VENEX plans Guangdong green methanol plant eyeing bunker demand

Towngas said its green methanol joint venture VENEX will set up a 200,000 mt/year production base in Guangdong province to produce green methanol for outlets like bunkering in Hong Kong.

IMAGE: Green methanol produced by VENEX is delivered via a bunker vessel to a container ship berthed at the Kwai Tsing Container Terminals. Towngas

The plant will be located at the Foshan (Sanshui) New Materials Industrial Park and is scheduled to start operations in 2028. The site will cover around 21 hectares.

VENEX is a 50:50 joint venture between Foran Energy and Towngas, which is also known as Hong Kong and China Gas Company.

The plant will use biomass gasification technology to produce green methanol from sugarcane bagasse and wood-processing waste. These feedstocks are widely available in South China, Towngas said.

The company said it also upcycles waste tyres and branches of sand willow shrubs into feedstocks for green methanol production.

Together with Towngas’s existing production base in Inner Mongolia, the Guangdong project will raise the company’s green methanol production capacity to around 500,000 mt/year.

The additional capacity will help provide a stable supply chain to support Hong Kong’s development as an international green marine fuel bunkering hub, Towngas said.

In March, Hong Kong bunker supplier Chimbusco Pan Nation supplied around 200 mt of green methanol produced at Towngas’s Inner Mongolia plant to the methanol dual-fuel vessel COSCO Shipping Gemini at the Port of Hong Kong using the bunker vessel Daquing 268.

China’s current green methanol production capacity is around 380,000 mt/year, according to Bian Guangqi, deputy director of the Department of Energy Conservation and Technology Equipment. Guangqi spoke at a press briefing at the country’s National Energy Administration last month.

By Nachiket Tekawade

Please get in touch with comments or additional info to news@engine.online