Cyclyx, ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell partner on Houston waste sorting facility

Cyclyx International, ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell announced they have signed an agreement to advance development of a first-of-its-kind plastic waste sorting and processing facility in the Houston area, said the company.

The new facility addresses a critical missing link in the plastic waste supply chain by connecting community recycling programs to new and more advanced recycling technologies that have the potential to take a much wider variety of plastic materials.

The Cyclyx Circularity Center will be unique among plastic recovery facilities, producing feedstock for both mechanical and advanced recycling. The center will leverage new technologies to analyze plastics based on their composition and sort them according to customer specifications for their highest and best reuse.

The circularity center will be located in the Greater Houston area, with commercial start-up expected in 2024. The facility will be designed to produce 150,000 metric tons or 330 million pounds of plastic feedstock per year, supplying ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell advanced recycling projects as well as mechanical recycling markets. Total investment for the first circularity center is estimated to be USD100 million, contingent upon a final investment decision in early 2023.

Cyclyx, ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell are members of the Houston Recycling Collaboration whose mission is to help the City of Houston significantly increase plastic recycling rates, leveraging new technologies and infrastructure, such as this Cyclyx facility, to recycle nearly all plastics.

As of September 2022, ExxonMobil has processed more than 6,700 metric tons (nearly 15 million pounds) of plastic waste at its Baytown facility, recycling materials that may have otherwise gone to landfill or incineration. When the facility’s expansion is complete later this year, it will be among North America’s largest advanced recycling facilities, with an annual capacity to recycle 30,000 metric tons of plastic waste. Leveraging ExxonMobil’s existing manufacturing assets, plans are underway to build up to 500,000 metric tons (1 billion pounds) of annual advanced recycling capacity by year-end 2026 across multiple sites globally.

LyondellBasell has a goal to produce and market 2 million metric tons of recycled and renewable-based polymers annually by 2030. To deliver on this ambition, the company recently announced a new organizational structure including a Circular and Low-Carbon Solutions business segment and is strategically investing along the value chain.

Cyclyx has a goal of processing more than 650,000 metric tons of waste plastic per year by 2026. Consistent with this goal, Cyclyx is focused on its mission to help increase the plastics recycling rate from 10 to 90% by getting the right feed to the right technology, creating a new supply chain for waste plastic, and diverting post-use plastic from landfill.

We remind, LyondellBasell and 23 Oaks Investments, Leiferde/Lower Saxony, Germany, signed an agreement to create Source One Plastics, a joint venture that will build an energy efficient, advanced plastic waste sorting and recycling facility in Germany. Using renewable energy from wind and biomass, the new unit is designed to process the amount of plastic packaging waste generated by approximately 1.3 million German citizens per year. This waste is not recycled today and is mostly incinerated.

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Sahara International Petrochemical Co.’s (Sipchem) Q3 2022 net profit of SAR 774.4 million beat SNB Capital’s forecasts of SAR 656 million, but missed average analyst expectations of SAR 852 million, SNB Capital said in a recent note, said Argaam.

The company’s debts decreased by SAR 1.1 billion since the end of 2021 to reach SAR 4.3 billion currently. Its debt ratio improved to 24%.

SNB Capital added that its outlook for Sipchem is positive in the short-to-medium term, due to the company’s unique portfolio.

The research firm recommended an “Overweight” rating on the stock with a target price (TP) of SAR 63.1.

We remind, Sahara International Petrochemical Co's (Sipchem) net profit rose by 52.2% year on year in the second quarter on the back of higher selling prices for most of the company’s products. The increase in product prices also contributed to the 13.7% year-on-year increase in gross profit in the second quarter, the company said in a filing to the Saudi bourse, Tadawul. The company's second-quarter net profit growth was also supported by the decrease in finance costs due to reduction of loans when compared with the same period of last year.
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Wanhua Chemical brought online its No 2 methyl methacrylate (MMA) unit at around end September, with a capacity of 80,000 tonnes/year, said the company.

The company also started up its new PMMA manufacturing unit, accounting for 160,000 tonnes/year, in around July-August this year.

The new MMA unit pushes up China’s total MMA capacity to 2.085m tonnes/year.

We remind, Wanhua Chemical is planning to increase capacity of its polycarbonate (PC) plant at Yantai in Shandong province by 140,000 tonne/year to 340,000 tonne/year. The expansion will be carried out through reengineering its existing 200,000 tonne/year PC project at the site. The company is currently seeking environmental approval for the plan.

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Eni confirmed it is conducting a feasibility study with the intention to build a new biorefinery in Livorno, Italy, said the company.

Hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), which is produced by hydrogenating vegetable oils, will be the primary biofuel produced at the planned biorefinery. Three new plants are being planned for the biorefinery, including a biogenic feedstock pre-treatment unit, a 500,000 tonne/year Ecofining plant and a plant to produce hydrogen from methane gas.

Biorefineries transform waste raw materials, residues and waste resulting from the processing of vegetable products and oils from crops into transport biofuels such as HVO and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), as well as bio-LPG and bio-naphtha for use in the chemical industry.

Recently revised EU biofuel mandates featured both HVO and SAF consumption targets under transport fuels. “The coexistence of bio and traditional plants has been successfully tested with the recent production of Eni Biojet in Livorno, the first SAF exclusively from waste raw materials, animal fats and used vegetable oils thanks to the synergy with Eni's bio-refinery in Gela. Our goal is to increase the availability of decarbonised and sustainable products to our customers and to meet our scope 3 emission reduction targets,” declared Giuseppe Ricci, Chief Operating Officer of Eni’s Energy Evolution.

The design of the Livorno plants is expected to be finalised by 2023, with construction potentially being conducted by 2025. Local institutions and trade unions are expected to carry out discussions with ENI officials to produce an “inclusive industrial relations model”, according to ENI. The company recently began importing vegetable oil from Kenya to its biorefinery in Gela, Italy.

We remind, Eni informs that it has acquired the company Export LNG Ltd, which owns the Tango FLNG floating liquefaction facility, from Exmar group. The facility will be used by Eni in the Republic of Congo, as part of the activities of the natural gas development project in the Marine XII block, in line with Eni's strategy to leverage gas equity resources. The Tango FLNG, built in 2017, has a treatment capacity of approximately 3 million standard cubic meters/day and an LNG production capacity of approximately 0.6 million tons per year (about 1 billion standard cubic meters/year). The acquisition of this facility allows the development of a fast-track model capable of seizing the opportunities of the LNG market. In addition, the high flexibility and mobility characteristics of the Tango FLNG will favour the development and enhancement of Eni's equity gas by accelerating production start-up time.
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Mitsui Chemicals has signed an agreement with Singapore-based Shell Eastern Petroleum on the supply of ethylene derived from plastic waste, which will in turn be used to produce polyethylene (PE), said the Japanese producer.

Mitsui Chemicals subsidiary Prime Polymer Co "will begin efforts toward the production of chemically recycled polyethylene derived from plastic waste via subsidiary Prime Evolue Singapore", it said in a statement. "Prime Evolue Singapore will leverage this ethylene to supply plastic waste-derived circular polyethylene as a new part of the Evolue lineup it manufactures and sells," Mitsui Chemicals said.

Shell is currently building a new 50,000 tonne/year pyrolysis oil upgrader unit at its manufacturing site on Pulau Bukom in Singapore. The upgrader unit - slated to start production in 2023 - improves the quality of pyrolysis oil, a liquid made from hard-to-recycle plastic waste that would have gone into a landfill, and turns it into a chemical feedstock.

International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC), a globally applicable sustainability certification system, has issued Shell’s plastic-waste-derived ethylene ISCC PLUS certification, which finds wide use as a system for certifying biomass-based and recycled raw materials, according to Mitsui Chemicals.

Prime Evolue Singapore currently runs a 300,000 tonnes/year linear low density PE plant in Singapore, according to the ICIS Supply and Demand database. Mitsui Chemicals is looking to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 through a two-pronged approach that combines recycling with a biomass transition for chemicals and plastics.

"The recycling of plastic waste is expected to be a crucial strategic element in the push for such a circular economy. Going forward, Mitsui Chemicals and Prime Polymer will continue to make ardent efforts on the fronts of both recycling and biomass," Mitsui Chemicals added.

On Sep 14, 2022, Mitsui Chemicals has asked Shell Catalysts & Technologies (SC&T) for its Shell S-896 catalyst, which is expected to provide important economic benefits from raw material (ethylene) savings and also help the organization meet the decarbonization goals for their ethylene oxide (EO) refinery in Osaka, Japan.
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