OCI Global (OCI) has announced plans to expand its green methanol production capacity to about 400,000 metric tonnes per year in response to rising demand for green methanol.
The scale-up plans include entering into supply agreements for renewable natural gas (RNG) exceeding 15,000 mmbtu per day – as well as securing the waste and development rights from the City of Beaumont.
This is OCI’s first upstream RNG manufacturing plant, with production set to begin in the first quarter of 2025.
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OCI presently has a capacity of 200,000 metric tonnes of green methanol. Off-takers include the road fuels market, where it is used as a fuel mix to minimise emissions from petrol, as a building block in a variety of industrial applications and, most recently, as a shipping fuel.
Based on the 225 dual-fuelled methanol vessels now on order, OCI forecasts growth in the green methanol industry of more than 6 million tonnes by 2028 owing to the introduction of green methanol as a shipping fuel.
On its first journey from Korea to Copenhagen in June, Maersk’s first green methanol container vessel was fuelled by OCI HyFuels green methanol.
Ahmed El-Hoshy, CEO, OCI Global, said: “Today’s announcement cements OCI’s position as the leading green methanol producer globally. It also represents another milestone in our decarbonisation journey as a business, and our commitment to driving the energy transition.
“It’s positive that we are starting to see industry make that commitment too. We are seeing encouraging signs with regulatory support for both ammonia and methanol in shipping, such as the EU’s FuelEU maritime regulation and the latest International Maritime Organization (IMO) strategy bolstering the value of low carbon and green methanol and ammonia relative to fossil fuels.”
In July 2023, OCI Global successfully bunkered the world’s first green methanol fueled container ship at the Port of Ulsan in South Korea.
