Celanese begins methanol production at Clear Lake, Texas

Celanese Corp., a global technology and specialty materials company, has announced it has completed construction of its Clear Lake, Texas methanol unit and is now operating at full rates. This methanol unit is a joint venture between Celanese and Mitsui & Co. Ltd., of Tokyo, Japan and has annual capacity of 1.3 million t.

“Everyone at Celanese is incredibly proud of this accomplishment. This investment provides us with supply certainty for a critical raw material and allows the Acetyl Chain to gain the economic benefit of abundant low-cost US natural gas,” said Mark Rohr, Chairman and CEO, Celanese Corp. “By leveraging our existing infrastructure and executing a very aggressive project plan, we were able to complete the methanol unit in 19 months and have it fully operational in 21 months with a capital cost of less than US$700/t. Congratulations to the team for completing the most efficient and economical greenfield methanol plant in recent industry history.”

Edited from press release by Angharad Lock

Read the article online at: https://www.hydrocarbonengineering.com/petrochemicals/16102015/celanese-begins-methanol-production-at-clear-lake-texas-1421/