en.Wedoany.com Reported - From May 20 to 21, the 2026 Methanol Industry Development Conference was held in Yulin, Shaanxi. Gu Zongqin, legal representative of the China Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry Association, stated in his work report that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China's methanol industry achieved breakthrough progress in scale growth, structural optimization, technological innovation, and green transformation, laying a solid foundation for high-quality development during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period.
Industry scale continued to grow. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, China added 30.435 million tons/year of new methanol production capacity and phased out 8.09 million tons/year of capacity. By the end of 2025, China's total methanol production capacity reached 115 million tons/year, with an output of 99.93 million tons, representing increases of 26.4% and 37.6% respectively compared to 2020, firmly ranking first globally in both capacity and output.
The dominant position of coal-to-methanol remains solid. Based on China's energy resource endowment, most newly built methanol plants during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period used coal as feedstock. Coal-to-methanol production capacity reached 91.92 million tons/year, accounting for 79.6% of total capacity, an increase of 30% compared to 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 4.4%. Methanol production capacity utilizing natural gas, coke oven gas, and other tail gas comprehensive utilization accounted for only 6.8% and 13.3% respectively, forming a methanol production landscape dominated by coal.
The overall technical level of the industry continuously improved. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, a number of large-scale, high-efficiency technological equipment achieved breakthroughs and were successively applied in production, elevating the scale, production efficiency, and operational stability of methanol plants to new levels. Looking at single-unit plants, the scale of a single coal-to-methanol unit increased from 1.8 million tons/year to 2.8 million tons/year, the largest globally; from the overall industry scale perspective, methanol production capacity of 1 million tons/year and above reached 57.66 million tons/year, accounting for 49.9% of total capacity, a 52.1% increase compared to 2020. The methanol output of these enterprises reached 56.837 million tons in 2025, accounting for 56.9% of total output, a 52.1% increase compared to 2020; in terms of operating rate, the industry-wide operating rate also significantly improved, reaching 86.5%, an increase of 7.1 percentage points compared to 2020.
Downstream demand for methanol grew relatively fast. In 2025, apparent consumption of methanol exceeded 114 million tons, an increase of 33.4% compared to 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 6.6%. In the downstream consumption sectors, coal (methanol)-to-olefins was the main driver for the increase in methanol consumption, accounting for as much as 48.9%. In 2025, China's methanol-to-olefins production capacity reached 21.57 million tons/year, of which 6.1 million tons/year of capacity was commissioned during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Furthermore, methanol fuel, due to its economic and environmental benefits, continuously expanded its application scope, becoming a new growth engine; formaldehyde and acetic acid, driven by the rapid development of the new materials industry, still held important positions in downstream methanol consumption.
The green methanol industry made positive progress. Gu Zongqin pointed out that the "14th Five-Year Plan" period was a critical stage for China's green methanol industry transitioning from the demonstration phase to the early stage of large-scale development. A group of pioneers have completed the full-cycle verification from repeated demonstration, technical research, engineering construction to commercial operation in the green methanol field. In 2025, China had built 320,000 tons/year of green methanol production capacity, opening a new path for the industry to achieve the "dual carbon" goals.
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