refrain from commenting.

However, well-informed circles have learned that 60 percent of the order backlog in Linde plant construction consists of Russian orders, which is now waste.

Ukraine News: Linde has worked on ten projects in Russia

The Linde board member responsible for plant construction, Jürgen Nowicki, informed about this in a video message in the middle of last week.

Due to sanctions, work on all Russia projects had to be completed at very short notice by the end of last week, says an insider.

Linde has recently worked on ten such projects in Russia.

The most important main customer is the Russian state-owned company Gazprom, for which Linde builds gas processing plants.

The group acts primarily as a planning company and only to a small extent as a producer of plant components.

The volume of the two Gazprom orders received just last November is worth $6 billion.

A replacement for this is difficult to land in a hurry.

Orders for plant construction have a long lead time, say those in the know.

Linde is therefore now facing a dry spell in this division, although systems for gas liquefaction, for example, are currently in great demand.

In total, Linde employs around 3,300 people in the division across Germany.

There are around 7,500 employees worldwide.

Ukraine-News: Linde main business hardly affected

In contrast, Linde's main business with industrial gases has hardly been affected by the conflict in Russia.

Only about one percent of all group sales in the gas business are attributable to the country.

Things are different in Linde plant construction, which is also active in hydrogen technology and therefore faces a promising future.

Business in Russia dominates here – at least until the end of last week.

Nobody in Pullach believes in its revival anymore.

"Here nobody expects that the sanctions will end soon, the Russian business is gone forever and that from now on," says a Lindean, which many colleagues also think.

Employees in Pullach expect that Chinese competitors will soon take over and continue their Russian projects.

"We are victims of the EU sanctions," says one employee, expressly without wanting to call them into question.

The workforce still hopes to get off lightly because the business prospects are actually good, especially in the construction of gas plants.

The goal is to maintain the workforce and possibly use short-time work to bridge the gap until new orders come in.

But if almost two-thirds of the order backlog collapses overnight, things could get worse.

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Ukraine News: Linde loses billions due to lack of business in Russia

The group itself does not want to comment on the events for the time being and refers to the latest statements on business in Russia.

When presenting quarterly figures at the end of April, Linde described Russian plant construction orders worth around two billion dollars as risky and announced that it would no longer generate any sales in Russia from the second half of 2022.

Since orders in plant construction flow into the books spread over several years, billions are lost in subsequent years, which is easy for the entire group to cope with, with annual sales of 29 billion euros and a market value of a good 150 billion euros.

Despite the problems with Russia, Linde even increased its annual forecast for the first quarter of 2022 because the dominant gas business outshines everything.

However, the world looks completely different for the workforce in plant construction, which, in addition to the headquarters in Pullach, also has other locations in Schalchen, Bavaria, and in Dresden.

On Thursday it could become clear how hard it is for her

(tmh)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-06-01

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