An ethylene oxide production facility is now online at Sasol’s Lake Charles Chemical Project.
The announcement comes a month after the company’s ethylene glycol at the same site also achieved beneficial operation. The combined EO/EG process unit is the second of seven plants to come online at the Lake Charles site.
“Ethylene oxide production plays an important role in our alcohol and surfactants growth strategy,” Fleetwood Grobler, executive vice president for Sasol’s chemicals business, said in a company press release. “The startup of this unit allows Sasol to be fully integrated from ethane to alcohols to surfactants at the Lake Charles site.”
Sasol’s EO facility in Lake Charles has a nameplate capacity of 300,000 tons per year and features Scientific Design technology. EO produced at the site will be used as feedstock by the company’s existing ethoxylates unit at LCCP, and another 100 ktpa ETO facility at the site that is currently under construction.
“The LCCP continues to transform North America into a major part of Sasol’s global business, delivering value for all Sasol’s stakeholders,” said Bernard Klingenberg, executive vice president for operations at Sasol, in a statement. “Our team of Sasol employees, contractors, and industry partners continues to deliver the LCCP with the start-up of our second process unit.”
Work on the five remaining facilities are slated to reach a conclusion in 2019 through early 2020.
