Dr. Samir Serhan: I’m sorry, review the Middle East results and India before going to that. So please let’s go to Slide 25 first for a review of our Middle East and India segment. Sales and operating income in this segment are modest since our Middle East and India wholly owned operations are smaller in size. However, the segment’s EBITDA is significant, it includes the equity affiliates’ income related to the Jazan gasification and power joint venture, our India joint venture, INOX Air Products and other joint ventures. For the quarter, an acquisition benefited sales and operating income versus last year, but was partially offset by land maintenance activities. Although our share of the ongoing Jazan gasification and power joint venture net profit added to the region’s results, the equity affiliates’ income declined by $28 million primarily due to the one-time benefit associated with the Jazan ASU joint venture finalization in the first quarter of last year.
As Seifi mentioned before, we have successfully completed the second phase of the Jazan gasification and power project, and we have begun to receive additional income in the second quarter. Now please turn to Slide 26 for our Corporate segment. This segment includes our sales of equipment businesses as well as our centrally managed functions and corporate costs. For our sale of equipment activities, our LNG business historically has been the anchor, but our non-LNG related project activities have also grown in recent years to become major contributors to this segment. The cadence of project activities and timing of sales and profit recognition can vary the segment results. Our ongoing effort to support our growth strategy has also increased the centrally managed functions and corporate costs.
For the quarter, the segment sales and profits were lower than last year, primarily due to lower sale of equipment project activities. We also continue to add resources to support our growth strategy. As mentioned before, inquiries for potential LNG projects have picked up recently. However, these projects take time to develop. We’re excited, however, that we have signed one new agreement in the quarter and working hard to sign additional new projects. At this point, I would like to return the call back over to Seifi to provide his closing comments. Seifi?
Seifi Ghasemi: Thank you, Dr. Serhan. Now please turn to Slide #27. The outlook for the global economy remains uncertain. However, we remain confident in Air Products and the prospects that we have in the future and the stability of our business which is supported by our robust capital deployment strategy as you have seen. Therefore, for fiscal year 2023, we have left our guidance unchanged despite the significant uncertainties that exists in the world. For the second quarter of fiscal year ’23, which is usually our weakest quarter. Our earnings per share guidance is $2.50 to $2.70, up 7% to 15% over last year. We still see our CapEx at $5 billion to $5.5 billion for the year, including the approximately $1 billion for the completion of the Jazan project that we just talked about.
Now please turn to Slide #28. We include this slide in all our earnings call presentations. It describes very clearly my view that an enterprise can only be successful for the long-term when the people in the enterprise are motivated and committed to emission. At Air Products, our , our mission as a company is to bring people together so that they can collaborate and innovate solutions to the world’s most significant energy, environmental and sustainability challenges. We continue to build a diverse and inclusive culture that are more than 21,000 people feel they belong and matter and are motivated to achieve our goals. I believe Air Products is uniquely positioned to help the Board transition to a cleaner and better future, and we are putting our efforts toward that each and every day.
Now we are very pleased to answer your questions. Operator, we are ready for questions.
Operator: We will go first to Christopher Parkinson with Mizuho.
