MOSCOW (MRC) -- South African petrochemicals group Sasol said that its Lake Charles Chemical facility in the US state of Louisiana remained shut after Hurricane Laura made landfall last week, reported Reuters.
The world’s top manufacturer of motor fuel from coal, said manufacturing facilities in Lake Charles shut down with high voltage transmission line corridors into the area damaged. Sasol had temporarily shut down facilities at Lake Charles in Louisiana and Greens Bayou and Winnie in Texas in preparation for the hurricane.
The massive storm hit Louisiana early last Thursday with 150 mile-per-hour (240 kph) winds, damaging buildings, knocking down trees and cutting power supplies.
Sasol did not indicate how much production would be impacted but said it was engaging with its customers and suppliers and would update the market when it had more certainty.
The company said a damage assessment was being conducted at Lake Charles with early reports indicating no damage to process equipment and no flood damage despite damage to its cooling towers from the high wind speeds.
Manufacturing operations in Greens Bayou and Winnie in Texas were not affected by the storm, it said.
“Start-up of the plants will depend on the availability of electricity, industrial gases, other feedstocks and the restoration process,” Sasol said in a statement.
The company, which is in talks for a potential partner at its US Base Chemicals plant, said it did not envisage any impact on the potential transaction.
Investors have been concerned by the company’s debt, largely due to delays and cost overruns at the Louisiana plant, including from heavy rainfall in 2017 due to Tropical Storm Harvey.
The Lake Charles Chemical Complex has seven manufacturing units and produces products used in the manufacture of soaps, detergents and cosmetics as well as speciality chemicals used in thickeners and pharmaceuticals.
As MRC reported earlier, Hanwha Group has lost to US-based chemical company Chevron Phillips in a bid to acquire a 50% stake in global chemical company Sasol’s ethane cracking center (ECC) located in Louisiana, for which the South Korean conglomerate offered more than USD3 billion.
We remind that Sasol's 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 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 DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
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.
MRC