Celanese Corporation and Mitsui & Co Ltd on October 15, 2015 operationalised their Clear Lake, Texas, methanol plant having an annual capacity of 1.3 million metric tonnes. “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 chief executive officer, Celanese Corporation.
Companies claim that the new unit is the most efficient and economical greenfield methanol plant in recent industry history. “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 $700 per tonne,” Rohr added.
