Thursday, June 14, 2012

Celanese Plans Texas Methanol Plant to Tap Cheap Gas (CE)

Continuing the trend we saw in our earlier post "Natural Gas Prices Bringing Plastics Manufacturing Back to U.S. (DOW; CHV)".
February's post, "Natural Gas: Buy the Chemical Companies that Use the Stuff (HUN; MEOH)" spotlighted another methanol producer, Methanex.

From Bloomberg:
Celanese Corp. (CE), the world’s largest maker of acetic acid, plans to produce methanol outside Houston to supply its plants with the material derived from low-cost natural gas.

The factory at the company’s site in Clear Lake, Texas, would be capable of producing 1.3 metric tons of methanol a year when operations begin after July 1, 2015, Dallas-based Celanese said today in a statement. Celanese, which uses methanol to make acetic acid, plans to sign up a partner to take some of the supply.

Celanese is the latest chemical maker to announce new factories aimed at taking advantage of inexpensive U.S. gas, which hit a 10-year low in April, providing a cost advantage over regions that rely on oil-based raw materials. Methanex Corp. (MX), the world’s biggest methanol maker, is relocating a Chilean factory to Louisiana, and Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. is spending $5 billion to make plastics in Texas....MORE
See also: Natural Gas: T. Boone Says "Biggest Deterrent To U.S. Energy Plan Is Koch Industries":
Too funny.
Someone should tell Boone that one man's output is another man's input.
From Yahoo:
...Pickens' biggest concern right now centers on what he sees as the Obama administration's lack of an energy policy. He says special interests are blocking real energy reform, and he singles out Koch Industries, a chemical, fertilizer and refining juggernaut run by brothers David and Charles Koch, as the main culprit.
"The biggest deterrent to an energy plan in America is Koch Industries," he says. "They do not want an energy plan for America because they have the cheapest natural gas price they've ever had, and they're in the fertilizer business and they're in the chemical business. So their margins are huge....