Canada’s Methanex Corp. plans to start building a USD 500 million methanol plant in W. Australia by the end of 2003. Methanex is proposing a 1.3 million metric ton per year plant, much smaller than earlier plans calling for a 5 million ton facility. Plans for the bigger plant were scrapped in March, with the company blaming the move on an increase in costs caused by the surge in the value of the Australian dollar. Earlier this week Methanex and Woodside Petroleum Ltd said they had renegotiated a gas sales and purchase agreement from the Woodside-operated North West Shelf gas project. The amended deal is for 100 terajoules per day of gas for 20 years from the Shelf, worth around A$2 billion, compared with the original deal of 200 Tj/d over 25 years. The facility, the first stage of its planned new Asia Pacific hub, will be located on the Burrup Peninsular near the Shelf’s on-shore gas facilities. Construction should be complete by the end of 2005, with commissioning activities by late 2005 or early 2006, the company said. The North West Shelf is an equal six-way joint venture comprising Woodside, BHP Billiton (BHP), Royal Dutch/Shell Group (RD), ChevronTexaco, BP Plc (BP), and Japan Australia LNG, itself an equal joint venture between Japan’s Mitsubishi Corp. and Mitsui & Co. (J.MIT).
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