Methanol plant in Washington state called off by developers

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Northwest Innovation Works (NWIW) will be terminating its lease at the port of Kalama, effectively halting its $2bn methanol plant project in the US Pacific Northwest.

The plant would have added 3.6m tonnes/year of methanol, which would have been exported to China to be used in its growing methanol-to-olefins (MTO) industry.

If the project had been realised, it would have been the world’s largest methanol plant. The proposal for the project, first released in 2014, has drawn fierce opposition from environmental groups in the state.

The plant was also subject to years-long regulatory difficulties.

In November 2019, the state Department of Ecology said it needed a second supplemental environmental impact statement on the plant. A December 2020 report said if the plant were built it would have been one of the top 10 carbon dioxide (CO2) emitters in the state.

Then in January 2021, the Department of Ecology made the decision to deny NWIW the shoreline conditional use permit, citing the greenhouse gas emissions and shoreline impacts.

This led to NWIW’s decision to halt the project, the company said in a statement.

“The regulatory environment has become unclear and unpredictable. NWIWK is temporising its development activities to assess the new regulatory and political landscape and determine an appropriate path forward,” the company said.

Port of Kalama officials point to the state’s regulatory and political environment for halting the project.

“All the state has accomplished is to encourage more severe greenhouse gas emissions outside the borders of Washington and declare a false climate victory,” port director Mark Wilson said.

The halting of the project was celebrated by environmental groups like the Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit conservation organisation.

“Kalama was a disaster waiting to happen, so this is a crucial victory for our climate and the people and wildlife along the Columbia river,” said Jared Margolis, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity.

“We need to move away from these climate bombs that would lock us into an unsustainable future and pollute the air and water we all need to survive,” he added.

In the past, environmental group coalitions including Power Past Fracked Gas, Stand Up to Oil and Power Past Coal have halted proposed projects such as gas pipelines, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, coal export terminals and oil-by-rail developments in the Pacific Northwest.

Thumbnail image shows a bottle of methanol. Image by Shutterstock.