South Africa’s Sasol (Johannesburg; www.sasol.com) is pressing ahead with plans for a USD 8 bn complex to produce ethylene and derivatives, including polyethylene, at Lake Charles, Louisiana, on the US Gulf Coast. With all permits now in hand, the energy and chemical producer’s board has approved financing for the complex, now set to go on stream in 2018 – see Plasteurope.com of 07.12.2012.

The Sasol project is one of several in progress or slated to be built in the region – see Plasteurope.com of 23.06.2014 – cashing in on the availability of cheap shale gas-derived feedstock. The South African group is receiving USD 257m in investment aid from the Louisiana state government, along with a ten-year respite from property taxes.

Downstream of the 1.5m t/y ethane cracker, Sasol will produce around 900,000 t/y of PE in two plants turning out 450,000 t/y of LDPE and LLDPE respectively. Other investments are to include a plant for 300,000 t/y of ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol, along with units producing around 300,000 t/y of speciality alcohols for non-plastics applications. The expected surplus output of ethylene is planned to be sold on the open market.

Fluor Technip Integrated, a joint venture of US-based Fluor Corporation (Irving, Texas; www.fluor.com) and France’s Technip (Paris; www.technip.com), has been awarded the contract for primary engineering, procurement and construction management of the project, which will represent the largest single manufacturing investment in the state’s history. In 2013, Fluor also supplied front-end engineering and design services for the complex.

The world-scale facility will “roughly triple” Sasol’s US production capacity, said CEO David Constable. The group is also building a gas-to-liquids plant at the Louisiana site. The first phase of this project, expected to cost USD 11-14 bn, is planned to go on stream in 2019. An additional USD 800m has been budgeted for infrastructure improvements and land acquisition at Lake Charles.