Nineteen new green methanol projects were approved in China in the first half of 2026, representing approximately 3.525 million tonnes of annual planned capacity, making green methanol by far the most active segment of China’s hydrogen-derived fuel pipeline. Into that accelerating build-out, SPIC’s Wenzhou Da’an Green Hydrogen Demonstration Project has delivered something none of the new approvals can yet claim: an actual commercial export cargo. The first batch of 3,750 metric tonnes of green methanol has been loaded and shipped to international destinations, the first large-scale export of Chinese green methanol on record.
The project behind the shipment is one of the largest green fuel demonstration installations in operation anywhere. Completed and commissioned in July 2025, it is equipped for approximately 800,000 metric tonnes of methanol output per year, 32,000 metric tonnes of green hydrogen production annually, and 180,000 metric tonnes of hydrogen storage capacity. Since commissioning, the facility has operated for over 300 days with stable production indicators, using independently developed water electrolysis equipment to couple industrial tail gas utilisation with renewable hydrogen-based methanol production. The Da’an project achieved the successful production of high-purity green hydrogen and stable output of qualified gases at commissioning in July 2025, transitioning from construction into trial operation.
The Feedstock Configuration and Its Certification Implications
The process described, coupling industrial tail gas with hydrogen produced from renewable electricity to synthesise methanol, is central to how the project achieves its scale. Conventional green methanol requires a carbon source in addition to green hydrogen, and using captured CO2 from industrial emissions as that carbon source is one of the available approaches. The other main approach uses biogenic CO2 from biomass combustion or fermentation. The sourcing of the carbon feedstock has direct implications for how the resulting methanol is classified under international renewable fuel standards.
For shipping applications regulated under the IMO’s FuelEU Maritime and Renewable Fuels of Non-Biological Origin frameworks, the carbon content of green methanol must meet specific certification requirements to qualify for greenhouse gas reduction credits. Methanol synthesised from industrial tail gas CO2 may qualify under some certification schemes and not others depending on whether the CO2 is classified as unavoidable process emissions from an otherwise-efficient industrial process. The project’s announcement characterises the output as green methanol for export, but the certification pathway that will determine how that methanol is valued in the European shipping and maritime fuel markets has not been publicly detailed in available reporting.
This matters commercially because the price premium that green methanol commands over conventional methanol depends critically on its recognised environmental credentials. COSCO Shipping, the world’s largest shipping company by fleet capacity, has committed to purchasing 12 vessels capable of using green methanol, with deliveries due from 2026 to 2028, and has signed a memorandum of understanding with SPIC specifically to develop the green methanol supply chain for maritime applications. If the SPIC Da’an product qualifies under the certification standards that COSCO’s green methanol vessels require, the export commercial relationship between the two entities could scale significantly as vessel deliveries proceed.
China’s Green Methanol Pipeline and What Comes After Da’an
The Da’an export marks the transition of China’s green methanol sector from project commissioning milestones to commercial delivery, but the pipeline of capacity approved and under development dwarfs anything that has yet been built. In H1 2026 alone, 19 new green methanol projects received approval in China, representing 3.525 million tonnes of annual capacity. This follows earlier project announcements of comparable scale: the Windey and Zhaoyun project in Da’an, Jilin province announced plans for a one million tonne per year green methanol facility with construction beginning in 2024 and first production targeted for end of 2026, which would be the world’s largest single green methanol plant if the schedule is met.
SPIC has separately announced a US$5.85 billion investment in Qiqihar, Heilongjiang province, for a project combining a 3.5 GW wind power plant with a 164,000 metric tonne per year green hydrogen facility and 400,000 tonnes each of sustainable aviation fuel and methanol production capacity. The scale of SPIC’s investment across multiple facilities indicates a strategic intent to position the company as a major green fuel exporter over the medium term, not merely as a domestic demonstration project operator.
The gap between China’s approved pipeline and the currently certified, internationally delivered output represented by the 3,750 metric tonne Da’an cargo is vast. Converting project approvals into operating facilities at specification and then into certified international cargoes involves regulatory, technical, and commercial steps that China’s green methanol industry is only beginning to navigate at scale. The stability of the Da’an plant over 300 days of operation provides evidence that large-scale alkaline electrolysis coupled with methanol synthesis can sustain continuous operation at meaningful output, which was not a given given the operational challenges that have affected some earlier Chinese green hydrogen projects.
The Maritime Demand Context
The international market that SPIC’s first export cargo is targeting is itself still developing. Green methanol as a maritime fuel has been commercially available for only a short period, with Maersk taking the first green methanol bunkering in 2023 and a growing number of dual-fuel methanol vessel orders being placed by major container shipping companies since then. COSCO Shipping’s commitment to 12 green methanol-capable vessels with deliveries from 2026 represents the single largest forward commitment to green methanol consumption in the maritime sector. Those vessels entering service create a pull for supply that projects like Da’an are positioned to serve, provided the certification, logistics, and price points align.
The price of green methanol remains a constraint on adoption. Conventional methanol produced from natural gas or coal trades at approximately $300 to $400 per tonne. Green methanol, even from optimised large-scale Chinese production, carries a significant premium that is partially offset by renewable fuel credits, carbon intensity valuation under FuelEU Maritime, and the IMO’s carbon intensity indicator regime for shipping. The economics of Chinese green methanol exports into European bunkering markets will be determined by how Chinese production costs evolve relative to those credits and by the certification framework that determines which credit categories the output qualifies for. The 3,750 metric tonne first cargo from Da’an does not resolve those economics, but it establishes that large-scale Chinese green methanol can be produced stably and loaded for international export, which was the prerequisite for any further commercial development.
