Sasol’s multibillion-dollar Lake Charles Chemical Project in Louisiana, United States, is easily the biggest project ever undertaken by a South African company off-shore. And in Louisiana it is the largest single manufacturing investment in the history of the state, dwarfing those of the 500 companies from 50 countries that have been drawn by the abundance of liquefied natural gas in the region.
Even this figure had drifted from the “worst-case scenario” of $11-billion, projected in August 2016. Grobler’s team initiated a full review of the costs and build schedule which showed that while the project was largely on schedule with three units already operating, the ethane cracker coming online in July 2019 and the last unit coming on stream in February 2020, the cost assumptions were just plain wrong.I want to say how disappointed we are to be talking to you about a further increase to the capital costs.
The market did not take well to the update, with the Sasol share price falling about 13% on the day to R375.00.Is anyone going to take responsibility? It doesn’t look like it,” says Karl Gevers, head of research at Benguela Asset Management.The biggest issue here is the already fragile perception of management quality — they don’t seem to have their finger on the pulse.”There are no guarantees in investing and I will have to take responsibility for my decisions.
Assets with an aggregate net asset value of $2-billion will be sold. Whether these will include some South African assets has not been disclosed. The latest statement is that internal returns on the project are now expected at between 6%-6.5%, down from 7.5% previously.
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