On March 4, methanol futures continued to rise 4% in the afternoon.

Superimposed production restriction for spring inspection, methanol supply or tightening

Due to the early shutdown of the Southwest Gas Head Unit, including Jiuyuan in Sichuan, Kabera in Chongqing and Lutianhua in Sichuan, which restarted in early February, the upstream start-up rate has risen to around 70%, reaching a historical high in recent years. After March, with the end of the northern heating season, some heavy-duty devices will be restarted one after another. The Datang Duolun device, which stopped in early February, is expected to restart in early March, the Boyuan device in Inner Mongolia is scheduled to restart in mid-March, and the Qinghai Guilu and Qinghai Zhonghao gas head devices are also scheduled to restart in March, and then the Southwest gas head capacity will be restarted one after another for some time in the future. Restart capacity is expected to exceed 4 million tons.

However, according to the situation over the years, after March, the spring inspection of methanol will begin soon. The peak of the inspection is from March to May. Due to the specific production arrangements, the maintenance of some enterprises will be delayed to 4-6 months. According to the current announced maintenance plan, some coal head devices in Northwest China will take the lead in overhaul, including Rongxin 900,000-ton plant in Inner Mongolia, Jiutai 1 million-ton plant and Shanxi Tongfa 600,000-ton plant. The overhaul capacity will exceed 6 million tons in March-May. In addition, due to the recent impact of Linfen in Shanxi on the production restriction of coking enterprises, including Shanxi Coking, Shanxi Hongyuan, Shanxi Guangda and Shanxi Wanxinda coke oven gas methanol plants will be shut down for about one month in the near future, with an estimated capacity of about 800,000 tons. Considering that the two sessions will be held in March, it is not excluded that the northern environmental protection and production restrictions may be increased, and the overall supply may be tightened.