It is located on State Highway 3 close to the shore of the North Taranaki Bight, six kilometres east of Waitara.

The process became uneconomic in the late 1990s as a result of falling oil prices, so the synthetic petrol part of the plant was decommissioned, with petrol production ceasing in April 1999,[3] and the plant instead produced methanol for export.

[5] Currently owned and operated by Methanex, the plant's two trains have a total annual production capacity of 2.4 million tonnes of methanol.

[5] In 2005, an unmanned production station for the new offshore Pohokura oil/gas field was constructed immediately west of the methanol plant.

The tornado killed two people and injured two others when a farmhouse on Epiha Road was completely demolished.