“I continue to have confidence Linde will grow EPS double-digit percent on average, regardless of the economic environment.”

In context

“is primarily driven by customer turnarounds in the United States, as well as lower demand in Europe. I expect the U.S. to improve for the second half since a number of customers already back up, but it's difficult to project how European demand will develop. You will recall that these contracts are underpinned by fixed payments, so our profit impact is mitigated. Overall, the business continues to perform well as we adapt to local market conditions. In fact, since our merger, we've grown EPS an average of 19% per year from 2019 to today. This was achieved against a backdrop of a global pandemic, supply chain constraints, energy crisis, military conflict and the largest inflation increase in decades. It's because of this track record and the daily execution of our dedicated employees, and I continue to have confidence Linde will grow EPS double-digit percent on average, regardless of the economic environment. I'll now turn the call over to Matt to walk you through the financial numbers. Matt White: Thanks, Sanjiv. Slide 4 provides an overview of second quarter results. Sales of $8.2 billion are down 3% to last year, but flat sequentially. The comparison has some noise related to movements in FX translation, engineering, project timing, divestitures and cost pass-through. As you know, we contractually pass through energy variances, which can cause fluctuations to revenue, but have no impact to profit dollars. Excluding these items, underlying price and volume are up 6% versus prior year and 3% versus first quarter. Higher prices are the main driver of underlying sales growth with an increase of 7% versus 2022 and 1% sequentially. Consistent with prior years, pricing trends are representative of”