The global DME market has been witnessing many developments in recent years. DME is a preferred and widely accepted alternative fuel due to its clean burning properties and the focus of various regulatory bodies to reduce the dependence on oil and gas by-products for meeting the current and future energy needs. DME consumption has grown significantly in recent times and is at an emerging stage in various countries with sufficient coal deposits and rising energy deficit.

Currently, China is the single largest consumer of DME, consuming more than 90.0% of the total global consumption. The country has huge installed plant capacities of DME with its plants running on quite low operating rates. The DME market is emerging in various countries like Japan , South Korea , Indonesia , Sweden due to high deficits of LPG and increasing diesel consumption. Furthermore, ministerial will to reduce import dependence on various domestic and commercial fuels is expected to drive the DME market in future.

Currently, a huge volume of DME is blended with LPG, which is further expected to increase as per the current focus of various countries in Asia-Pacific. There have been various DME plant announcements in recent times; still the huge gap between the potential DME demand and its supply is expected to persist. The long term growth of the DME market is expected to be driven by its application as a diesel substitute and as a fuel for power generation. Various regulatory bodies are already intensifying their R&D efforts so as to develop DME as a diesel substitute on a commercial scale. Western Europe is a mature market of DME where it is only employed as an aerosol propellant and this segment is growing at a low CAGR.

Due to the unavailability of trading norms and export infrastructure of DME, it is hardly traded among the countries. Various DME manufacturers in China have huge plant capacities, but are operating their plants at quite low operating rates due to the same reason. By 2018, it is expected that these limitations may be lifted by intense governmental efforts and countries like Papua New Guinea, Saudi Arabia , and China may start exporting DME to other countries. The key manufacturers of DME are China Energy Ltd (Singapore), ENN Group Company Ltd (China) or XinAo Group, Korea Gas Corp (South Korea), Guanghui Energy Co. Ltd (China) among others.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/09/res...SW20130909