Mitsubishi Corp and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical have announced the start of prodcution operations at the second methanol plant in Venezuela, at Metanol de Oriente, METOR SA. The new METOR plant will be capable of outputting 850,000 tons of methanol annually.

Construction of the plant began in 2006, and was completed in March 2010. New production capacity will increase METOR's annual production capacity from 750,000 tons to about 1.6 million tons.

Even though methanol is used primarily for the production of downstream products such as chemicals – formalin, acetic acid – it is also used as fuel, and it is expected methanol is going to be widely used in the biodiesel industry in the future, which will result in growing demand for this product. Methanol production is heavily dependent on good access to natural gas sources, which is one of the reasons Mitsubishi chose Venezuela as the location for the production plants.

[source: Mitsubishi Corporation]