Methanex, the world’s largest trader of methanol, this morning said it had re-started its 530,000 tonne per year Waitara Valley plant in Taranaki, which can use up to 20 petajoules of gas a year.
Company senior vice-president (global marketing and logistics) John Floren said the decision to re-start the valley plant was driven by the Methanex view of world methanol industry balances.
Continuing strong demand, as well as planned and unplanned global supply outages, meant world inventories of methanol were at extremely low levels.
Public affairs director Diana Barkley told PetroleumNews.net from Vancouver that Methanex expected to be running the valley plant at full capacity until at least the end of the year.
“There appears to be plenty of gas for the short-term operation of the valley plant,” she told PNN, though she declined to say which company or companies it had contracted to supply the latest batch of gas.
There are up to six Taranaki fields that together could supply the 8PJ of gas Methanex needs to run the valley plant at full capacity for five months.
But industry sources say the most-likely source is unwanted Maui gas that Contact and Vector subsidiary NGC are entitled to, but do not need, now that the worst of the New Zealand winter is over and gas-fired power stations are not being run hard.
Contact and NGC are entitled to all “right of first refusal” (ROFR) Maui gas that is produced outside the original Maui gas contract, including output from the two Ihi wells that were recently drilled from the Maui A platform.
In April, the Maui partners – Shell New Zealand, Todd Energy and Austrian firm OMV – said they were offering more than 200PJ of ROFR gas into the market.
The current contract methanol price for the Asia-Pacific region is $US310 per tonne, meaning Methanex can afford to pay $NZ5.50-6.50 ($A4.73-5.59) per gigajoule for its gas and still operate the valley on commercially viable terms.
Methanex mothballed its larger twin-train Motunui methanol complex in late 2004, citing a lack of available economically priced gas. It now operates the valley plant as a swing producer.
