Houston — OCI Beaumont is expected to restart its 912,500 mt/year methanol unit in Beaumont, Texas, in mid-August following an unplanned outage, sources said Tuesday.
Multiple sources said the site went down sometime late last week because of a steam methane reformer issue, with expectations it could take 10-14 days for the plant to come back online, sources said Tuesday.
A company representative did not respond to a request for further information Tuesday.
One market source said the plant was running at a reduced capacity before the maintenance, adding production was about 50% or 460,000 mt/year.
S&P Global Platts assessed spot US methanol Monday at 111.75-112.25 cents/gal FOB USG for August and September.
After the Platts Market on Close assessment process ended Monday, August was heard traded at 114.5 cents/gal and 115 cents/gal FOB USG, with offers heard Tuesday morning at 116 cents/gal FOB USG, although sources indicated the outage is not the only factor behind prices rising.
