Eastman enters exclusive negotiation for molecular recycling facility in France

Eastman has entered an exclusive negotiation with Port-Jerome-sur-Seine as the preferred location of the molecular recycling facility it plans to build in France, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

This is an important step toward a significant milestone in the company's plan to invest up to USD1 B and build the world's largest material-to-material molecular recycling plant in France - a facility that will recycle approximately 160,000 tpy of hard-to-recycle polyester waste.

In the time since Eastman Board Chair and CEO Mark Costa and French President Emmanuel Macron jointly announced the company's planned investment in January, Eastman conducted a selection process of three potential locations and chose to enter exclusive negotiations with Port-Jerome-sur-Seine in Normandy. This site offers proximity of supply to waste polyester for feedstock, required space for an expansive facility and the necessary infrastructure for operations of this scale. Eastman expects the facility to be operational by 2025.

"We conducted a very thorough assessment process of three excellent candidate sites and selected Port-Jerome-sur-Seine because it offered the essential elements for constructing and operating a facility of this magnitude," Costa said. "Only two months have passed since I met with President Emmanuel Macron in January, and we continue to be impressed by the collaboration that is making rapid progress possible. We are grateful for the efforts of the national, regional, and local governments; state agencies and development authorities."

Eastman's proven polyester renewal technology (PRT) is complementary to mechanical recycling and provides true circularity for hard-to-recycle plastic waste that remains in a linear economy today. This material, like colored or degraded polyethylene terephthalate (PET) or textiles, is typically incinerated because it either cannot be mechanically recycled or must be downcycled.

PRT creates potentially infinite value from materials by keeping them in production life cycle after life cycle. With the technology's highly efficient polyester yield of 93% and the renewable energy sources available in Normandy, Eastman can transform waste plastic into first-quality polyesters with GHG emissions up to 80% less than traditional methods.

The Eastman investment will be a significant economic driver, enabling France to sustain its leadership role in the circular economy. The project will create employment for approximately 350 people and lead to an additional 1,500 indirect jobs in recycling, energy and infrastructure. On the topic of job creation, Costa added that the available workforce in Port-Jerome-sur-Seine is another element that makes it an advantaged location.

The many integrated elements of the French facility will enable Eastman to make unique contributions to build a true circular economy for plastics. As a material-to-material recycling plant, Eastman's operations will include on-site polymerization. This provides Eastman the capability to take hard-to-recycle polyester waste and sort, depolymerize and produce recycled PET at a single location. Eastman expects these efficiencies to lower costs for end products with recycled materials, enabling consumers to make more sustainable choices without significantly higher costs. The plant will also reduce the country's carbon emissions by reducing dependency on imported fossil-fuel based products.

As MRC reported earlier, Eastman Chemical Co. (Kingsport, Tenn.) has completed the acquisition of the business and assets of Matrix Films, LLC and its UK affiliate, PremiumShield Limited, marketer of PremiumShield performance films, including its extended line of automotive film patterns.

We remind that Eastman is increasing capacity for its Naia-brand cellulosic filament yarn at its plant in Barcelona, Spain. Eastman is increasing its capacity to produce Naia cellulosic filament yarns at its plant Barcelona, by 30% by mid-2021, and by more than 50% by the end of 2022.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PET consumption remained steady in December 2021 year on year. December estimated PET consumption totalled 67,880 tonnes (67,710 tonnes in December 2020).

Eastman is a multinational chemical company serving customers in approximately 100 countries. Sales in 2015 amounted to around USD9.6 Billion. The company is headquartered in Kingsport, Tennessee, USA. The company employs approximately 15 thousand people around the world.
MRC

In a move to expand Sulzer’s footprint in India and support one of India’s key industrial hubs, the company has opened a new state-of-the-art service center in Vadodara, Gujarat, India, according to Hydrocarbonprocessing.

The facility will widen the availability of high-quality services for rotating equipment in India. Using cutting-edge machinery and advanced digital technologies, the center will offer repairs, upgrades, retrofits and parts manufacturing for a wide range of equipment including pumps, steam turbines, compressors and expanders, extending the life of vital infrastructure assets and ensuring they operate as efficiently as possible.

The new engineering facilities cover 10,500 sqft and have been designed to deliver fast and efficient workflows, incorporating digital and lean principles to ensure an effective service for customers. The new service center has the capability to deliver leading maintenance solutions for a variety of equipment, regardless of the original equipment manufacturer.

Sulzer has been delivering manufacturing and maintenance services in India for more than 30 years. The company pioneered the introduction of high-energy pumps to the industrial sector and continues to lead the pump market in various applications. This expertise and experience also provides an excellent foundation for overhauling and repairing these vital assets to improve reliability and performance, while also reducing their carbon footprint with energy savings.

The team in Vadodara has access to Sulzer’s combined global engineering capabilities, including Venlo in the Netherlands and Indonesia, both of which have vast experience and expertise in turbomachinery repairs and upgrades. To complement this, Sulzer has also invested in its parts manufacturing capabilities at Vadodara with cutting-edge equipment, such as advanced CNC 4-axis turnmill machines, vertical & horizontal balancing machines, as well as the necessary expertise in design and materials engineering and additive manufacturing.

As MRC wrote before, Sulzer Chemtech will provide a BioFlux technology package to support the creation of the Sabah Maju Jaya Renewable Energy Industrial Complex (SMJREIC) in Malaysia. This new facility will produce sustainable fuels with limited GHG emissions by using locally-sourced, renewable feedstock. By leveraging Sulzer Chemtech’s technology, the new plant located at Sapangar Bay, Kota Kinabalu, will have a production capacity of 250,000 tpy.

We remind that earlier this year, Sulzer Chemtech finalized an agreement with Encina Development Group, LLC to provide technology to recover high purity circular aromatics from cracked oil products derived from Encina’s mixed-plastics-to-aromatics catalytic conversion platform. Encina’s 1000 tpd waste plastics recycling facility will be located in Northeast US, and is expected to be operational in 2024.

According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,487,450 tonnes in 2021, up by 13% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market totalled 1,494.280 tonnes, up by 21% year on year. Deliveries of homopolymer PP and PP block copolymers increased, whreas.shipments of PP random copolymers decreased significantly.
MRC

Suncor Energy said it had extinguished a fire at its 146,000-bpd Edmonton refinery in Canada's Alberta that broke out in the morning and caused one injury, said Reuters.

"We initiated our response plan and evacuated the area. The fire has been extinguished and everyone is accounted for," a company spokesperson said. "As a result of the incident, one injury was reported and the individual was transported by ambulance to the hospital. Our first priority is to ensure the individual receives proper care," the spokesperson added.

The company, in a Facebook post on March 28, said it was shutting down process units at the Edmonton refinery for planned maintenance, which would cause increased flaring. It was not immediately clear if Wednesday's fire was related to the maintenance work or how it would impact production.

Suncor said it was working closely with local authorities and regulatory agencies and that an investigation would be conducted to determine the cause.

It was the latest safety incident for the company after CEO Mark Little pledged to improve its record earlier this year, following the death of an employee on January 6, the fourth fatality at a Suncor facility since late 2020, according to Scotiabank.

That January incident, at its base plant in Alberta's oil sands, occurred after a heavy haul truck rear-ended a second truck at the mine.

Little pledged the company would adopt new technology on all mobile equipment to avoid collisions and manage fatigue and that it would be in place within 18—24 months. He also promised other steps including implementing standard risk assessments across all sites of the Canadian oil producer.

As per MRC, Suncor today announced it will proceed with the phased implementation of autonomous haulage systems (AHS) at company-operated mines, starting with the North Steepbank mine. Over the next six years, the company expects to deploy more than 150 autonomous haul trucks in the full program, which will be one of the largest investments in electric autonomous vehicles in the world.

Also, Suncor Energy Inc. will spend USD1.4 billion to upgrade its Oil Sands Base Plant near Fort McMurray. Calgary-based Suncor will build two natural gas co-generation units that will replace three petroleum coke-fired boilers. The project is expected to be in service by the second half of 2023.
mrchub.com

Solvay has partnered with Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials to recycle end-of-life medical components, as per the company's press release.

New collaboration will help customers reach sustainability goals for high-performance Udel? PSU polymers in demanding applications.

Medical equipment made using Solvay’s Udel high-performance polysulfone (PSU) thermoplastic will be recycled at the end of their useful lives in a new sustainability initiative that the company has embarked on with Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials (MCAM).

In line with Solvay’s One Planet sustainability roadmap and Mitsubishi’s KAITEKI vision designed to preserve resources and contribute to safer, cleaner and more sustainable products, both companies are currently investigating the implementation of logistics for recovery, recycling, and reprocessing of Udel PSU medical components, with the aim of recycled material being suitable for reuse in the original applications.

“The agreement with Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials is the latest demonstration of Solvay’s commitment to help customers achieve ambitious sustainability targets,” says Antonella Di Meo, Product Sustainability Manager at Solvay. “It is part of our long-term commitment to develop sustainable solutions from bio-based or recycled resources. With this project, we want to show, in a practical way, that it is possible to recycle high-value Udel PSU parts used in the medical field, yielding important savings in CO2 emissions along the production and supply chain.”

The project involves using a combination of the expertise developed by MCAM to wash and mechanically purify the material, together with Solvay's ability to evaluate the chemistry of the end-of-life polymer, to develop a robust recycling strategy that will provide customers with materials that fully meet all specifications.

MCAM has already partnered with Solvay in reclamation and recycling of other high-performance polymers, including KetaSpire? polyetheretherketone (PEEK).

Together with Solvay’s polymer chemistry expertise, MCAM’s’ mastery of mechanical recycling will help overcome the special challenges customers face to recycle and reuse such polymers in demanding applications in support of the circular economy.

As MRC reported earlier, Belgian chemicals group Solvay has suspended operations and new investments in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. The suspension is temporary and will be reviewed in due course, a spokesperson said in early March, 2022, adding that the company had put a task force in place to manage the impact of the measures.

We remind that in August, 2020, through the acquisition of the Solvay polyamide (PA) business, BASF enhanced its R&D capabilities in Asia Pacific with new technologies, technical expertise, and upgraded material and part testing services. BASF is planning to integrate the R&D centers from Solvay into its R&D existing facilities in Shanghai, China, and Seoul, Korea. The enhanced capabilities will boost BASF’s position as a solution provider to develop advanced material solutions for key industries.

Solvay is a science company whose technologies bring benefits to many aspects of daily life. With more than 24,100 employees in 64 countries, Solvay bonds people, ideas and elements to reinvent progress. The Group seeks to create sustainable shared value for all, notably through its Solvay One Planet plan crafted around three pillars: protecting the climate, preserving resources and fostering better life. The Group’s innovative solutions contribute to safer, cleaner, and more sustainable products found in homes, food and consumer goods, planes, cars, batteries, smart devices, health care applications, water and air purification systems. Founded in 1863, Solvay today ranks among the world’s top three companies for the vast majority of its activities.
MRC

US chemicals company Eastman has completed the previously announced sale of its adhesives resins business to UK-based Synthomer for USD1bn in cash, said the company.

The sale included the hydrocarbon resins (including Eastman Impera tyre resins), pure monomer resins, polyolefin polymers, rosins and dispersions, and oleochemical and fatty-acid based resins product lines.

All of these businesses were previously part of Eastman's Additives & Functional Products segment.

As per MRC, Eastman is targeting for a 2023 groundbreaking on its proposed plastics recycling project in France. The company has yet to decide where in France the project will be built. The methanolysis-based project, first announced on 17 January, will process up to 160,000 tonnes/year of hard-to-recycle polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste. Startup of production is expected in 2025.

As MRC reported earlier, Eastman Chemical Co. (Kingsport, Tenn.) has completed the acquisition of the business and assets of Matrix Films, LLC and its UK affiliate, PremiumShield Limited, marketer of PremiumShield performance films, including its extended line of automotive film patterns.

Eastman is a global specialty materials company that produces a broad range of products found in items people use every day. With the purpose of enhancing the quality of life in a material way, Eastman works with customers to deliver innovative products and solutions while maintaining a commitment to safety and sustainability. The company's innovation-driven growth model takes advantage of world-class technology platforms, deep customer engagement, and differentiated application development to grow its leading positions in attractive end-markets such as transportation, building and construction, and consumables. As a globally inclusive and diverse company, Eastman employs approximately 14,000 people around the world and serves customers in more than 100 countries.
mrchub.com