As digitization becomes increasingly essential to commerce, Air Products has signed a cooperation agreement with China Petrochemical International (Chongqing), a subsidiary of state-owned oil and gas giant Sinopec, to develop and boost its business in China through the EPEC.com portal.

EPEC.com is a supply chain-to-business (SC2B) industrial e-commerce portal that was established to meet Sinopec’s huge procurement needs. While enabling Sinopec to maximize its supply chain competitiveness, the portal also provides procurement, sales, financial and integrated services to many other companies.

The e-commerce site went live on Apr. 18, 2016, a year later, orders had been executed totaling more than 92.4 billion yuan, equal to about $13.4 billion, involving over 33 million products from more than 35,000 suppliers.

President of Air Products Industrial Gases China, Saw Choon Seong, said the company is the first industrial gases supplier and the third multinational to set up such a strategic partnership with Sinopec and EPEC on e-commerce. “This project is one of our efforts to support the ‘Internet+’ strategy and accelerate structural transformation of the manufacturing industries under the government’s 13^th Five-Year Plan. We can leverage the platform to help boost the ‘Internet Industrial Gases’ initiative and provide even stronger support to the sustainable development of China’s industrial gases industry,” he said.

In addition to EPEC.com, the US industrial gases group is also leveraging other digital platforms to enhance its offering, including APDirect, WeChat customer portal and a cylinder serialization and tracking service.