MOSCOW (MRC) -- Sasol Ltd. said its Lake Charles Chemicals Project in Louisiana remains shut, though no apparent damage to equipment was found following the nearby landfall of Hurricane Delta, reported Bloomberg.
While a preliminary assessment is underway, crews also indicated no flooding damage was experienced at the site from the hurricane that hit on Oct. 9, the company said in a reply to questions. Some power supply was lost overnight.
Delta was the second major weather system to strike the vicinity of the complex in less than two months. Hurricane Laura knocked out electricity to the site for weeks as Sasol struggles to finish the project that has been 99% complete since March. It was approved in 2014 at an estimated cost of USD8.1 billion, with a further $800 million budgeted for infrastructure improvement and land acquisition, but various setbacks have increased the total price tag to almost USD12.9 billion.
“We will resume the coordinated startup sequence of Sasol’s Lake Charles facilities when it is safe to do so,” the company said. “Start-up will depend on the availability of electricity and other feedstocks as well as the restoration process underway from Hurricane Laura.”
As MRC wrote previously, Sasol expected to restart crackers and downstream derivative units at its Lake Charles, Louisiana, complex by early- to mid-October once full load power is restored. By late September, Sasol had finished damage assessments of all 14 manufacturing units and associated utilities and infrastructure at the complex, which was shut ahead of Hurricane Laura's Aug. 27 assault. Lake Charles took a direct hit from the Category 4 storm, which came ashore Aug. 27 packing 150 mph winds.
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 the company's six new derivative units at its 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 1,496,500 tonnes in the first eight months of 2020, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of all ethylene polymers increased, except for linear low desnity polyethylene (LLDPE). At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 767,2900 tonnes in the eight months of 2020 (calculated using the formula - production minus exports plus imports - and not counting producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.
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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