The USD 9.4 bn “Sunshine Project” of Formosa Plastics (Taipeh / Taiwan; www.fpc.com.tw) in the US state of Louisiana has hit one snag after another since its inception. Now construction of the massive petrochemicals and plastics complex on the Gulf Coast is looking exceedingly fragile. Alongside months of controversy over environmental issues and complaints of racial discrimination in siting that have delayed some environmental permits, the challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic continue to interfere with progress and cause more delays.

After most recently postponing the start of construction until February 2021, Formosa’s local unit FG LA, which had been fighting local lawsuits aimed at stopping the project altogether, has now suspended work “indefinitely,” citing the pandemic. This follows an initial virus-related suspension in March 2020. Some activity at the site was resumed in May, the same month in which subsidiary Formosa Plastics Corporation USA (FPC, Livingston, New Jersey; www.fpcusa.com) curbed production at Port Comfort, Louisiana, due to an outbreak of the virus among employees (see Plasteurope.com of 14.05.2020).

If ever realised, the Sunshine complex would have an ethane-fed cracker producing 1.2m t/y of ethylene and 600,000 t/y of propylene in addition to downstream units for polyethylene, polypropylene and ethylene glycol, according to Plasteurope.com’s Polyglobe database (www.polyglobe.net). FG LA’s planning for the first phase alone also calls for a propane dehydrogenation plant and quantifies the capacity of the plastics facilities at 600,000 t/y of PP and 400,000 t/y each for LLDPE and HDPE.

From today’s perspective, a second phase that would nearly double output if started up on schedule in 2029 may be a pipe dream. This is due not only to the Gulf Coast drowning its ambitious vision for the region in a flood of unconventional gas and a resulting overcapacity of chemical feedstock; challenges to the Formosa plans from the environmental side, in part still hung up in court, show no signs of disappearing. Opponents of the project have pointed to the “disproportionate impact” emissions from the facilities would have on long-standing African-American communities in Louisiana’s St James Parish.