INDUSTRIAL GASES : SpaceX filing: let's talk propellants

Research evidence excerpt

INDUSTRIAL GASES : SpaceX filing: let's talk propellants

EQUITIES

CHEMICALS

INDUSTRIAL GASES

FLASH NOTE

SpaceX filing: let's talk propellants

21 MAY 2026 Securities Research Report Production time: 10:41* (London time)

Research Analyst & Publishing Entities

Laurent Favre, CFA BNP Paribas London Branch (+44) 203 430 8518 laurent.g.favre@uk.bnpparibas.com

What happened?

SpaceX filed overnight its S-1 filing for an IPO targeting a $1.75-2tn valuation.

The filing points to availability of propellants and in particular oxygen as a critical factor for launch missions, whilst

insisting that the transition towards Spaceships from Falcon 9s is needed to continue to decrease cost per kg to orbit

and deliver its undisclosed cadence launch ambition. The single most prominent strategic risk and growth dependency

is the deployment of Starships from the current Falcon 9, to increase 20-fold the capacity per launch. The first payload

on Spaceships is expected in H2 2026.

Separately, the FAA administrator said in an interview yesterday that SpaceX was targeting 10,000 launches per year

(ie one per hour, or 60x the cadence of 2025), though noted that they would need significant improvement in reliability

to agree to this scale.

BNPP View: the role of industrial gases in this ecosystem is still underestimated

We estimate that the space industry accounts for c1% of industrial gases sales globally, or roughly $1bn in 2025,

growing rapidly though, It is a combination of Helium/Hydrogen (eg for institutional launches with NASA, or at a small

scale - Blue Origin), whilst SpaceX accounts for the bulk of the commercial applications (perhaps 2/3 of the $1bn).

Growth from here will be a function of cadence and type of mission, as the Falcon 9 requires around 1/3 of the volumes