Sasol Ltd. (Johannesburg, South Africa) announced that the Guerbet alcohol unit at the Lake Charles Chemicals Project (LCCP) achieved beneficial operations on 19 June 2020. This follows three days after achieving beneficial operations on the Ziegler alcohol unit, bringing the online capacity of LCCP’s specialty chemicals units to 100% and LCCP’s total online nameplate capacity to 86%.
The beneficial operations of these LCCP facilities progresses Sasol’s seven-unit U.S. Gulf Coast mega project to the cusp of completion,” said Sasol President and Chief Executive Officer, Fleetwood Grobler. “The additional capacity strengthens Sasol’s leadership position in the specialty alcohol and alumina markets, which is core to the company’s Chemicals growth strategy.”
“Our investment in Lake Charles – including the additional ethoxylation capacity that began operation in January 2020 – combined with the startup of our new ethoxylation unit in Nanjing, China in 2019, strengthens our existing asset base,” said Sasol Executive Vice President: Chemicals Business, Brad Griffith.
The LCCP Ziegler unit is an extension of the existing Ziegler plant in Lake Charles and is the largest of its kind in the world adding nameplate capacity of 173,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr) of alcohol and 32,000 m.t./yr of alumina. This addition strengthens Sasol’s significant economies of scale, leveraging the company’s deep technical and operating experience.
The Ziegler unit supplements Sasol’s global production of alcohols and aluminas, adding to existing Ziegler capacity in both Lake Charles and Brunsbuettel, Germany. The unit is the most technically complex of the units in the LCCP and is based on Sasol’s proprietary technology. Benefited by the most modern technology and years of experience with this unique process, the Ziegler unit started up smoothly, within market guidance.
The additional alumina capacity from the Ziegler unit will enable Sasol to supply the increasing market demand for tailor-made, high purity alumina products used in a variety of market applications such as catalysts, films, ceramics and abrasives. The expansion will support the growth aspirations of customers requiring Sasol’s unique alkoxide based alumina products.
Sasol’s new Guerbet unit on the U.S. Gulf Coast is the company’s second Guerbet alcohol production site; the other is also located in Brunsbuettel. The unit in Lake Charles is the largest Guerbet alcohol plant in the world and has a nameplate capacity of 30,000 m.t./yr.
The Guerbet unit is a two-fold scale-up of Sasol’s proprietary technology used in Brunsbuettel. The project and operations teams from both Lake Charles and Brunsbuettel worked exceedingly well to bring the Guerbet unit onstream without problems.
The last remaining unit to come online at LCCP will be the low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plant. This is on track for beneficial operations by the end of September 2020, as per previous guidance. At the end of May 2020, the LCCP capital expenditure was tracking the previously communicated guidance of $12.8 billion.
To date, the LCCP has generated more than 800 full-time quality manufacturing jobs, with up to 6,500 people on site du