Construction of Hunan DME project starts

Beijing Zhongchun Alcohol & Ether Energy Technology Co., Ltd. (BZAEETC) started construction of the 1 million ton-per-annum methanol and 500,000 ton-per-annum DME (dimethyl ether) project in Yongxing county, Chenzhou, Hunan province in China. BZAEETC and some other companies jointly invested 3.85 billion yuan (US$512.43 million) to construct these projects in three phases, with a construction period of around five years. The whole project covers an area of around 267 hectares and makes use of coal as the raw material. With an investment of 520 million yuan (US$69.2 million), the first-phase project will construct a 200,000 ton-per-annum methanol and 100,000 ton-per-annum DME production line. The first-phase is expected to start production at the end of 2008. (September 16, 2007)