Neon is not the main reason they are doing it. It's a byproduct that gives them a little extra profit once they've distilled the air anyway for other reasons. Distilling the air just to get neon wouldn't be profitable.
Only if the soviets hadn’t already spent until billions adding the capacity to overproduce it due to a perceived national security need that didn’t pan out.
It’s essentially free for the company to do this since the gov’t already sunk the cost decades ago.
No one has done that for Air liquide, at least not yet.
