Aug 26 2010
ResearchInChina, the vertical portal for Chinese business intelligence, announces the release of a new report - China Methanol Industry Report, 2009-2010.
The raw materials like natural gas, coal and coke oven gas serve for methanol production. The international methanol production equipment mostly employs natural gas as the raw material while methanol production in China gives priority to coal. In 2009, the total capacity of methanol in China amounted to 26.79 million tons, of which, the capacity of coal to methanol reached 16.65 million tons (62%), that of natural gas to methanol 6.16 million tons (23%), and that of coke oven gas to methanol 4 million tons (15%).
In China, coal-to-methanol enterprises mainly cover Hebei Qianan Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., Henan Longyu Coal Chemical Co., Ltd., Yankuang Guohong Coal Chemical Co., Ltd., etc.; natural gas-to-methanol enterprises include Inner Mongolia Yuan Xing Energy Company Limited, Shaanxi Yulin Natural Gas Chemical Industry Co., Ltd., CNOOC Kingboard Chemical Limited, etc.; and coke oven gas-to-methanol enterprises are composed of Shanxi Tianhao Chemical Co., Ltd., Shanxi Coking (Group) Co., Ltd, etc.
This report studies the capacity, output, demand, downstream consumption structure and the operation of key enterprises in China’s methanol industry as well as the key application of methanol in the future, i.e. the development of methanol gasoline and methanol to olefins.
Among the methanol downstream consumption structure in China in 2009, formaldehyde, dimethyl ether, methanol fuel, and acetate acid accounted for 29%, 20%, 12% and 9% respectively. Along with the vigorously promoted methanol gasoline in China, the demand for methanol fuel will increase significantly in the future. After over two decades’ demonstration & popularization of methanol gasoline in Shanxi Province, it is proven that methanol gasoline is economical, environment-friendly, and technically feasible. Against the release and implementation of national standards concerning methanol gasoline, the popularization and application of methanol gasoline is about to embrace rapid growth and the demand of methanol will boom.
Apart from methanol gasoline, (coal to) methanol to olefins in novel coal chemical industry is also the key potential application of methanol. There are altogether three national demonstration projects of methanol to olefins, two of which have successfully carried out pilot production of olefins with coal to methanol as the raw material. In addition to demonstration projects, 10 additional (coal-to)-methanol-to-olefins projects are still under construction. The success and popularization of methanol-to-olefins demonstration projects will effectively dealt with the over-capacity of methanol in China.