Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
methanol demand, we have seen a significant rebalancing of methanol
production. Referred to in the industry as a “rationalization,” the plants
in regions with rapidly increasing natural gas feedstock costs have been
closed, as new “mega” methanol plants are built in countries where
natural gas is more plentiful and less expensive. These “mega” metha-
nol plants have capacities of 5000 tons per day (600 million gallons per
year), with a single plant representing close to 5% of global production.
Production capacity in North America and Western Europe fell from
13.3 million tons in 1999 to just 900,000 tons in 2010. During this same
time period, production capacity jumped from 13.1 million tons to over
24.5 million tons in South America (led by Trinidad and Tobago) and
the Middle East. The real wild card in the global methanol industry is
China, which saw the production capacity soaring from just 1.2 million
tons in 1999 to 40 million tons by 2011. By 2007, China had become the
world's largest methanol producer and consumer, with the breakneck
pace of new methanol plant construction building further momentum
for growth.
Today, we are seeing the pendulum beginning to swing back again.
We are now seeing a re-emergence of North American methanol
capacity, driven by the increasing availability of shale gas and its
impact on pushing natural gas prices below $4 per MMBtu. Formerly,
mothballed methanol plants in Canada and Texas have been restarted,
with one of these facilities recouping its restart costs in just 7 months.
One major producer is looking to ship one or two methanol plants from
South America, which have had challenges accessing natural gas, to the
U.S. gulf coast, which now boasts the lowest costs for available natural
gas in the world market.
Today, most of theworld's methanol production comes from the steam
reformation of natural gas, characterized by the two-step equation:
CH
4
þ
0
:
5O
2
!
CO
þ
2H
2
;
CO
þ
2H
2
!
CH
3
OH
:
Themethanol production process involves four basis steps (Figure 1.1):
(1) feed gas purification to remove natural gas components such as
sulfur that can poison catalysts; (2) steam reforming to saturate the
