GEG, Proman to develop renewable power to methanol plant

GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Lead­ing UK port op­er­a­tor, Glob­al En­er­gy Group (GEG) has en­tered in­to an agree­ment with Swiss-based in­te­grat­ed en­er­gy com­pa­ny Pro­man to de­vel­op a re­new­able pow­er to methanol plant, util­is­ing lo­cal sources of cap­tured car­bon diox­ide (CO2) to be lo­cat­ed at the Nigg Oil Ter­mi­nal in the High­lands of Scot­land.

Ac­cord­ing to a state­ment the de­vel­op­ment the fa­cil­i­ty will be known as the “Cro­mar­ty Clean Fu­els Project.”

Sub­ject to the suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of on­go­ing fi­nan­cial and tech­ni­cal fea­si­bil­i­ty stud­ies, and fur­ther de­vel­op­ment and fi­nanc­ing of the project, Pro­man will be­come the own­er, op­er­a­tor and off­tak­er of the green methanol pro­duc­tion fa­cil­i­ty.

GEG is al­so the own­er of the Nigg Oil Ter­mi­nal and Pro­man is the sec­ond largest methanol pro­duc­er in the world, de­ploy­ing a ful­ly in­te­grat­ed ap­proach to the en­tire val­ue chain from project de­vel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion to mar­ket­ing, lo­gis­tics and ship­ping.

Tim Cor­nelius, CEO of Glob­al En­er­gy Group said the com­pa­ny was de­light­ed to be join­ing forces with Pro­man, adding that green methanol can be made from many plen­ti­ful sources.

“And with the ef­forts be­ing made to cap­ture North Sea car­bon diox­ide, we hope to be­come an im­por­tant cus­tomer and con­sumer of projects such as the Acorn Project to pro­duce clean fu­els for the wider mar­itime trans­port sec­tor,” Cor­nelius said.

He said on­shore and off­shore wind is one of the world’s fastest grow­ing sources of en­er­gy, how­ev­er, wind pow­er must be dis­patched as soon as it is pro­duced, even if there is not enough de­mand for elec­tric­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to Cor­nelius when this hap­pens, op­er­a­tors have lit­tle choice but to dis­con­nect the re­new­able source from the grid, lead­ing to wast­ed en­er­gy and costs for gov­ern­ments and op­er­a­tors.

“This plant will have the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of har­ness­ing ex­cess pow­er to pro­duce green methanol, which can then be used as an au­to­mo­tive or ship­ping fu­el or as a chem­i­cal build­ing block in thou­sands of every­day prod­ucts,” he added.

David Cas­sidy, CEO of Pro­man, said as a glob­al leader in methanol pro­duc­tion Pro­man is ac­tive­ly in­vest­ing and pur­su­ing green methanol projects to fur­ther de­vel­op methanol’s po­ten­tial as a clean fu­el for the fu­ture.

He said work­ing with Glob­al En­er­gy Group in es­tab­lish­ing green methanol pro­duc­tion in Scot­land is an ex­cit­ing de­vel­op­ment in Pro­man’s strat­e­gy as it com­bines the nec­es­sary re­quire­ments of low cost re­new­able en­er­gy and utilis­es lo­cal sources of cap­tured CO2 to pro­duce green methanol.

Cas­sidy al­so not­ed that the UK has proven it­self as a world leader in sup­port­ing off­shore wind, tidal and oth­er clean pow­er gen­er­a­tion tech­nolo­gies.

“Green methanol presents a sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ty to bridge the gap from fos­sil-based to re­new­able fu­els as we move to a low­er car­bon fu­ture and as such the pro­duc­tion of and mar­ket for ‘green’ methanol from sus­tain­able sources such as waste, bio-mass or re­new­able en­er­gy is grow­ing and high­ly scal­able,” he said.

Green methanol is a re­new­able, liq­uid, prod­uct that is used as a trans­porta­tion fu­el or as a feed­stock in the chem­i­cal in­dus­try.

It is pro­duced from re­cy­cled car­bon diox­ide and hy­dro­gen pro­duced from re­new­able elec­tric­i­ty us­ing proven tech­nolo­gies such as elec­trol­y­sis.