Boyuan starts up natural gas based methanol project in Inner Mongolia

Sep. 10, 2007, Boyuan United Chemical Co. held a ceremony for its start-up of 1 million ton/year natural gas methanol project in Erdos, Inner Mongolia.

The project was started construction in Sep. 2004. With total investment of USD 196 million (RMB 1.47 billion), the project includes two production units, one is 400,000 ton/year and another is 600,000 ton/year.

Feedstock will be sourced from the Sulige gas field in Erdos Basin. Boyuan United Chemical has signed long-term natural gas supply contract so that the operation of this project will not impacted by the New Policy of Natural Gas Utilization.

Earlier, NDRC published a new natural gas utilization policy to ban the methanol production from natural gas which was effective since Aug. 30, 2007. Meanwhile, the operating natural gas based methanol plants, or constructed methanol projects, or the constructing projects which signed the gas supply contracts are excluded.

Boyuan United Chemical is a jv between Inner Mongolia based Yuanxing Energy Co.(51.2%), US based Sigma investment co. (33.8%) and Inner Mongolia based Boyuan Investment Group (15%).

Yuanxing Energy's another subsidiary - Sulige Natural Gas Chemical Co. - is operating an 180,000 ton/year methanol plant in Erdos. The company is constructing a new 150,000 ton/year naural gas based methanol project in the same site.