Con relación al objetivo específico 2 Identificar los requerimientos

In early 2012, the methanol wholesale price was $1.13 per gallon. I will use this figure rather than the unusual $1.50 prevalent in early 2014, because the lower figure is more representative of a steady state case. Distribution and markup will add 10 cents, and another 20 cents for federal and state taxes brings the total to $1.43. To compare with gasoline, this needs to be doubled because methanol has about half the calories of gasoline. Later I will discuss how this calorific disadvantage can be ameliorated or eliminated. But in the normal situation for use in an FFV, the effective cost of methanol is $2.86. On the day of this estimate, regular gasoline was selling for $3.43 as a national average. So, clearly methanol enjoys a cost advantage. Add to that another fact: methanol has an octane rating of 117. So the comparison ought to be with high-octane, or super, gasoline, not regular. In most states one would need to add another 25 cents, bringing the gasoline total to about $4.04. As a practical matter the most likely fuel used would be M85, comprising 85 percent methanol. But the substitution comparison based on the neat liquid is still valid.

All this raises the question: will methanol prices in the future enjoy this advantage? Since the bulk of methanol today is produced from natural gas, the question shifts to the forecast in natural gas prices. In fact, at a methanol policy forum in 2011, David Sandalow, Assistant Secretary of Energy for Policy and International Affairs, in touting the value of methanol, cautioned, “If natural gas prices increase substantially and price differentials between methanol and gasoline revert back to historical norms, the economics could be difficult.” This is precisely the concern addressed in the analysis below. I conclude that methanol will be cheaper than gasoline on a per-mile basis for decades. The only wild card is extraordinary demand for natural gas outstripping the production capability

The cost to produce methanol is plotted in Figure 16 as a function of natural gas price. In March 2012 natural gas prices were essentially at decadal lows, driven by an abnormally warm winter. These prices are not normal; the October 2010 figure shown is more what one could have expected. That figure, incidentally, was roughly the average for 2010 as well. One readily observes that at those values, methanol can be produced for about 50 cents per US gallon.

Chapter 19. Advantage Methanol 133

Keeping in mind this is cost to produce and adding a profit of 15 percent gives about 58 cents. Add to that the aforementioned retailing and tax components and you get about 88 cents per gallon.

In chapter 3, I presented a model indicating a ceiling for gas price between $6.50 and $8.00 per MM Btu. Support for this is available from the work of Amy Jaffe and colleagues (Medlock et al., 2011), who used different scenarios of shale gas development. In none of their scenarios do they exceed decadal averages of $6.50 for the next three decades. More recently, the EIA forecast calls for the price to stay below $5.50 out to 2025.

My forecasted ceiling is plotted in Figure 16 and represents the upper end of what one could expect for the methanol cost of production. At the highest end, methanol rings up at a pump cost of about $1.28 per gallon (85 cents to produce plus 15 percent profit plus 30 cents in distribution and taxes). An important point of note is that these calculations notwithstanding, the price of methanol will be driven by market factors. However, as one can see there is a fair bit of headroom between gasoline and methanol, and even accounting for variability in both, methanol is still a viable choice. Gasoline price will always be driven by world events, whereas methanol will be largely regional. In that sense one could expect more stability. Natural gas represents about 75 percent of the cost of methanol production, so stability in that commodity will at least keep cost under control.

0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 2 4 6 8 10 12

Production Cost of Methanol ($/US gallon)

Natural Gas Price ($/MM Btu)

Forecast “Ceiling” Price

March 2012

October 2010

Source: Figure courtesy RTI International

Another factor is that methanol can be produced from coal and biomass, so alternative feedstocks are a moderating element. In particular, low-grade coal such as lignite is a useful feedstock. Lignite, available at the mine mouth for $25/tonne (recent figure from the EIA) will yield methanol at a cost of around 70 cents per gallon. So, if my forecast is vitiated by unusual demand for natural gas, plentiful low-grade coal can kick in. This coal is not particularly useful for electricity production because of its high moisture and ash. In fact, the high proportion of this useless component adding to freight cost is the reason I advocate mine mouth processing. With vast deposits in Texas and states northeast from there, the mine mouth is not far from infrastructure. Of note regarding the switch to another raw material is that the process after the formation of syngas is the same regardless of the feed character.

Methanol Production Cost

For this computation I used a standard plant producing 5,000 tonnes per day of methanol. This translates to about 40,000 barrels per day. As a frame of reference, the announced Sasol GTL plant for Louisiana is rated at a bit over double that figure. In general methanol plants require less capital than F-T process plants. The 5,000-tonne-per-day plants could be expected to cost about $800 million, whereas an F-T plant of the same capacity would be about two and a half times that. The time to construct would be similar in ratio.

This plant would consume 150 MM cfd per day of natural gas. This is the output from about 100 Marcellus wells, or about 4 to 7 pads. Such plants could be distributed in the producing areas, keeping the jobs local. In fact, the simplicity of the process could well allow even smaller plants without much loss in economies of scale.