Celanese announced that it had received federal approval to build an $800 million methanol plant at its chemical complex in Clear Lake. A day earlier, LydondellBasell announced it had reopened a plant in Channelview that it had shut down for a decade because of previously high natural gas prices. The announcements came just weeks after a Dutch company announced plans to build a more than $1 billion methanol plant in Beaumont, and as several other chemical businesses continue projects to make more methanol in the U.S. The shift will multiply the nation's capacity to produce methanol by more than 12 times, to a record 10.5 million tons per year by 2018 from 860,000 tons per year in 2011.