MOSCOW (MRC) -- South African petrochemical producer Sasol said Monday its low density polyethylene (LDPE) unit is expected to be completed in the second half of 2020, delayed from its previous plan to start up the cracker and LDPE plant by the end of 2019, reported S&P Global.
On 13 January, an explosion and fire damaged part of Sasol's 420,000 mt/year LDPE plant as it was coming online, as MRC informed earlier. The unit was shut at the time.
The cracker and LDPE plant are part of the new Lake Charles Chemical Project, or LCCP, and among one of the 13 new LDPE plants that emerged through 2017 to 2019.
Sasol's LCCP is 99% completed and operating with 80% production capacity in use, the company said in their interim financial results on Monday.
The company projected the LCCP would cost USD8.9 billion in 2014, but now is expected to cost an additional 43.8% at an estimated USD12.8 billion due to technical complications.
Sasol saw a 73% drop in earnings per share during the second half of 2019 amid delays with the project.
"The financial results were impacted mostly by a weak macroeconomic environment, which resulted in lower margins, and the LCCP being in a ramp-up phase," Sasol said.
The LLCP's linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE), ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol units are producing at targeted levels, while the ETO unit achieved "beneficial operation" at the end of January, the company said.
As MRC wrote before, Sasol announced that its world-scale US ethane cracker with the capacity of 1.5 mln tonnes per year reached beneficial operation on 27 August 2019. Sasol’s new cracker, the heart of its Lake Charles Chemicals Project (LCCP), is the third and most significant of the seven LCCP facilities to come online and will provide feedstock to our six new derivative units at the company's Lake Charles multi-asset site.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,093,260 tonnes in 2019, up by 6% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. PE shipments rose from both domestic producers and foreign suppliers. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market was 1,260,400 tonnes in January-December 2019, up by 4% year on year. Supply of almost all grades of propylene polymers increased, except for statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers).
Sasol is an international integrated chemicals and energy company that leverages technologies and the expertise of our 31 270 people working in 32 countries. The company develops and commercialises technologies, and builds and operates world-scale facilities to produce a range of high-value product stream, including liquid fuels, petrochemicals and low-carbon electricity.
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