Corrects sales figures in paragraph 2
Japanese trading house Sojitz forecasts a fall in its methanol sales in the 2020-21 fiscal year starting 1 April as the impact of Covid-19 weakens Asian petrochemical demand.
Sojitz declined to disclose detailed figures. It implied sales in 2020-21 will be around 1.7mn t compared with around 1.8mn t in 2019-20 and 1.9mn t in 2017-18. Sojitz recorded 2.25mn t of sales in 2017-18 following its acquisition of Solvadis Holdings in Germany as a wholly-owned chemical trading subsidiary in February 2017. It also has a 85pc stake in the 700,000 t/yr Kaltim Methanol Industri in Indonesia.
Sojitz has been trying to enhance its methanol trading operations. It signed an agreement in 2015 with Papua New Guinea state-owned oil firm NPCP to set up a joint venture to develop methanol from the country's natural gas resources.
Sojitz posted a profit of ¥60.8bn ($568mn) for 2019-20, down by 13.6pc from ¥70.4bn a year earlier, partially on the back of falling methanol sales prices amid lower oil prices.
