Developing green methanol

Global Energy Group (GEG) and Swiss energy company Proman will develop the green methanol plant at the Nigg Oil Terminal, an extension to the GEG-owned and operated Port of Nigg in the Scottish Highlands. The plant will utilise local sources of captured carbon dioxide.

Clean shipping fuels

Tim Cornelius, CEO of Global Energy Group, commented: “We are delighted to be joining forces with Proman on this potentially seminal project for Scotland. Green methanol can be made from many plentiful sources and with the efforts being made to capture North Sea carbon dioxide, we hope to become an important customer and consumer of projects such as the Acorn Project to produce clean fuels for the wider maritime transport sector.

“Onshore and offshore wind is one of the world’s fastest growing sources of energy, however, wind power must be dispatched as soon as it is produced, even if there is not enough demand for electricity. When this happens, operators have little choice but to disconnect the renewable source from the grid, leading to wasted energy and costs for governments and operators.

“This plant will have the capability of harnessing excess power to produce green methanol, which can then be used as an automotive or shipping fuel or as a chemical building block in thousands of everyday products.“

Cromarty Clean Fuels Project

The development of the plant will be known as the ‘Cromarty Clean Fuels Project’. The project team is now assessing the commercial, technical and financial viability of a production and export facility with the ability to store onshore at Nigg and load methanol to be exported on bulk carrier vessels using the repurposed Nigg Jetty. The feasibility study is investigating how project feasibility changes with scale, to determine optimal scale for the project.

Proman, the second largest methanol producer in the world, is due to become the owner, operator and off taker of the facility.