Cana­da’s Methanex Cor­po­ra­tion said that it will idle its Ti­tan plant on the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Es­tate in­def­i­nite­ly, af­ter fail­ing to se­cure a new nat­ur­al gas sup­ply con­tract with the whol­ly state-owned Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC).

In a news re­lease is­sued yes­ter­day, Methanex said Ti­tan’s ex­ist­ing nat­ur­al gas con­tract ex­pires in three months (Sep­tem­ber), at which time the plant will be put in­to preser­va­tion mode “to pro­vide op­tion­al­i­ty for a fu­ture restart should con­di­tions ma­te­ri­al­ly im­prove.”

As a re­sult, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that about 140 per­ma­nent em­ploy­ees would like­ly be af­fect­ed by the com­pa­ny’s de­ci­sion. This does not in­clude con­trac­tors and ser­vice sup­pli­ers. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the com­pa­ny held a meet­ing yes­ter­day with its em­ploy­ees and will en­gage in a con­sul­ta­tive process with them on the next steps mov­ing for­ward.