Methanol Industry in the UK

The market for methanol in the UK is quite small and accounted for just about four percent in demand of the overall European region. Changing global dynamics and increased competition made many petrochemical-based industries financially non-viable in the UK, which caused deterioration in methanol demand in the UK during 2010 and 2011.

Methanol is increasingly being used for various applications in the UK. Among them – the ever broadening new technological advances such as alternative fuels, fuel cells, DME, LPG. Those industrial fields are projected to drive the methanol market vigorously in the foreseeable future. The use of methanol in automobile and construction industries experienced a drastic fall during the recession, however today the signs of reviving of these sectors are widely reported along with the rising indexes of methanol consumption.

These days, methanol-based fuel cells are considered to be the most prominent growth segment for the methanol market. At first steps this technology was aimed at automotive uses, nevertheless the customer electronics needs of transportable power generation (for laptops, cell phones, etc.) are forecast to play an important role in development of this methanol based technology. Also, methanol has been used as a transport fuel for many years, and 30% of all types of methanol, is currently used as a fuel. In being the simplest alcohol it can be produced in a wide variety of ways and, with the derivative DME, could form the basis of a standardized energy vector for a wide range of both applications and production methods. Bio-methanol can be produced using existing synthesis processes in large volumes. The only technical limitation has been producing large volumes of high quality syngas from biomass – now being resolved using advanced gasification technologies such as CHOREN’s Carbo-V process.

Market demand will be driven by the price competitiveness of bio-methanol and bio-MTBE against alternatives arising from regulatory support. As bio-methanol is supported under the EU RED and FQD it will be supported by EU national incentive schemes. In conducting this report a number of EU fuel suppliers were contacted. Interested was expressed in bio-methanol for a number of applications including direct blending into petrol, production of MTBE and biodiesel.

In this scenario, Taiyou Research analyzes the Methanol Industry in the UK. The report covers the following:

• An introduction to what is methanol, the various uses of methanol and the safety issues with methanol.
• An analysis of the methanol industry in UK through industry statistics, demand and production scenario of methanol in UK, and the demand of methanol in UK by sectors.
• Cost analysis of methanol in UK.
• Import/export situation of methanol in UK including import/export statistics.
• An analysis of the major global market players through their business analysis, a look at their products & services, financials and a SWOT analysis.

Summing up this research report on the Methanol Industry in the UK we provide a glossary of terms and a research methodology. Taiyou Research’s analysis of the Methanol Industry in the UK is a comprehensive profile of this industry.