Published on February 20, 2017
Recently Methanol prices surged with very fast velocity. This month Chinese methanol market strengthens with prices of imported positive. In near term Chinese methanol market is anticipated to remain strong.
As per the recent report in near term some of the downstream plants restarting on account of this methanol demand will go up. Downstream sectors, acetic acid and formaldehyde see the fastest recovery, with plant operating rates escalate to around 80% and 21% respectively. MTO industry restarted their MTO plants. In addition, the run rate of Fund Energy’s MTO plant in Ningbo was lifted to 100% which will escalate the demand of methanol.
Moreover, some of the methanol plants operations have been interpreted which has resulted in higher cost and supply discrepancy. Zagros petrochemical co in Iran has shut its plant due to shortage of gas on 3rd Feb which is having the production capacity of around 1650kt/yr and run rate has been recovered to 70%. Salah methanol also shut on 12th Feb.
Some plants in Iran and other main origins of Chinese methanol imports were either shut or running at lower rate, leading to drops in methanol production to China. In near term higher demand and supply inconsistency will boost the methanol market in China.
Methanol market was expected to remain tight in the first half of 2017. Availability in all regions should be limited due to incremental demand from the Chinese MTO sector and lack of new methanol projects globally.
