Fluor Corp. announced that its joint venture with TechnipFMC plc has successfully completed its engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services scope of work on Sasol’s world-scale petrochemical complex in Westlake, Louisiana. The joint venture will continue to provide assistance to the Sasol team with remaining activities by working with Sasol in parallel on transition plans for each unit and system. The joint venture team will also assist in performance testing for the complex.
A 1.5-million-ton-per-year ethane cracker is at the heart of the complex, which also includes six downstream chemical units and associated utilities, infrastructure and offsites.
“This milestone is the culmination of nearly seven years of hard work by Fluor’s project team and we are proud to have successfully delivered our scope,” said Mark Fields, president of Fluor’s Energy & Chemicals business in the Americas. “We brought our extensive U.S. Gulf Coast construction and megaproject expertise using our integrated solutions approach, and we are proud of the lasting positive impact this project will have on Southwest Louisiana.”
Beginning in November 2018, Fluor’s joint venture began incremental transitions of assets from the joint venture to Sasol upon completion of each unit or system. All units have been transitioned to Sasol except for the low-density polyethylene unit, which will be handed over by the end of March 2019.
The project achieved first steam in August 2018. Utilities to support the early process units were fully operational by the end of November 2018 and the linear low-density polyethylene unit achieved beneficial operations in February 2019.
More than 6,000 staff and craft were on site at peak to build the complex, which use the ethylene produced by the cracker to manufacture high-value chemicals that are used in everyday consumer products. The project team strengthened and widened more than two miles of roadway in the community to support the completion of more than 500 heavy haul transports to the project site.
The Fluor joint venture integrated a team of 30 main construction contractors and worked in collaboration with Sasol to strengthen the local economy, with more than $4 billion committed to Louisiana businesses. AMECO, Fluor’s equipment division, provided construction equipment to various subcontractors onsite.
