CPChem joins Circulate Capital to launch $65 million plastic pollution reduction initiative in Latin America, the Caribbean

Chevron Phillips Chemical has joined Circulate Capital, an investor advancing a circular economy for plastics in growing nations, to launch of a USD65 million initiative to combat plastic pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean, said the company.

CPChem is one of a group of investors pledging to support the initiative, which will initially target Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico before expanding across the region. The goal of the initiative is to scale the recycling supply chain, address climate change and improve the economies of the affected nations, investors said.

“We have identified promising opportunities across Latin America that, if scaled, could turn the tide on the plastic waste crisis in the region,” said Rob Kaplan, CEO and founder of Circulate Capital. “By applying the lessons and best practices from our years of work in South and Southeast Asia, we are confident that we can support solutions in Latin America’s high-growth markets to create circularity at scale. Our corporate partners will also play a critical, strategic role in helping best-in-class recyclers to connect with global supply chains, and we look forward to their collaboration.”

In addition to CPChem, IDB Lab, Builders Vision, Danone, Dow, Mondelez International and Unilever are participating in the initiative.

The growing economies across Latin America and the Caribbean have advanced faster than their waste management and recycling infrastructures have developed, according to the United Nations. This has created the opportunity to strengthen the recycling value chain across the region.

We remind, Chevron Lummus Global LLC (CLG) announced a recent contract award from Petroleo Brasileiro S.A. (Petrobras) for a new 12,580 BPD hydroisodewaxing (HIDW) unit at the GasLub Hub, a lubricant plant in Itaborai, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. Chevron Lummus Global's scope includes the technology license, basic design engineering, and research unit testing services.

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Trinseo, a specialty material solutions provider, announced the inauguration of its polycarbonate (PC) dissolution pilot facility in Terneuzen, the Netherlands, said the company.

The new pilot facility is a major step in Trinseo’s commitment to sustainability, part of the journey in realizing the company’s sustainability goals. The guests of honor at the inauguration ceremony included Jo-Annes de Bat, Provincial Executive (responsible for regional economy) of the Netherlands.

Trinseo is excited to announce the inauguration of our polycarbonate (PC) dissolution pilot plant in Terneuzen, the Netherlands. This technology allows us to extract 100% recycled PC for use in new materials.

An essential element of Trinseo’s innovation is focused on developing and delivering sustainable solutions. Across all businesses, this is a driving force behind our R&D efforts. While we are currently in the R&D phase, the state-of-the-art pilot facility is situated in a temporary area in Trinseo’s Terneuzen site and will later be moved into the Central Process Research Laboratory in the same site, which is currently under construction.

“Dissolution recycling” is a type of physical recycling process where the needed polymer is extracted by the use of solvents. The extracted polymers will then be used to make new recycled polymers. Trinseo’s PC dissolution technology is an advanced technology by which post- or pre-consumer materials containing PC, be it an automotive or consumer electronics part that is mixed with other plastics, metal or even glass, can be put directly into the solvent without any pre-treatment. The solvent will dissolve PC contained in those end-of-life parts while all other non-PC materials will remain, and can then be used for other recycling purposes. The dissolved PC extracted is 100% recycled PC that could be used for compounding into new materials for an array of applications, such as mobile phone casing, printer enclosure or automotive parts.

“We are very excited to have started up the pilot facility for PC dissolution,” said Francesca Reverberi, Senior Vice President & Chief Sustainability Officer at Trinseo, “This technology deepens the potential in circularity.” “This is a R&D milestone in Trinseo’s sustainability journey,” added Han Hendriks, Senior Vice President, Chief Technology Officer. “With our expanding R&D capabilities and organization, more robust innovations are in the pipeline.”

The pilot plant will play a significant role in helping Trinseo achieve its 2030 Sustainability Goals, while accelerating recycling and increasing the supply of sustainable feedstock.

We remind, Trinseo has added a new grade to its Magnum ABS family. Complementing the bio formulations of the material made with 60 and 80 percent bio-attributed content made available in late 2022, the company has now launched a version with 95 percent mass-balanced renewably sourced content.

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A new strategic partnership between Chinese company Xiamen Changsu Industrial Pte Ltd (Changsu Industrial) and Netherlands-based TotalEnergies Corbion, aimed at further advancing the polylactic acid industry has been announced, said the company.

The focus of the partnership will be on biaxially oriented polylactic acid, or BOPLA. BOPLA is made with biobased PLA using biaxial stretching technology. Changsu Industrial markets its low carbon BOPLA product, currently used in packaging materials, under the BiONLY name.

Asia, especially Thailand, China and South Korea have been pushing ahead in the bioplastics space, both as regards development and production. And in China, the bioplastic industry has seen tremendous growth with new technological breakthroughs in biobased materials after the country issued its Made in China 2025. manufacturing sector development plan, explained Mou Qingying, Changsu Industrial’s vice president.

As a producer of high-performance specialty plastic films, the company focuses on three major product segments: new energy, biodegradable, and functional film materials.

The present partnership with TotalEnergies Corbion will see the market promotion, product development, and research and development of new technologies and applications of BOPLA - all of which will contribute to the worldwide green transformation and help China reach its goal of being carbon-neutral by 2060, said Mou Qingying.
The two companies are already working closely together, efforts which have resulted in the development of BOPLA-based adhesive tapes made from Changsu’s BiONLY which are projected for use by the postal service in China.

New regulations have already been announced to encourage the adoption of biodegradable materials in the country's postal service by 2025 with some cities aiming to achieve this earlier by the end of 2023. With the further tightening of the regulation, BOPLA-based adhesive tapes are expected to experience a wider adoption in the future.

“With increasing needs for sustainable solutions globally, the partnership of Changsu and TotalEnergies Corbion is paving the way for the introduction of more PLA-based innovation to the world. It's a win-win-win for people, industry, and the environment,” said Thomas Philipon, CEO TotalEnergies Corbion.

We remind, TotalEnergies and Paprec, leader in plastic recycling in France, have signed a long-term commercial agreement to develop a French value chain for advanced recycling of plastic film wastes. The agreement will secure the supply of TotalEnergies' future advanced plastic recycling plant in Grandpuits. Following the terms of this agreement, Citeo, the main organization in charge of end-of-life household packaging in France, will provide a stream of flexible plastic waste sorted from post-consumer packaging.

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Iraq is still waiting for a final answer from Turkey to resume its northern oil exports, which run from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, Iraq's oil minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani said on Tuesday, said Reuters.

Turkey told Baghdad a technical team was evaluating whether the pipeline was damaged as a result of the devastating February earthquake, Abdel-Ghani said. "We are about to send a technical team to evaluate this pipeline so that we are sure that it is ready or if it needs extra checks," Abdel-Ghani added.

Turkey halted Iraq's 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) of northern exports through the Iraq-Turkey pipeline on March 25 after an arbitration ruling by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). The ICC ordered Turkey to pay Baghdad damages of USD1.5 B for unauthorized exports by the Kurdistan Regional Government between 2014 and 2018.

Iraq asked Turkey this month to resume pipeline flows and loading operations at Ceyhan on May 13. Turkish pipeline operator BOTAS has yet to receive instruction from Turkish authorities to resume flows, an Iraqi oil official told Reuters on Monday.

"We're talking about weeks, not days, as an expected time frame to resume exports. This issue is more political now than technical," the source said. Iraqi government officials previously told Reuters they blamed elections for the delay.

Turkey held presidential elections on May 14 but neither of the two main candidates exceeded the required 50% of the votes and a run-off is scheduled for May 28.

We remind, Turkey doubled Russian Urals oil imports in the first half of May versus the same period of April, according to Refinitiv Eikon data and Reuters calculations, as the country profits from cheap crude that is sanctioned by the West. Some 193,000 barrels per day (bpd) of the Russian grade were loaded for supplies to Turkey's ports during May 1-15 compared with 96,000 bpd during the same period of April, the data shows.

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The Czech Republic can cover its oil needs through shipments via the Transalpine Pipeline (TAL) pipeline from 2025, Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Tuesday after the country signed a deal to boost capacity along the link, said Reuters.

The Czech government is looking to eliminate all dependence on Russian oil in the coming years, and thus end its exemptions from a European Union ban on imports from Moscow last year.

Czech refineries are owned by Polish state-controlled refiner PKN Orlen, which said in April it terminated a contract for Russian oil supplies for its Polish refineries.

Polish government and PKN Orlen officials met with the Czech Industry Ministry in Prague on Tuesday and said they would work to eliminate Russian oil from PKN-owned refineries in the Czech Republic.

Speaking separately outside of Prague at an oil storage facility for strategic reserves, Czech prime minister Fiala said an agreement just signed between state-owned pipeline operator MERO and the TAL pipeline company to boost capacity along the TAL by up to 4 million tons would enable it to cut off dependence on Russia from 2025. "It is significant milestone," Fiala said.

The Czech Republic won TAL shareholder approval last year to upgrade the link, which runs from Italy to Germany and hooks up to the IKL pipeline from Germany to the Czech Republic. The central European country needs about 7-8 million tons of oil annually, which has been split roughly between shipments coming via TAL and the Druzhba pipeline from Russia.

The EU banned shipments of Russian oil from December 2022, but exempted Druzhba pipeline supplies to refineries in Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. "Our common goal is to diversify crude oil deliveries as quickly as possible in order to completely eliminate Russian oil as we already did in Poland," Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jacek Sasin said alongside PKN Orlen Chief Executive Daniel Obajtek after meeting with Czech Industry Minister Jozef Sikela.

PKN said separately it was preparing to reconfigure technology at its Litvinov refinery, which is dependent on Russian crude, to take non-Russian supplies.

PKN Orlen is also open to cooperation on oil and gas supplies as well as cooperation in nuclear power with the Czech Republic, Obajtek said. He also stressed that tax issues, including windfall taxes, could hurt investments in Unipetrol assets, which include the two Czech refineries and petrol stations.

"Our investments also depend on the regulatory approach by the Czech state, we cannot invest in places where tax regulations are suffocating for our investment," Obajtek said.

We remnd, India's oil imports from Russia rose to a fresh record high in April, further reducing the share of Middle Eastern and African grades to their lowest level in at least 22 years. Refiners in India, the world's third-biggest oil importer and consumer, are on a Russian oil-buying binge after some countries shunned purchases from Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

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