The methanol market, explained for buyers

Methanol is one of the world's largest-volume commodity chemicals and, simultaneously, the leading candidate to decarbonise deep-sea shipping. It is the feedstock behind formaldehyde and acetic acid, the solvent in a thousand industrial processes, and the fuel that a growing container fleet has been ordered to burn. Very little of that is contested. What is genuinely hard, if you are the person tasked with buying some, is finding a straight answer to an ordinary question.

Real market intelligence sits behind subscriptions costing thousands a year. Almost everything freely available is a distributor's product page — useful for a phone number, useless for working out whether the quote in front of you is reasonable. In between there is very little, and what there is tends to be either a chemistry lesson or an American article about a market that prices differently to ours.

The Methanol Register exists to fill that gap for UK buyers. It covers how methanol is specified and graded, how it is packed and delivered, what the regulations actually require of a site that receives it, how the pricing mechanism works and where prices currently sit, what it gets used for, and how the low-carbon versions differ from the conventional product. Alongside that sits a directory of suppliers serving the UK market.

If you are new to buying methanol

Three things account for most of the confusion in a first methanol enquiry, and all three are worth understanding before you send one.

“Methanol” is not a specification

The single most common cause of a rejected delivery is an enquiry that names the substance and nothing else. Methanol is traded against named reference specifications — IMPCA for the global bulk trade, Grade AA in North American documentation, pharmacopoeial monographs for life sciences, and supplier-specific analytical grades for laboratory work. The gap between them is the gap between a bulk commodity and a reagent costing forty times as much per litre. Start with grades.

Posted prices are not quotations

Bulk methanol is benchmarked against producer posted contract prices — published reference numbers that real contracts are negotiated below, sometimes substantially. The European posted price resets quarterly; other regions monthly. Knowing where the benchmark sits is the difference between an informed negotiation and an accepted quote. How pricing works.

The duties land on you

Methanol has a flash point around 11 °C, which means it gives off an ignitable vapour at ordinary British room temperature, and it burns with a flame that is nearly invisible in daylight. It is also acutely toxic by ingestion, inhalation and skin absorption. The regulatory consequences — COSHH assessment, DSEAR hazardous-area classification, and possibly a Dangerous Goods Safety Adviser if you unload bulk deliveries — fall on the receiving site. What the regulations require.

Frequently asked questions