Methanol producer The Hong Kong and China Gas Company (Towngas) and tank storage firm Royal Vopak's Chinese arm Vopak China Management plan to develop a methanol bunkering network across Asia Pacific.

IMAGE: Aerial view of Port of Shanghai in China. Getty Images

The collaboration will link Towngas’ growing bio-methanol production with Royal Vopak’s port infrastructure to enable regional distribution of the fuel for shipping.

Towngas currently produces 6,000 mt/year of bio-methanol at its Inner Mongolia plant using biomass. The company plans to scale this significantly, aiming for 100,000-150,000 mt/year by the end of 2025 and 300,000 mt/year by 2028.

It will transport the bio-methanol from its northern China production base to Royal Vopak’s local storage facilities.

Royal Vopak will manage the development of storage and bunkering infrastructure, along with the onward distribution of bio-methanol to key Asia-Pacific ports.

The two companies initially plan to anchor the supply network around ports of Hong Kong, Guangzhou and Shenzhen in the Greater Bay Area, Shanghai and Ningbo in East China, and Tianjin in the Bohai Bay region.

They later intend to expand methanol bunkering infrastructure to other bunkering hubs in Singapore, Vietnam, Japan and South Korea.

In parallel, Towngas has partnered with China’s Foran Energy Group to develop a 200,000 mt/year bio-methanol plant by 2028. The two firms also plan to co-develop several more plants across China, targeting a combined capacity of 1 million mt/year by the 2030s.

These projects could eventually be integrated into the supply network, though no timeline has been confirmed.

By Konica Bhatt

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