Haldor Topsoe Mulls Synthetic Methanol Production in North America

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday February 16, 2022

Emissions technology firm Haldor Topsoe is considering setting up synthetic methanol production facilities in North America with chemicals company Carbon Sink.

The two firms have signed a cooperation agreement to explore opportunities to set up production facilities using the Carbon Sink platform and Haldor Topsoe technologies, they said in a press release on Tuesday.

"The US market is an ideal environment for broad utilization of our world-class methanol synthesis and electrolyser technologies, and Carbon Sink is well positioned to identify and execute a multi-plant development strategy to meet growing market demand for low-carbon methanol," Henrik Wolthers Rasmussen, managing director in the Americas for Haldor Topsoe, said in the statement.

Methanol is likely to take significant market share in the marine energy mix this decade, with several giant methanol-fuelled boxships on order for AP Moller-Maersk and more likely to follow. But bio-methanol, rather than synthetic methanol, is likely to fuel these vessels initially while the cost of the renewable power and captured carbon needed for synthetic methanol remain prohibitively high.