Lake Charles Methanol, a clean energy development company based in Houston, Texas, has announced its plan to invest US$3.24 billion in a plant to produce low-carbon methanol at the Port of Lake Charles in the state of Louisiana.

An intermediate product will be hydrogen, itself produced using advanced auto thermal gas reforming technology (applied to natural gas and “renewable gas”) along with carbon capture and storage. The Lake Charles Methanol II plant is to have the capacity to produce 3.6 million metric tonnes of methanol per year, while capturing 1 million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. An agreement is in place with Denbury Resources for the storage of the captured CO₂.

A final investment decision is expected mid-this year, with a front-end engineering design study currently underway. If it goes ahead, construction and commissioning is expected to take around 3.5 years, meaning an operational start in late 2027.