Petronas' Labuan methanol unit to start Oct

18 August 2008 04:11  [Source: ICIS news]

SINGAPORE (ICIS news)--Petroliam Nasional (PETRONAS) expects to start commercial production at its new 1.7m tonne/year methanol plant in Labuan, East Malaysia, by October, a company source said late on Friday.

“Commissioning of the plant started in May and so far it has passed all the [commissioning] exercises,” he added.

The plant is a project of PETRONAS subsidiary, PETRONAS Methanol (Labuan) Sdn Bhd (PML) and will be the largest in Asia.   

The world-scale plant, which uses Lurgi's mega methanol technology, has a production capacity of 5,000 tonnes per day or 1.7m tonnes per year.

It is expected to use about 150m cubic feet of gas per year from the offshore fields of Sabah as feedstock.

Malaysian International Trading Corp (MITCO) will be marketing the products of this new plant to the domestic market as well as to the rest of Asia.

“Pre-marketing efforts have commenced since 2006, as we seek contractual agreements with customers to ensure stable supply,” the source added.

The current global demand for methanol totals than more than 47m tonnes/year, and has been growing at a rate of 2-3% per annum.

Methanol demand is expected to grow, especially in Asia, due to the strong economic growth. New methanol uses include dimethyl ether and fuel blending, market players said.

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By: Heng Hui
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