Sasol, the world’s biggest producer of liquid fuels from coal, says the first units at its Lake Charles chemical project will start operating in 2018, as the company reported lower first-half profit because of currency losses and a strike.
Bloomberg reports the Lake Charles project is 64% complete and still within its $11 billion budget, co-CEO Stephen Cornell says in a statement issued this morning. The fundamental drivers for the investment “remain sound,” he adds.
Sasol says the cost of the project in Louisiana had escalated by almost 25% last year, prompting the South African company to make cuts elsewhere. The chemicals complex, which includes a 1.5 million-tons-a-year cracker, will convert ethane into plastics and other products.
Sasol’s profit before one-time items, known as headline earnings, for the six months through December decreased 38% to $1.16 a share, the company says.
Sasol feels “very comfortable” as the company prepares to enter a fresh round of negotiations with workers around May, Cornell says. “We believe that hopefully we’re in a better spot than we were last year,” he says.
