MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sasol’s new C3 expansion project was inaugurated on Monday and will increase the company’s production of polypropylene by some 100 000 tonnes per annum, said Mineweb.
"This particular investment further entrenches Sasol as a global chemicals player,” said Stephen Cornell, joint president and CEO of Sasol Limited. "With more than R1 billion invested, we are proud to unveil yet another major capital investment in South Africa, our home."
The inauguration concludes a project that has been three years in the making and which created 920 jobs during the construction process. The investment was designed to remove bottlenecks at Secunda’s PP1 and PP2 plants through the installation of hydraulic capacity. "We also undertook this work without shutting down the plants," said Cornell, "and despite the complexity, the project had an excellent safety record."
Polypropylene is one of the world’s most widely-used petrochemical products and doubles as both a plastic and a fibre. The product has a variety of applications which include packaging for consumer products, plastic parts for various industries including the automotive industry, and textiles. Strong underlying trends in the packaging of consumer products, in particular, underpinned the investment rationale for Sasol.
Cornell says overall consumption of polypropylene is growing at 4% year-on-year in South Africa, and the additional material will be sold domestically and into export markets through Sasol’s Chemicals Business.
"We will continue to partner with our downstream convertor manufacturers, to supply them with particular grades which will allow them to broaden their offering and compete in international markets."
Sasol expects the expanded capacity will result in additional export sales of USD1.7 billion over the project’s life.
As MRC informed earlier, Fluor Corporation has been awarded a contract by Sasol Group Technology, a division of Sasol South Africa Ltd., for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the Additional Oxygen Capacity Train 17 outside battery limits project at its Secunda plant in South Africa.
Sasol Limited is an integrated energy and chemical company that began in Sasolburg, South Africa in 1950. It develops and commercialises technologies and builds and operates world-scale facilities to produce a range of product streams including liquid fuels, chemicals.
MRC