Methanol demand prompted Methanex Corp. (TSX:MX) to restart production July 5 at its second methanol plant at its Motunui site in New Zealand.
The move will boost capacity by 650,000 tonnes of methanol each year for Vancouver-based Methanex, which is the world’s largest methanol supplier and distributor. The result will be a total of 1.5 million tonnes of methanol from the Motunui site.
Methanex said earlier this year that reopening the second plant would cost about $60 million.
The company has recently had its share of plant outages and had to shut down its Egypt plant for about three weeks in November. Methanex also idled three of its four plants in Chile after it faced natural gas shortages.
The company’s main business is turning natural gas into methanol.
“With the improved natural gas supply position that has developed in New Zealand over the past several years, we have further opportunities to increase production by de-bottlenecking the Motunui site and potentially restarting our plant at the nearby Waitara Valley site,” Methanex CEO Bruce Aitken said in a release.
“The plant adds a competitive new supply source for our customers in the fast-growing Asian markets.”
