Methanex Corp. (Vancouver, B.C., Canada) has made a significant investment to reduce carbon emissions at its Motunui facility in New Zealand.
This multi-million-dollar investment will involve improving the technology in the facility’s distillation columns over the next 12 months. The efficiency improvements provide an economic payback within two years. Once completed, this project has the potential to reduce the site’s carbon emissions by over 50,000 tons per year, the equivalent of taking 20,000 cars off the road.
“We’re excited to announce this new investment in our Motunui facility as a demonstration of our commitment to emissions reduction in New Zealand and globally,” said Stuart McCall, Managing Director, Methanex New Zealand. “With this new technology, we will no longer need to distill crude methanol at our Waitara Valley plant, thereby reducing our energy consumption and overall emissions.”
This New Zealand project is just one of several opportunities currently being progressed by Methanex around the world to further improve the company’s environmental performance through emissions reduction.
“As the world’s largest producer and supplier of methanol, Methanex is committed to playing an active role in the transition to a low-carbon economy,” said Vanessa James, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development & Sustainability. “In alignment with commitments made in our recent Sustainability Report, we are proud to invest in emissions reduction technologies such as that at our Motunui plant, and we will continue to explore lower-carbon pathways to producing methanol across all of our global operations.”