The Road to Methanol

December 10, 2025

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by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) The Road to Methanol, we go inside the technical and commercial blueprint that is redefining what’s possible at scale. Beaver Lake demonstrates how proven gasification technology, robust feedstock supply, and bankable offtake converge into a replicable model — one capable of producing 500 ktpa of green methanol at commercial operation, with a –90 gCO₂e/MJ carbon intensity pathway for global markets.

SunGas Renewables VP Dan LeFevers will join us as we explore why Beaver Lake is demonstrating how proven gasification technology, strong partners, and a standardized design can create a replicable blueprint for large-scale fuels projects — while building a long-term, high-value market for local forestry communities.

This project is not an exception — it is a preview of the future. It directly addresses two of the bioeconomy’s Five Grand Challenges:

Feedstock Preprocessing: SunGas’ S1000 system handles low-cost, locally available forest residues without torrefaction or pelletization, using a flexible feeding system and bubbling fluidized bed designed for variance tolerance (page 5). This lowers input costs and stabilizes supply — precisely the $50/ton ambition that has become the industry’s first gating threshold.

Gasifiers & Liquefiers: With 50 years of operating heritage and 100% success rate across 27 gasifiers (page 6), the S1000 provides the reliable, high-purity syngas platform needed for large-volume fuels production. Beaver Lake’s standardized, three-train system is exactly the kind of affordable, reliable, available gasification architecture ABLC calls for.

It’s no surprise the Due Diligence Wolfpack has identified methanol as a “target molecule” — versatile, globally demanded, bankable. READ MORE/WATCH recorded presentation

Can the Circle be Unbroken? Revival on the Road to Methanol (Biofuels Digest)
C2X to deliver 3.6 million metric tons of carbon removal to Microsoft over 12 years (C2X)

Excerpt from Biofuels Digest: Beaver Lake Renewable Energy (BLRE), the $2.5 billion wood-to-methanol project now taking shape in central Louisiana, is poised to become the largest facility of its kind in the world. This is where the forest meets the future.

THE SCALE: TIGER STADIUMS AND MANHATTAN CABLES

BLRE sits on the bones of an old mill, but what’s rising now dwarfs anything that stood here before:

500,000+ tons of green methanol per year
Concrete enough to fill LSU’s Tiger Stadium to the goalposts
Cable long enough to stretch from Louisiana to Manhattan
3.4 million craft hours —
the equivalent of 1,700 years of one person’s labor

And unlike the silent ruins of Pulpton, this project hums with activity.

As Dan LeFevers, VP for Policy and Government Affairs at SunGas Renewables, said: “People talk about elephants in the room. This project? It’s the whole herd.”

THE REGION: LOGGING LEGACY MEETS FUTURE FUELS

Why build here? LeFevers didn’t hesitate: “We needed river access, power, transmission, gas lines, and a wood basket big enough for decades. Those things don’t line up often.”

But there’s a deeper truth— one Peewee knows too well. The South is sitting on a crisis: 50 million tons of wood with nowhere to go. Pulp and paper mills have closed. Thinnings lie on the forest floor, or else they’re burned because there’s simply no market. BLRE isn’t just a facility. It is a forestry relief valve— a way to clear the backlog that chokes landowners, loggers, and mill towns. And the logistics are world-class:

A barge corridor on the Red River
Two massive barges every four and a half days
moving fuel to Baton Rouge and global markets
Industrial infrastructure already in place
A workforce that knows timber systems better than anywhere else in the country

Where Pulpton drifted into forgettin’, Beaver Lake is building purpose. And yes, Peewee would approve.

THE TECHNOLOGY: FROM LOBLOLLY TO METHANOL

At the center of the project are three SunGas S1000 gasification trains, standardized for reliability and scale. The simplicity is the brilliance:

Wood arrives.
It’s chipped.
Dried.
Fed into the gasifier.
Converted into syngas.
Syngas becomes methanol through Johnson Matthey catalysts.

Crucially: This system needs zero supplemental hydrogen. N No external electrolysis. No exotic partnerships to keep the plant running. Just loblolly pine in, methanol out— a closed-loop, self-contained system immune to the complexity traps that plague other green-fuel projects. Or as Peewee might say if he wandered through the FEED drawings: “Well I’ll be. A mill that learned a new trick.”

THE MARKET: FROM PINEY WOODS TO PANAMA CANAL

The project is owned by C2X, the developer created by AP Moller Maersk and ENEOS. Maersk isn’t dabbling. It’s rewriting the rules of global shipping. This project is the first commercial proof-point for industrial-scale wood-to-methanol production.

It’s not just another plant. It’s the test case that can unlock dozens more across the South. And the “yellow box” LeFevers talked about in a Digest webinar this week? That’s aviation. “The yellow box in 2050 is aviation,” he said. “That means these pine trees today become jet fuel at Heathrow tomorrow.” Methanol today. Alcohol-to-jet tomorrow. Forests to flight.

WHY THIS MATTERS

For every town staring down its own Pulpton-shaped future, Beaver Lake is more than methanol. It’s proof that rural America can innovate at global scale. It’s a new center of gravity for forestry economics. It’s a chance to make ‘manufacturing revival’ intersect with “energy dominance”. READ MORE

Excerpt from C2X: C2X LTD (C2X) has, through its subsidiary Beaver Lake Renewable Energy LLC (“Beaver Lake”), signed a long-term agreement with Microsoft for the sale and purchase of high-quality engineered carbon removal units (“CRUs”) from its Beaver Lake project in Louisiana. Beaver Lake, a low-carbon fuels project under development by C2X, will deliver 3.6 million high-quality engineered CRUs to Microsoft over a 12-year period.

C2X is developing the Beaver Lake bio-methanol plant near Pineville, Louisiana, on the site of a former paper mill. The facility is designed to convert locally and sustainably sourced forestry residues into bio-methanol and biogenic CO2 that will be subsequently captured. In addition to producing over 500,000 metric tons of bio-methanol annually at full scale for global and US customers in the shipping, aviation, chemicals and industrial sectors, it will capture and store around 1 million metric tonnes of CO2 annually.

Under this agreement, Beaver Lake will deliver CRUs, each representing one metric ton of carbon dioxide that has been durably removed from the atmosphere and permanently stored in secure geologic formations in Louisiana. All associated lifecycle emissions—including those from relevant biomass sourcing, facility operations, and downstream transportation— will be accounted for and subtracted to ensure net carbon removal. Any carbon benefits will be allocated between the bio-methanol and CRUs to assure no double counting. The project will be registered, and CRUs ultimately issued on, an ICROA-endorsed registry, which includes verification by an independent third-party. The project will additionally follow practices to ensure sustainable biomass sourcing, including alignment with the principles outlined in EU RED III.

“The Beaver Lake project combines the benefits of bio-methanol production for customers in hard-to-abate sectors with permanent carbon removals,” said Brian Davis, CEO of C2X. “We appreciate the leadership of Microsoft in the engineered carbon removal market and their collaboration to finalize this agreement. We look forward to working with other companies seeking to access biogenic carbon for sequestration as we deliver this project and scale up our portfolio globally.”

“The BLRE project provides a unique opportunity for large-scale carbon removal, while driving broader decarbonization initiatives through green methanol production,” stated Phillip Goodman, Director of Carbon Removal Portfolio at Microsoft. “We value the technical and commercial expertise of the C2X team, which has demonstrated commitment to sustainable biomass sourcing, rigorous carbon accounting, and thoughtful engagement of the project’s surrounding community.”

With an estimated total investment of approximately $2.5 billion, the Beaver Lake project is expected to create up to 1,150 construction jobs, and more than 600 direct and indirect jobs in the local community when fully operational. The project will also support the forestry industry in Louisiana, which has been impacted by closures of paper and pulp mills in recent years. It will also help to underpin substantial investments in CO2 transportation and sequestration in Louisiana. Following completion of engineering and development, construction is expected to start in the second half of 2026 and operations are expected to commence during 2029.

For further information about the Beaver Lake Renewable Energy Project, visit: www.beaverlakerenewable.com

About C2X

C2X develops, owns and operates low carbon molecule production facilities in strategic locations, which will supply the shipping, chemical, aviation and industrial sectors with low carbon fuels and feedstocks. C2X is the majority owner of SunGas Renewables Inc, the parent company of Beaver Lake. C2X is majority controlled by the A.P. Moller Group with ENEOS, Japan’s largest integrated energy company, as a minority shareholder. READ MORE