Analysis of the demand for externally purchased methanol in China’s MTO plants in 2018

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This post was last edited by liaifeng on 2018-7-29 at 15:37. Latest analysis on China’s demand for externally purchased methanol in MTO plants in 2018. Author/Source: Yaha Coal Chemicals. Date: 2018-05-08. Clicks: 16. ● China’s demand for externally purchased methanol for MTO use in 2018 reached 13.29 million tons per year. ● The demand for such methanol in the East China region was 8.91 million tons per year. ● The 2018 Methanol and Emerging Downstream Industries Forum focused on the drivers behind MTO and high-value applications. Driven by the CTO/MTO industry, China’s methanol sector continues to see growth in both new production capacity and consumption. The additional methanol production capacity expected in 2018 will reach 7.02 million tons. New methanol downstream facilities will still be primarily focused on the production of olefins from methanol (including integrated coal-based methanol to olefins processes); the additional methanol production capacity will be 3.4 million tons per year, while the additional olefin production capacity will be 1.7 million tons per year. Classified by the supply channels for methanol raw materials, China’s coal (methanol)-based olefin production projects (CTO/MTO) can be divided into the following six categories: 1 Integrated coal (coke oven gas)-based methanol-to-olefins plants ； 2 Make full use of existing coal-to-methanol production capacity ； 3 Build additional methanol production capacity on top of the existing methanol facilities ； 4 Purchase some methanol in addition to the existing methanol production capacity ； 5 Completely purchased methanol ； 6 Methanol needs to be purchased in the initial stage, while plans should be made to establish new methanol production capacity in the future. This article will focus on analyzing the methanol demand of MTO units in China that required to purchase methanol in 2018. According to data from Yahuaxun Consulting, since the construction of the first methanol-to-olefins plant that relied on externally sourced methanol in 2011, by the end of 2017, China had 10 MTO plants in operation that used either entirely externally sourced methanol or partially such methanol. Including the Cornell MTO plant with a capacity of 300,000 tons per year, which is set to come online in 2018, China’s MTO capacity for imported methanol will reach 5.36 million tons per year by that time. The total MTO capacity of 5.36 million tons per year in 2018 will consume 14.79 million tons of methanol per year; aside from the amount of methanol used by some MTO plants from their own supplies, the total demand for purchased methanol will amount to 13.29 million tons per year. These devices are mainly distributed in China’s East China, Northwest China, Northeast China, and Central China regions. Among them, the East China region has the highest demand for purchased methanol, at 8.91 million tons per year. http://img.yf116.cn/image/img/20180508/154423566632.jpg According to statistics from Yaha Consulting, the planned production capacity of methanol projects in China from 2018 to 2022 will exceed 35 million tons. In 2018, an additional 7.02 million tons of methanol production capacity was expected to be added. Over the next 5 years, China’s new methanol production capacity will mainly come from methanol production units integrated with coal-to-olefins projects, as well as from minor expansions and upgrades of existing methanol plants, methanol production via coal-to-natural gas for peak-demand management, and methanol production units using coke oven gas.