A brief history
The beginning…..
When Arthur and Leon Brin took out the first of their patents on a process for separating oxygen in 1880, they clearly believed they were on the brink of something big. But not even they could have imagined they were embarking on a voyage through more than 100 years of modern industrial history – a voyage in which the company of their creation pioneered developments that have helped to shape the world as we know it today.
Oxygen's earliest commercial use in the limelight may have been confined to the music hall, but the Brin brothers' dogged determination in those early days ultimately ensured a vital role for it in all kinds of modern industries and sciences – from food and medicine to engineering and computer technology.
Fundamental to life itself, oxygen has become indispensable to the way we live. And since 26 January 1886 when Arthur and Leon established Brin's Oxygen Company Ltd – oxygen has played a leading role.
With the change in oxygen separating techniques to a method involving liquefaction, on 31 July 1906, a certificate was issued formally recording a new name – The British Oxygen Company Ltd.
In Britain the new oxy-acetylene metal-cutting and welding techniques were playing an increasingly important part in engineering – and the Great War was destined to hasten further advances in the technology. The company acquired patents to operate a new oxygen production process in Britain, and then set about building new plants to use this process.
One significant result was that the purity of the oxygen was increased from 97 per cent to 99.5 per cent and higher.
BOC's oxygen had a vital part to play in the vast manufacturing effort needed for The Great War. Munitions, tanks, vehicles and shipbuilding all relied on the new cutting and welding technology.
For BOC, the pace of growth dictated by the war effort continued unabated. There were new plants built, acquisitions and new products as the company maintained its expansion and diversification.
The 1930s were to have a major bearing on BOC's future – and they started with a revolutionary development. Shortly after the First World War a new system for producing, storing and transporting oxygen in liquid form was developed. The idea had huge significance for BOC. It meant that large users could receive bulk supplies quickly and cheaply in special tankers rather than in heavy metal cylinders, and the liquid could be stored and then evaporated into gas by units installed at the users' sites.
Similarly, BOC could distribute liquid gas to its own branches and then evaporate and compress it into cylinders for small local customers.
With the creation of a separate medical division in 1935, the company introduced a number of new ideas, such as providing oxygen on tap to hospital wards and operating theatres.
The 1940s opened with Britain at war and BOC once again heavily involved in the industrial effort to keep the nation supplied with munitions, equipment and everything else that was needed.
The company was also heavily engaged in the supply of oxygen to the RAF. Tens of thousands of aircraft cylinders were produced and a number of self-contained BOC compression stations were set up at RAF bases.
The 1950s was a decade of solid economic recovery, overshadowed by the tensions of the Cold War.
The steel industry embraced the use of oxygen to increase productivity and the demand for oxygen soared to meet the increased demand for steel for cars and consumer durables.
To meet the vastly increased demand for oxygen at steelworks, the concept of tonnage gases supply schemes was born. Oxygen-dedicated production plants were installed on site at the steelworks, with hundreds of tonnes a day of gas being piped in. The first such plant built by BOC was at Margam, South Wales for the Steel Company of Wales.
BOC also became one of the UK's largest consumers of electricity and remains so today. Tariff negotiations became key to the control of operating costs.
The 1950s also witnessed the birth of large-volume nitrogen demand – and the development of TIG and MIG welding led in turn to an upsurge in demand for argon.
The 1960’s were a decade of turbulent change as new technologies mushroomed. It was also a decade of explosive growth for the British Oxygen Company.
The discovery in 1965 of oil and gas under the North Sea created new challenges as demand took off for large vessels, storage tanks and pipelines.
Air Products set up in competition within the UK in 1962, but BOC remained by far the largest supplier of gases to British industry.
Through BOC's research into using liquid nitrogen to freeze and refrigerate food, the company developed an interest in the food business and acquired Bain & Hodge Group, general food transporters. This formed the basis of the Transhield operation, used to this day by Marks & Spencer to transport its fresh food, and is now called Gist
Special gases became more and more important – xenon, krypton and neon for research and industry, and helium as a super-refrigerant for research.
By the end of the decade it was recognised that the British Oxygen Company was no longer just British and no longer produced just oxygen. A new corporate identity was developed with instantly recognisable bold red and white stripes. By the close of the decade, these were familiar worldwide.
For BOC, the 1970s was a period of diversification, from fish farms to diamond mines, and development within the existing product range. However, in the wake of the 1973/74 oil crisis, BOC examined its portfolio and began to divest peripheral ventures.
At about the same time, an acquisition battle was joined when BOC obtained a 34 per cent holding in the US company Airco. BOC completed the acquisition of Airco in 1978, doubling the size of the Group.
Throughout the 1980s, BOC consolidated its position as the most international of the industrial gases companies, operating in some 50 countries. It was the first international industrial gases company to enter China and subsequently formed a number of joint ventures there.
The latter part of the decade saw the company extend its customer base due to the mushrooming of the convenience food industry; the launch of a leisure business supplying gases for dispensing beer, soft drinks and balloon gas - Sureserve; the burgeoning environmental control industry; and the manufacture of semiconductors.
By the end of the decade, the company was also producing 99.99999 per cent pure gases to meet the stringent demands of the burgeoning semiconductor industry.
Throughout the 1980s, BOC's policy through the period was to focus on its customers, introducing new gases applications to suit their requirements and improving operating efficiency to reduce costs. The company was one of the first industrial firms to develop and implement a variety of electronic commerce tools. Soon BOC was recognised as a global leader in business-to-business electronic commerce, or e-com.
Customer service centres offering 24-hour service were established in the US, UK, South Africa, Australia and Malaysia – leading the way in this development among industrial companies.
In 1994, Gist celebrated 25 years' partnership with Marks & Spencer and by the middle of the decade it had grown to become one of the largest distribution and logistics businesses in the UK with over 1,200 vehicles and 5,000 employees.
The slump in Asia, the downturn in the semiconductor business and the high value of sterling prompted BOC to take a hard look at its overall portfolio of businesses and prompted not only the reshaping of the company's portfolio, but also the biggest-ever review of the way that BOC approached its business. As a result the business was reorganised from a regional structure to one operating on a global line-of-business basis.
The effect of this reorganisation, together with a return to stability in the world economies, produced a marked turnaround and a high performing company.
In 2006, BOC and Linde combined to become The Linde Group. The expanded company now operates in some 70 countries around the globe; employs 53,000 people and has annual sales of €12.7 billion.
BOC Gases, as part of The Linde Group, with its 120 year history continues to operate globally.