MTO is the second largest and fastest growing global consumer of methanol, accounting for 25.0% of the 98.3 million metric tons of methanol produced in 2019. In the MTO process, methanol is converted to DME, then to ethylene, propylene, butenes (C4), and a C5+ stream (in total called "olefins"). Olefins are then converted mostly to plastics, although many other value-added uses for olefins exist. Large scale MTO manufacture is centered in China, and MTO facilities are both stand alone (non-integrated) and purchase methanol as feedstock, or integrated upstream directly with methanol manufacture (integrated or "coal to olefins" given China's use of coal as a methanol feedstock). Integrated MTO facilities are often referred to as Coal To Olefins (CTO) operations. MMSA tracks both of these types of configurations (MTO and CTO) in its analyses.
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