North America Specialty Chemicals: 2Q26 Specialty Chems and Gases Preview; ECL as Top Pick

Research evidence excerpt

North America Specialty Chemicals: 2Q26 Specialty Chems and Gases Preview; ECL as Top Pick

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24 Jun 2026 06:07:34 ET │ 44 pages

North America Specialty Chemicals

2Q26 Specialty Chems and Gases Preview; ECL as Top Pick

CITI'S TAKE

Patrick Cunningham AC

We caught up with our specialty chemical and industrial gas companies into +1-212-816-6684

2Q26 earnings season. Broadly, the group has fared better than commodity patrick.cunningham@citi.com

chemicals in recent weeks with de-escalation themes driving the price/cost

expansion narrative. We view ECL as a primary beneficiary in an Alexander Yi

environment where raws start to ease, as its mission-critical products and +1-212-816-4220

services allow the company to be better-positioned than others to convert alexander.yi@citi.com

surcharges to structural pricing. We anticipate positive commentary on

growth engines, particularly in Global High Tech as the CoolIT acquisition Rachel Lee

nears close. We also initiate a pair trade, O/W LIN (Buy) vs. U/W APD +1-212-816-4559

(Neutral) as we expect LIN to benefit from favorable volumes in North rachel.lee@citi.com

America and potential catalysts from electronics projects, while APD faces

challenging decisions on Darrow and risk of helium normalization into 2027.

Pair Trade LIN (Buy) over APD (Neutral) — We prefer LIN into earnings as we see

more potential for upward estimate revisions from inflecting volumes in North

America and modest tailwinds from price/cost. We also prefer LIN’s high-quality

project backlog with potential positive catalysts from commitments for additional

electronics projects. On the flipside, we see potential downside risk if APD proceeds

with its Darrow project, which would dampen the free cash flow outlook for the next

several years.