OCI Global on Sept. 9 announced the sale of its methanol business to Canadian major Methanex for $2.05 billion. The purchase will be funded through a combination of approximately $1.15 billion in cash and the issuance of 9.9 million common shares, which will give OCI a 13% stake in Methanex. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2025.
Vancouver-based Methanex, one of the world’s largest methanol suppliers, will acquire OCI’s methanol assets in both the US and Europe, including OCI’s Beaumont, Texas, facility, which has methanol capacity of 910,000 mt/y methanol and ammonia capacity of 340,000 mt/y.
The deal also involves a 50% stake in a second Texas facility, operated by Natgasoline, with an annual capacity of 1.7 million mt of methanol, half of which will be acquired by Methanex and a facility in the Netherlands with a production capacity of 1 million mt/y.
“This transaction is testament to the efforts of an exceptionally talented group across OCI Methanol’s platform, who have prioritized value creation for the past 14 years,” said Bashir Lebada, CEO of OCI Methanol Group. “We are proud of OCI’s contributions to new applications, and in pioneering the use of methanol as a fuel globally, Methanex is well positioned to leverage OCI HyFuels to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.”
“This is a unique opportunity to create value by acquiring two highly attractive North American methanol assets that will further strengthen our global production base and we expect it will be immediately accretive to free cash flow per share,” said Rich Sumner, Methanex President and CEO. “The Beaumont plants benefit from access to North America’s abundant and favorably priced supply of natural gas feedstock and are expected to increase our global methanol production by over 20%.”
The transaction marks OCI’s fourth divestment since December 2023, when the company announced the sale of its stake in Abu Dhabi-based Fertiglobe Plc to UAE state-owned oil giant ADNOC (GM Dec. 15, 2023).
In August OCI reported the sale of 100% of its stake in the low-carbon ammonia project under construction in Beaumont, Texas, to Australia’s Woodside Energy Group Ltd. for $2.35 billion (GM Aug. 9, p. 1). Just last week, OCI completed the sale of its Iowa Fertilizer Company LLC (IFCo) fertilizer plant in Wever, Iowa, to Koch Ag & Energy Solutions LLC for $3.6 billion (GM Sept. 6, p. 1).