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Posted February 21, 2019 Today in Energy

New methanol plants expected to increase industrial natural gas use through 2020 ›

New methanol plants under development in the United States are increasing natural gas consumption in the industrial sector. Methanol plants are among the most natural gas-intensive industrial end users and require natural gas both as a feedstock and for process heat. Three new plants expected to come online in 2019 and 2020 have a combined nameplate capacity of about 3.3 million metric tons per year (MMmt/y) and would increase total U.S. methanol capacity to 9.4 MMmt/y, or 25,600 metric tons per day (mt/d)—a 45% increase from the current U.S. capacity. More ›

U.S. methanol nameplate capacity

Source: EIA, based on data from S&P Platts

Data Highlights

WTI crude oil futures price

2/20/2019: $56.92/barrel

up$3.02 from week earlier
down$4.98 from year earlier

Natural gas futures price

2/20/2019: $2.636/MMBtu

up$0.061 from week earlier
up$0.020 from year earlier

Weekly coal production

2/16/2019: 13.776 million tons

up0.726 million tons from week earlier
down1.523 million tons from year earlier

Natural gas inventories

2/15/2019: 1,705 Bcf

down177 Bcf from week earlier
down73 Bcf from year earlier

Crude oil inventories

2/15/2019: 454.5 million barrels

up3.7 million barrels from week earlier
up34.0 million barrels from year earlier

Features

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