A strategic partnership between Shell Ventures and BlueAlp will lead to two plastic chemical recycling plants being built in the Netherlands.
It is expected that the facilities will be able to process 30,000 tonnes of plastic waste per year.
The installations should be operational by 2023 and will supply all pyrolysis oil created during the process to Shell’s crackers in Moerdijk and Germany.
Shell is also investigating the possibility of licensing a further two installations in Asia that could be used to supply the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore.
BlueAlp’s chemical recycling process has already been developed on a commercial scale. But the Shell technology team in Amsterdam will work with BlueAlp to improve the scale and technology of the process. In particular, Shell plans to deploy proprietary technology to improve the purity of the pyrolysis oil.
As part of the partnership, Shell has acquired a 21.25% equity interest in BlueAlp.
Shell Chemicals and Products executive vice president Robin Mooldijk said: “With BlueAlp’s innovative technology and Shell’s scale and experience, we can advance the technology for recycling plastic waste, enabling Shell to meet growing consumer demand for sustainable chemicals.
“This parternship is one of the most important steps that Shell is committed to achieving our ambition to process one million tonnes of plastic waste per year in our chemical plants worldwide by 2025 at the latest.
“We are also collaborating across the chain to continue providing our customers with high-quality circular products, including working with industry partners to develop the infrastructure needed to collect and sort plastic waste.”
Shell successfully completed a trial of using pyrolysis oil at its Moerdijk petrochemical plant in August, and since November 2019, its Norco petrochemical complex in the US is increasingly using recycled raw materials.
