The senior Asia-Pacific vice-president told EnergyReview.Net that he hoped Methanex would have some firm economics available and have selected the preferred technology, as well as a shortlist of likely engineering contractors, within a month or so.
Relocating the mothballed methanol train from the giant 1.8 million-tonne Motunui complex in north Taranaki has been ruled out however.
"By the end of May we should know whether the revised project is either 'all go' or 'no-go'. It's busy times for us across the Tasman," Aitken said in Auckland before flying to Wellington and Australia.
Last month Methanex announced foreign exchange blowouts had caused the corporation to put a hold on the proposed $A2 billion greenfields project at the Burrup Peninsula. It said the capital cost of the proposed two-million tonne development had become disproportionately high.
Methanex said then it was studying alternatives for long-term methanol supply to its Asia-Pacific customers, including installing capacity at Burrup in smaller increments that would be more manageable from a cost perspective.
Aitken told EnergyReview.Net this week that he still believed a smaller scale project, with perhaps similar technology, would be chosen as the preferred option and hoped the Vancouver-based Methanex board would give its final financial approval of that preferred project in July.
"We can start almost immediately after board approval and physical work on the ground could start later in the third quarter of this year, with first methanol produced in late 2005."
The Burrup plant originally proposed was to use the latest "syngas" technology, with options for future expansion and the construction of other plants, which could manufacture other products using the same syngas technology.
Methanex concluded a detailed gas sales and purchase agreement, which "links" the gas purchase price to the world methanol price, with the North West Shelf partners last year.
Methanex had an approved sales plan of 2.6 million tonnes for the Asia-Pacific region this year and mainland China was continuing to show strong economic growth, of around 15% per annum.
Methanex was looking to source up to a million tonnes of methanol for Asia-Pacific from New Zealand this year, coupled with another million tonnes from its Chilean and North American operations. However, it had been forced to cancel a small number of contracts because of the 60% drop in Taranaki methanol production, Aitken added.
Earlier this year the devastating Netherland Sewell and Associates International final report of economically recoverable Maui gas reserves concluded Methanex had used essentially all its entitlements to Maui gas and the corporation subsequently closed its Waitara Valley plant and one of two methanol trains at its giant 1.8 million-tonne Motunui complex in north Taranaki.
Aitken told EnergyReview.Net that Methanex had investigated the possibility of progressively dismantling the idled Motunui train, for subsequent shipping to and reassembling in Western Australia, but had decided not to proceed.
However, the Canadian corporation had continued investigating several other options involving different technologies and smaller scale projects.
Methanex was also monitoring the effect of the SARS epidemic and had recently banned company travel to China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Toronto.
The corporation hoped the epidemic could be contained, both from a human and economic point of view, and that there would be few worldwide flow-on effects, Aitken concluded.
