Platts expands US methanol coverage

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, has expanded its coverage of the US methanol market to provide further transparency, effective Nov. 4.

M3 FORWARD ASSESSMENT

Platts has launched a forward price assessment for methanol loading on FOB USG basis during the third month from the date of publication (M3).

The new assessment complements existing M1 (current month), and M2 (next month) methanol assessments.

Details of the assessment are as follows:

Pricing information for material with other specifications and terms will be normalized accordingly.

The assessments reflect spot values on a daily basis at 1:30 pm Central Standard Time, and follow the US publishing calendar.

CARBON INTENSITY

Separately, Platts has started databasing conventional methanol carbon intensity, based on the S&P's proprietary methodology.

The carbon intensity includes emissions from well to FOB US Gulf Coast considering 100% production from natural gas feedstock.

End-use combustion emissions have also been included to facilitate comparisons with greener alternatives.

The emission estimates considered include natural gas feedstock supply chain emissions to methanol plant gate (Scope 3 upstream emissions), methanol production from natural gas conversion processes within the methanol plant (Scope 1 direct emissions and Scope 2 indirect emissions) and methanol end-use combustion (Scope 3 downstream emissions).

The emission estimates for natural gas feedstock (Scope 3 upstream) account for production, processing, and transport of the natural gas supply chain from well to methanol plant gate.

Direct (combustion and process) emissions are generally extracted from US EPA GHGRP while indirect (electricity) emissions are estimated considering the electricity required by typical methanol production processes obtained from S&P Global Commodity Insights Process Economic Program (PEP) reports and from S&P Global Commodity Insights North American regional grid intensity factors.

Methanol production per plant is obtained from S&P Global Commodity Insights Competitive Cost & Margin Analytics (CCMA) Model.

Total blended USGC FOB carbon intensity is then weighted by production of methanol from each facility.

Platts methanol assessments in the US currently appear on Platts Connect, in Europe and Americas Petrochemicalscan and on Petrochemical Alert fixed pages PCA1568, PCA 0872, PCA 0347, PCA1566, PCA 0199, PCA 0198, PCA 0234, PCA 0242, PCA 0434, PCA 0447, PCA 0541.

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