Two months behind schedule, South African petrochemicals producer Sasol has started up the first of seven production units planned for its delayed complex at Lake Charles, Louisiana, in the US. The site’s 450,000 t/y LLDPE plant went on stream on Feb. 13.

Sasol said the remaining plants will come online in over the course of 2019, all at least two months after the projected start-up date. The cost of the project has risen steadily and is now expected to be close to $12 billion.

Altogether, the investment will comprise a 1.5 million t/y gas-fed cracker and 900,000 t/y of polyethylene, including a 450,000 t/y LDPE unit.

Under the group’s revised commissioning timetable, the cracker will not start up until July, rather than February as originally announced. The 300,000 t/y ethylene oxide/glycol facility, also previously announced for February, has been delayed to June, while the LDPE will start up in August rather than March.

The two specialty alcohols plants are now set to begin operation in November 2019 and January 2020 respectively.

In the seven years since Sasol first unveiled plans for the complex, commissioning dates for the production units have been repeatedly pushed into the future. At one point it looked as the project would not be viable as lengthening US shale gas supply led oil prices to drop, making the financial prospects less attractive.

Ironically, the complex – like most of the growing number of similar projects on the US Gulf Coast – was conceived to take advantage of shale gas