Tube City, in Granite City, IL, is a leading provider of outsourced steel services, including raw materials procurement, scrap management, raw materials optimization, slag processing, metal recovery and surface conditioning services to integrated steel mills, mini-mills and foundries. Like many companies with a heavy use of gases for cutting metals, they quickly found themselves overwhelmed with inefficiencies of time and money while catering to their gas supply.

In December 2008, Tube City had enough of these frustrations, peaking with troubles moving 18-packs of oxygen cylinders into and around various fields to cut steel. Adding more cylinders wasn’t the solution, as freight charges to get them there were growing, and just “making due” was no longer an option, as often two or more hours were lost in the moving of cylinder packs and safety was compromised.   (more…)

“We’re hearing that reimbursement rates for respiratory oxygen are constantly being tightened,” says Jeff Elliott, ILMO District Sales Manager in Greater Peoria. “This makes it critical for us to distribute oxygen more efficiently to our home healthcare customers so they keep their medical end-users’ costs as low as possible. These users are oxygen patients at home, in medical facilities, in nursing homes, and elsewhere.”

So, where does ILMO, an atmospheric gas company, fit in? Local Homecare Respiratory Care (HRC) providers can now drive right up to ILMO’s facility (1025 W. Olympia, Peoria), where a technician will fill their van or truck from a liquid oxygen bulk tank so they are quickly on their way to deliver this vital medical gas to their patients. With convenient filling hours, these drivers can often avoid daunting lines, increasing their route efficiency and delivery flexibility.  (more…)

Health-care business grows for ILMO

But as with any number of industries, the growth of late is in healthcare.

A just-completed seven-year agreement to provide bulk liquid oxygen— used to produce medical oxygen for a variety of treatments — to St. John’s Hospital adds to a network of medical customers that already includes hospitals, laboratories, nursing homes and universities across central and southern Illinois and northeast Missouri.   (more…)