China group mulls building world’s largest methanol plant in Texas

HOUSTON (ICIS)–A Chinese group is considering building the largest methanol plant in the world on the Houston Ship Channel, a Galveston official said on Tuesday.

The $4.5bn project, under study by Chinese chemical firm Connell Group and Sino Life Insurance, would build a plant at Shoal Point near the port of Texas City and also a large deep-sea marine export terminal there.

The project at full capacity could produce up to 7.2m tonnes of methanol a year for export to China, according to a news release.

It would be built in two phases with a 3.6m-tonne train in each phase, said CB “Bix” Rathburn, president of the Galveston County Economic Alliance.

“This is massive,” Rathburn said. “And it would all be for export to China.”

However, the proposed plant might also be built in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, which is south of Baton Rouge on the Mississippi river and not far from another large methanol plant with Chinese backing that was announced last week.

Rathburn said the final investment decision would not be made until the second quarter of 2015.

The project would be more than triple the size of the largest methanol plant in the world now, which is the 1.9m-tonne M5000 unit in Trinidad & Tobago.

The project is just the latest announcement this year showing huge interest in making methanol from cheap and abundant US natural gas for export to China.

The following lists other methanol projects in North America.