Oil and chemicals companies BP and SABIC have announced plans to work together on a plastic chemical recycling facility.
Based on a long-established relationship at the Gelsenkirchen chemical complex in Germany, the two companies will look to manufacture circular economy products made from a mixed plastics feedstock.
The waste mixed plastics will be turned into oil using pyrolysis. This oil will be processed by BP before being used by SABIC in its Gelsenkirchen polymer plants.
SABIC vice president PE & Sales Fahad Al Swailem said: “SABIC is committed to helping to create a new circular economy where plastic never becomes waste. Advanced recycling allows us to increase the production of more sustainable materials and use our planet’s resources wisely, whilst reducing the use of conventional approaches such as landfill and combustion.
“Advanced recycling has a crucial role to play in the current recycling mix as it can capture value from plastic waste streams that have traditionally been ignored or discarded.
“We continue to increase our collaborations with upstream suppliers and downstream customers, and this new initiative with our long-term partner BP takes us one step further to achieving our vision.”
BP vice president Refining and Specialities Solutions Europe & Africa Wolfgang Stückle added: “This is an important milestone in our vision of achieving up to 30 percent of our ethylene and propylene production from sustainable, recyclable raw materials by 2030.
“It is a fantastic achievement on the part of the Gelsenkirchen team, after more than a year’s preparation, to set up the new initiative with our partners at SABIC. At the same time, it is what BP’s recently announced Net Zero strategy is all about.”
