TRUE DOLLAR JOURNAL

Today, a story came upon my radar that suggests methanol will be big before long. If so, methanol stocks might be cheap.

First, on gCaptain, Maersk Wants 730,000 Tons Of Methanol By 2025, as the headline suggests, mega Danish shipper Maersk seeks a huge uptake of methanol fuel. That would be nearly ten times the current world annual output and 6.7 times world annual capacity (see Methanol Institute). Right now, Maersk consumes one day's worth of total world oil output (about 11 million tons).

Maersk has 12 large container vessels under construction designed to run on methanol. The firm's execs have committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2040.

Also part of the story, three producers, European Energy, Orsted and Proman, plan to have 700,000 ton of annual production capacity online between them by 2025, from production facilities based in the Americas. As well, WasteFuel (USA), CIMC Enric (China) and GTB (China) have agreed to ramp up production of bio-methanol by 500,000 tons annually between them after 2025 to support bunkering for vessels on Asia-Europe routes (see: Six suppliers agree to serve Maersk’s green methanol needs [The Load Star] ).

What Would be the Methanol Economy?

The methanol economy would be a future having methanol as a means of energy storage, ground transportation fuel, and raw material for synthetic hydrocarbons and their products.   

Mankind can produce methanol from natural gas, coal, oil shale, tar sands, along with agricultural products, municipal waste, wood,  biomass and chemical recycling of carbon dioxide.

Methanol can serve fuel for existing internal combustion engines and direct methanol fuel cells for cars and trucks.

Liquid under normal conditions, methanol, allowing it to be stored, transported and dispensed as easily as gasoline and diesel. 

Methanol Stocks 

ETFs with Methanol Exposure

As natural gas is a feed source for methanol, another way to play this going forward is through nat gas ETFs.