Sasol sells half of Lake Charles

摘要

SASOL has sold half its stake in its Lake Charles petrochemicals complex in the US to LyondellBasell for US$2bn as it continues its drive to pay down debt. LyondellBasell will operate the assets in Louisiana which include a 1.5m t/y ethane cracker and 900,000 t/y low and linear-low density polyethylene plants. The complex is among a wave of investments by chemicals firms to use cheap US shale gas as a feedstock. However, Sasol struggled to complete the project on time and budget, seeing the cost of the complex balloon to US$12.8bn from the US$8.ibn investment that Sasol approved in 2014.