Spot US methanol jumps to new yearly high, 132 cents/gal

HOUSTON (ICIS)–The US spot barge methanol price pushed up to 132 cents/gal this week, a new yearly high, stemming from plant and shipping issues this month.

Spot methanol prices have jumped nearly 11% in October, following the outage of a plant in Trinidad earlier this month and also the delay of a large shipment from Venezuela to Europe last week.

On Tuesday spot methanol for October delivery rose to the new yearly high, and to the same level for November delivery. There have also been trades at 130 cents/gal for both months.

The previous yearly high for spot methanol, 130 cents/gal, came in January. The low for the year, 109.5 cents/gal, came in late July, only weeks after the new 1.8m tonne/year OCI Natgasoline plant started up in Texas.

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