Tacoma: Methanol plant would displace jobs

A consortium of Chinese investors and agencies has proposed building three plants in the Pacific Northwest to convert natural gas to liquid methanol, which would then be shipped to China as a chemical-production feedstock.

Some of our local unions are supportive because of a couple of hundred jobs that they think the plants might support.

They are ignoring the thousands of jobs that will be lost to the U.S. because the methanol will allow China to better compete with the U.S. petrochemical industry.

Since China is the major investor in the plants, it is reasonable to think that China will get favored pricing for the methanol from these plants. I would like our local union leaders to explain how a couple of hundred local jobs offset the loss of thousands of U.S. petrochemical jobs.

This story was originally published January 29, 2016 at 2:10 PM with the headline "Tacoma: Methanol plant would displace jobs."