Air Products announced that it will shut down its struggling energy-from-waste (EfW) business, following the company’s failure to fix operational and design issues.

The company estimated its pre-tax charges would be in the range of $900m to $1bn, as a result of writing down of assets related to EfW business.

Earlier, the company said that addressing the additional design and operational challenges in the Tees Valley projects in the UK would require significant time and cost.

So, the board has decided to halt the Tees Valley projects in the best interest of the company and its shareholders.

Air Products had planned to build two renewable plants in the Northeast of England, with a capacity to generate 49.9MW of electricity per plant, enough to provide electricity to the equivalent of over 100,000 homes.

The projects were estimated to create 1500 construction jobs in the Tees Valley and offer over 100 technical job opportunities in the renewable energy sector.

Shutting down its EfW business is expected to enable the company to direct its resources to its core business of Industrial Gases.

Air Products chairman, president and CEO said: "Air Products is focused on our core Industrial Gas business. We pushed very hard to make this new EfW technology work and I would like to thank the team who worked so diligently.

"We appreciate the hard work of our employees and contractors at the site, and certainly understand their disappointment in this decision. We are also disappointed with the outcome,"

Exiting EfW business will result in increasing the company’s earnings per share (EPS) by about 3 to 4 cents in the last two fiscal years.

Air Products earned a revenue of $9.9bn in 2015, employing nearly 20,000 people across 50 countries.