US Methanol, a chemical manufacturing startup, wants to build a methanol production facility in Kanawha County next year, bringing with it an estimated 60 full-time jobs and 300 temporary construction positions.
Brad Gunn, the new company's CEO, said he and his colleagues intend to deconstruct a methanol plant in Brazil and install it next to the Dow-DuPont chemical plant in Institute by July 2017.
The plant, which US Methanol said would use 70 million cubic feet of gas per day, will use a chemical process to turn methane into pure methanol, a base solution used in paints, plastics, windshield washer fluid and other chemicals, like formaldehyde.
"We came at this from the gas side of things," Gunn said. "There's an awful lot of gas to be marketed and sold in this area. We came at the methanol business from that angle."
According to West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection permits, the company had submitted applications to build the plant either in Institute or an industrial park in New Martinsville, Wetzel County. But the application said that "only one site will go ahead."
With the large supply of natural gas from the northern half of the state, and a Kanawha Valley workforce experienced in the chemical industry, Gunn said Institute is the right place to locate the company's first plant.
"We chose this area largely because of the chemical production history in this valley," said Gunn, who has helped start deep-water drilling companies in the United Kingdom in the past.
While the company already is busy disassembling the plant that it will transport from Rio de Janeiro to West Virginia, Gunn said it is still working on the air-pollution permit that it will have to obtain from state environmental officials.
Still, Gunn said he is confident that the market for methanol will be available if the plant is built. The company already has customers lined up in West Virginia, he said.
The Institute location, he said, already has a reliable supply of natural gas. It is equipped with rail, barge and truck transportation, and he hopes its proximity to the Northeastern United States will give the small startup an advantage over methanol suppliers in other parts of the country.
"It's not a small undertaking," Gunn said. "There are not a lot of methanol startups, but we are one of them."
The company, Gunn said, plans to put out a bid for contractors to reassemble the Brazilian plant, which should be in the United States and ready for construction by the end of 2016. Company officials opened an office in Charleston in May, and the hiring process for the roughly 60 full-time employees could begin by February or March of next year.
"This is great news for the Kanawha Valley and our state's chemical industry," Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said of the proposed project. "To move West Virginia's economy forward, we must have a continually dedicated focus on creating good-paying jobs, and welcome new opportunities - like this one - with open arms."
The methanol facility could be one of the first downstream businesses to develop in the Kanawha Valley because of the ready supply of natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation, and the proposed Institute facility might only be the beginning for US Methanol.
The company already has bought another existing plant, in Slovenia, a central European country, which it hopes to deconstruct and rebuild at another site in the United States.
"There's still lots of room for other players to come in and work with the natural gas supply," Gunn said.
The Institute location is expected to be a longterm operation. If the facility is built, Gunn said, it should be there for a minimum of 25 years.
"We're the type of people who don't like to make frivolous announcements," Gunn said. "We don't like to create unnecessary expectations."
Reach Andrew Brown at andrew.brown@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814 or follow @Andy_Ed_Brown on Twitter.