A pair of Chinese companies signed a lease for a 900-acre site in Texas City, Texas, where they may eventually build a $4.5 billion methanol production and export facility. Fund Connell USA Energy and Chemical Investment Corp. — backed by China’s Sino Life Insurance Co. and Connell Group — is considering both Texas City and Donaldsonville, La., as potential sites for the facility, which would produce 7.2 million tons per year of methanol at full capacity.
Galveston County Economic Alliance President and CEO C.B. Bix Rathburn said in a statement the leased site at Texas City’s Shoal Point is “especially valuable” for companies seeking to use the expanded Panama Canal in 2016.
Fund Connell also announced today it had initiated engineering pre-design and feasibility studies for the project, with an eye toward making a final investment decision and picking a location by the second quarter of 2015.
Chinese chemical manufacturer Yuhuang Chemical Co. said last week it would build a $1.9 billion methanol plant in St. James Parish, La.
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