Egypt’s EMethanex methanol plant at Damietta operated for only six days during the first quarter of 2015 mainly because of constrained gas supplies, according to operator and 50% equity holder Methanex of Canada. Methanex president and CEO John Floren told his company’s 30 April Q1 earnings call that the gas shortfall is due to “extensive upstream maintenance programs combined with delivery declines from the upstream fields.”
This is not the first time the 1.26mn tons/year capacity EMethanex plant has been shut down because of reduced gas deliveries from state supplier EGAS. Periodic gas outages began in mid-2012. Last year methanol production fell by 33% to 832,000 tons, compared with 1.25mn tons in 2013, “primarily due to natural gas supply restrictions.” (CONTINUED - 653 WORDS)
