Methanex NZ managing director Harvey Weake told PetroleumNews.net he was confident of securing the necessary quantities of commercial gas “within the month or so”, which would allow a restart later this year of the second 900,000-tonne methanol production unit at Motunui.
“The site is pretty clean,” he said.
“There has been minimal maintenance over the past three years in the hope that a restart would one day be possible; and the hundred or so staff could easily shift back.”
The “Meth 2” unit can produce up to 900,000 tonnes from 34 petajoules per year, while the nearby Waitara Valley plant can produce up to 530,000t of chemical-grade methanol a year, using about 20PJ of gas to do so, according to Weake.
“If we restart Meth 2 we would then close the Valley – there would not be enough gas to run both,” he said.
He declined to name the parties Methanex was negotiating with regarding future gas supplies, but he did say there were “several potential suppliers”.
When Methanex mothballed the 1.8 million tonne twin-train Motunui complex in December 2004, Weake said it was the only methanol plant in the world to shut because of insufficient gas.
Weake predicted continuing strong world methanol prices as countries explored more uses for the petrochemical, particularly in transport, as methanol fuel blends were better for the environment, with lower carbon emissions.
The latest Methanex report says its average methanol price for the fourth 2007 quarter was $US514 ($A578) per tonne – much higher than the $US270 ($A304 million) per tonne earned in the third quarter.
