New Indonesia ethanol plant’s location still to be decided

A U.S.-based producer of chemical products is ready to jointly construct an ethanol plant in Indonesia this year.
Working with state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina, Celanese will help build the facility as part of an overall ethanol project worth around US$2.5 billion.
A location for the facility is still being discussed, but Palembang or Bontang were revealed by Industry Minister M.S. Hidayat as the front runners.
Celanese Corporation is a Texas-based Fortune 500 company that is a leading producer of acetyl products and vinyl acetate monomer. They also manufacture and market TCX Technology, a hydrocarbon-based ethanol production process. In the TCX process, natural gas or other hydrocarbons are first converted to acetic acid. Thereafter, acetic acid is hydrogenated (presumably obtained by methane reforming) to give ethanol; a supported platinum-tin catalyst for this purpose was patented by Celanese.
(May 8, 2013)