The companies, which have been partners for 40 years, aim to negotiate final agreements within the coming months. A deal will also include a multi-year investment and modernization plan, although the initial investment will be about €440 million.

In addition to the plant it directly operates, Air Liquide previously built and sold to Sasol 16 air separation units at Secunda, which has an installed capacity of 42,000 t/d and is, according to Sasol, the biggest oxygen production site in the world.

The South African energy and chemical company said outsourcing oxygen production to Air Liquide would improve safety, reliability and operational efficiency as well as reducing the CO₂ emissions directly linked to producing the gas by 30-40% by 2030.

Part of this CO₂ reduction would also come from using renewable energy and Sasol said it has called for tenders to supply 600 MW to the Secunda site.

“We have embarked on a journey to reposition Sasol of the future as a more resilient and sustainable enterprise,” said Fleetwood Grobler, Sasol’s president and CEO. “In the short term, a number of measures has been developed and one of these measures is the acceleration of our asset divestment program to streamline our portfolio by focusing on core assets.”

One of the assets that Sasol is looking to partly offload is its problem-plagued chemical complex at Lake Charles, Louisiana, USA. Bloomberg news agency reported in June that Ineos, Chevron Phillips Chemical and LyondellBasell had offered to take a stake and had advanced to a second round of bidding.

Air Liquide closes sales

On Aug. 3, Air Liquide completed the divestment of its subsidiary Schülke & Mayr to private equity investor EQT. The sale, previously announced in April, realized a total value of between €925 million and €1 billion.

Days earlier, on Jul. 30, Air Liquide also closed the sale of its Cryopdp subsidiary to French private equity firm Hivest Capital Partners. Financial terms of this transaction were not disclosed.