Methanol Eastern Europe

Methanol is a versatile, readily available Ci-compound made from synthesis gas. Large scale industrial methanol production from CO/H2 was started up in 1925 by BASF using Zn0/Cr203 catalysts. The present methanol production capacity has been reported to be 21 mio t/a, while the actual demand is only in the range of 12 mio t/a. This overcapacity is mainly due to the build-up of new plants in the Midde East, Eastern Europe, New Zealand and Latin America, where surplus natural gas is available at a very low price [1,2]. The ready supply as well as the low raw material costs will keep the price of methanol low in the near future. This will stimulate methanol demand and will help to introduce new methanol-based processes for motor fuels as well as for organic base chemicals [3]. 

Between 1990 and 1991 we factored in a decrease in total methanol demand for Central and Eastern Europe of about 10% (Table 6 and Fig. 6). It can be seen that we anticipate only a very small increase in overall methanol demand from 1992 to 1995. Actually, this could prove to be somewhat on the optimistic side, since many of these countries are still e)q)eriencing serious economic downturns. A number of new methanol-derivative facilities are planned, such as MTBE, but the ability of these countries to arran secure financing is very doubtful, at least at this time. Also, there remain large amounts of methanol feedstocks in Siberia, but the ability to finance expanded methanol production is also a serious hurdle. We imderstand that the one methanol-producing facility in the Ukraine, with a nameplate capacity of 500,000 t per year, may be closed permanently because of the hi cost of feedstock ori ating in Siberia. 

Table 6 Forecasted Central and Eastern Europe Methanol Suppty and Denmnd Balance (Hundreds t)...

We do not doubt that methanol consumption in Central and Eastern Europe is at lower rates than that eiq)erienced previously. We show some sli t increases in formaldehyde demand, most toward the end of the study period, when we anticipate increased economic activity. Some new MTBE facilities are due on-stream in 1993, or possibfy 1994, which will also contribute to overall methanol demand growth. All in all, we anticipate methanol demand in Central and Eastern Europe to increase by only about 300,000 ton for a total of 14% for the entire study period. 

Xylenes are used inter alia as solvents, for example in the USA 180,000 t p.a. [13] and in Japan 90,000 t [33], particularly in the paint and printing ink industries (see also [5]). In eastern Europe it is also used for numerous applications in the shoe industry, o-xylene (besides naphthalene) is mainly oxidized to phthalic anhydride from which dyestuffs, phthalodinitrile and - by esterification with alcohols - plasticizers and raw materials for paints and varnishes are obtained [36, 38]. p-xylene is oxidized and processed with methanol to terephthalic acid dimethyl ester, from which polyesters are made [36, 38, 39]. For example, in 1972 2.9 million t polyester fibres were produced worldwide [39] and in 1979 more than 5 million t, which corresponds to 2.8 million t of p-xylene [30 a]. Polystyrene and copolymers (including expanded plastics) in particular are polymerized from styrene, and the world annual production of these products around 1975 was about 5 million t [39, 40],... 

Some of the outlying Western European nations, such as the Nordic countries, Spain, and Italy, rely mostfy on methanol imports from so-called deep-sea sources. These sources are as close as Libya and the former Eastern Bloc and as far away as Saudi Arabia and New Zealand. There are preliminary plans to build a world-scale methanol plant on the western coast of Norway that would be supplied by associated gas from a new offshore crude oil platform. Since the platform has not yet been built, nor has the delivery system to the mainland, we do not anticipate this plant to come on-stream until sometime in the middle to later part of this decade. The preliminary plans call for the associated gas to be delivered to the shoreline commingled with the crude oil and separated at that point. The plans also include a world-scale MTBE plant to utilize part of this methanol production. The only other new development in methanol production in Western Europe is that, since the reunification of Germany, the Leuna Werke plant in former East Germany (now eastern Germany) falls under Western European methanol-producing capability. 

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