Abundance of natural gas promises to give Louisiana industries a boost

On January 24, 2012 — No comments

As warmer-than-normal weather helped U.S. natural gas prices slide to a 10-year low last week, a major producer of methanol announced that it had secured land in Louisiana and was weighing moving an idle plant in Chile to the site, a pending decision driven in large part by the state’s record gas production and steady shale reserves.

Louisiana economic officials believe this is a sign of things to come.

The Haynesville Shale gas field in northwest Louisiana, which was recognized last year as the highest-producing shale play in the country, has driven down electricity costs for some commercial users, particularly in the chemical industry. Stephen Moret, the state’s economic development secretary, has predicted “tens of billions of dollars” of investment in heavy industrial operations will spring up in Louisiana in the coming years

Enter the Vancouver-based Methanex Corp., which announced Tuesday that it has secured land in Geismar. The company will decide this year whether to build a methanol plant on the site, an area that the company’s chief described as “a large methanol-consuming region.” The plant would not open until 2014.

“The outlook for low North American natural gas prices makes Louisiana an attractive location in which to produce methanol,” Bruce Aitken, president and CEO of Methanex, said in a statement.

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