Sasol starts engineering work on US octene, hexene project

12 November 2009 17:09  [Source: ICIS news]

TORONTO (ICIS news)--Sasol has started basic engineering work on its planned 100,000 tonne/year 1-octene and 1-hexene plant in the US to meet rising demand, the South Africa-based international energy and chemicals major said on Thursday.

Sasol awarded the basic engineering contract to Jacobs and expects that part of the project to be completed by the third quarter of 2010, it said.

Construction could begin in 2011, with commercial production starting up in 2013, the company said.

The exact location for the facility, which will run on Sasol’s proprietary tetramerisation technology, has yet to be determined, Sasol said. However, Lake Charles, Louisiana, was a leading candidate, it added.

Sasol is described as the world’s largest producer of 1-octene, a product used primarily as a co-monomer in the production of high performance linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) resins.

The company’s announcement came as Dow Chemical chief executive Andrew Liveris said earlier on Thursday that his company remained very confident on the outlook of its leading US-based polyethylene production.

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By: Stefan Baumgarten
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