Published: January 28, 2020 |

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Another major methanol manufacturing plant is one step closer to being constructed in southeast Louisiana, this time in Plaquemines Parish.

Castleton Commodities International received its air permit from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality in late December for its site down river from the Port of Louisiana in Braithwaite across the river from Belle Chasse.

The company had announced in October 2014 that it would pursue plans for a $1.2 billion plant on a former AMAX Nickel site, creating 50 jobs and producing 5,000 tons of methanol each day. Methanol is used in a variety of chemical processes, including the production of plastics, polyester and paint, and can be used as a fuel additive.

The plant will join three other recent methanol plants in southeast Louisiana. Methanex Corp. operates two plants in Geismar that it disassembled and relocated from Chile and is building a third methanol plant in Ascension Parish.

The Castleton Commodities International plant initially was projected to start construction in 2016 and wrap up by 2018, supporting an estimated 1,000 construction jobs. The plant had received an air permit in December 2014, but was redesigned and had to get another air permit from the state, records show.

Residential property owners near the 387-acre site expressed concerns about the lack of a large-enough buffer zone between them and the new plant. While some of the manufacturing complex’s site was already zoned as industrial, some mostly wooded area was still listed agricultural. Plaquemines Parish officials confirmed that its administration had reviewed a potential zoning change at the site, and decided to simply change the maps so it wouldn’t require a zoning process.

At this point, the manufacturing facility must file additional paperwork to obtain certain parish permits before it begins construction. It was not immediately clear when CCI would begin construction.

In early July 2019, CCI closed on two credit facilities worth nearly $2.8 billion from a variety of institutional banks to fund general corporate purposes.

CCI already operates a 67-acre bulk dry storage facility near its proposed methanol plant, which will use natural gas as raw material for its production.

Also in late December, the Stamford, Connecticut-based business, which is 46 percent owned by Tokyo Gas American Ltd., a subsidiary of Tokyo Gas Co., scooped up natural gas assets in the Haynesville Shale in northwest Louisiana and northeast Texas from a Shell subsidiary. The purchase gives CCI the capacity to produce about 334 million cubic feet of natural gas per day across a total of 222,400 acres it now has in the Haynesville Shale.

CCI, previously known as Louis Dreyfus Highbridge Energy, declined repeated requests for an interview about its overall plans in Louisiana and whether there is any correlation between the Haynesville natural gas acquisition and the south Louisiana plant.

CCI began negotiating with the Louisiana Economic Development department in 2013 about the methanol plant, which is expected to receive incentives such as the FastStart workforce training program, the Quality Jobs incentive and the Industrial Tax Exemption Program that allows a 10-year property tax abatement.

The Quality Jobs program offers a cash rebate to companies up to 6% of annual gross payroll for a 10-year period. It also offers a sales and use tax rebate on capital expenditures or a flat 1.5 percent project facility expense rebate on the total capital investment.

Source:  The Advocate

To stop by Castleton’s website, CLICK HERE

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