From the Sector

Indorama Ventures, VALORPLAST, Klöckner Pentaplast (kp) and CITEO collaboration delivers a commercial recycling solution for monolayer PET trays

Thai-based Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL) with its facility Wellman France Recycling in Verdun, has been working on the PET trays recycling for 6 years and through an ongoing project with VALORPLAST and supported by CITEO.

The project has the objective to develop and validate recycling for monolayer and multilayer PET trays. VALORPLAST has collected significant quantities of post-consumer PET trays and several industrial runs have been conducted by Wellman. The produced flakes are being tested by several actors to develop high quality applications. Those tests have led by IVL to develop a commercially feasible recycling solution for monolayer PET trays with the collaboration of Klöckner Pentaplast.
The new technology is processing monolayer PET trays used for food packaging (meat, produce and cheese) into a high-quality product, suitable for new tray production.

This new recycling innovation will see over 50 million post-consumer PET trays diverted away from landfill or incineration.

Testing has now moved into commercial production. 500 tonnes of PET trays are now being processed monthly and transformed into a high-quality tray flake, which can be used to produce new trays. The purity of the flakes is comparable with high-quality bottle flake. A further scale up is foreseen, and the company plans to process 10KT of tray flake in 2022.

• The plan for the reference plant is to be operational in 2025 in France (Longlaville) with a processing capacity of 50.000 tons of PET waste per year and creating 150 direct and indirect new jobs.
• Indorama Ventures, the world’s largest producer of recycled PET for beverage bottles, plans to co-invest in this project3 and will consider expanding Carbios’ unique biological recycling process at other PET sites4 for future developments.
• This strategic project is strongly supported by the French Government and the Grand-Est Region, with significant non-dilutive financing.

Carbios (Euronext Growth Paris: ALCRB), a pioneer in the development of enzymatic solutions dedicated to the end-of-life of plastic and textile polymers and Indorama Ventures (Bloomberg ticker: IVL.TB), one of the world-leading PET manufacturer, jointly announced a collaboration to build a manufacturing plant operating Carbios’ PET bio-recycling technology at Indorama Ventures’ PET production site in France (Longlaville, Meurthe-et-Moselle).

After having successfully started-up its demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand, Carbios is moving one step further towards the industrialization and commercialization by partnering with Indorama Ventures. The goal is to build and operate in France the world’s first industrial-scale enzymatic PET bio-recycling plant, with a processing capacity estimated at ca. 50.000 tons of post-consumer PET waste per year, equivalent to 2 billion PET bottles or 2.5 billion PET trays.

The capital investment required for the project is expected to be around €150 million for Carbios core technology, including in particular an additional purification step, which has been integrated into the process. In addition, an estimated €50 million investment will be allocated for the infrastructure preparation of the site. The project is expected to create approximatively 150 direct and indirect full-time jobs. In the coming months, Carbios expects to finalize a strong non-dilutive financial support from French Government and from the Grand-Est Region5, based on the offer received last week by Carbios, from the Minister of Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher and the President of Grand-Est Region, Jean Rottner.

This financial support will be conditional on the notification to the European Commission and on contractualization by French authorities. Carbios announced in its half-year results on the 30th September 2021 a cash position of €112 million. Since then, Carbios has also secured a €30 million loan from EIB.

• New partnership will recycle over 1.6 billion PET beverage bottles in the Czech Republic by 2025

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL), the world’s largest producer of recycled PET for beverage bottles, completed a deal for an 85% equity stake in Czech Republic-based PET plastic recycler, UCY Polymers CZ s.r.o. (UCY), boosting the country and Europe’s plastic collection and recycling ambitions.

As a result of the investment, IVL will recycle about 1.12 billion additional post-consumer PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic bottles in the Czech Republic every year by 2025, increasing the total bottles recycled by UCY across the Czech Republic, Germany and Central Europe to 1.6 billion bottles per year. IVL, a global sustainable chemicals company, is investing USD1.5 billion globally to expand recycling facilities and sustainable production, including boosting its recycling capacity to 750,000 tons per year by 2025.

UCY is a strategic fit for IVL as a backward integration into the company’s expanding recycled PET (rPET) footprint in Europe and across the world to secure feedstock for rPET products. UCY can produce 40,000 tonnes of recycled PET flake per year. IVL will develop UCY to serve the increasing demand for recycled PET in Europe.

UCY will work with IVL’s existing PET flake production facilities in the region. These provide the washed and shredded post-consumer bottles as PET flake feedstock to produce recycled PET resin that is suitable for food contact use. PET is fully recyclable and the most collected and recycled plastic packaging in Europe.

The Hygiene Fibers Group of Indorama Ventures (IVL) came together at the Index Show to present an all-inclusive range of recycled and biodegradable solutions for Hygiene Fiber and Nonwoven applications.

The combination of polymers, technologies, processes and global reach supported by the Hygiene Fibers Group – one of three business segments that make up Indorama Ventures – positions it within the Hygiene industry to meet increasingly challenging market demand for innovative sustainable solutions within the hygiene sector. Across the six brands and companies that make up Hygiene Fibers Group – Auriga, Avgol, FiberVisions, Indorama Asia, Trevira and Wellman International – sustainability and supporting customers to achieve circular objectives is integral to all efforts and fundamental to the ethos of the Hygiene business segment.

At the Index Show, the Hygiene Fibers Group launched CiCLO®, a textile technology which allows polyester and other synthetic materials to biodegrade like natural materials do in wastewater treatment plant sludge, sea water and landfill conditions, reducing synthetic microfiber pollution generated during washing, and minimizing plastic accumulation in landfills caused by discarded textiles.

In line with the company’s commitment to support customers with high performance products, while also reducing the impact on the environment, several of the  Hygiene Fibers brands, including Wellman International, Trevira GMBH and Auriga, have been working closely over the last 12 months with the IAM team and the CiCLO® technology. Developments have focused on PET and rPET staple fiber and filament sustainable solutions for applications where recycling is particularly challenging, such as Hygiene, Home Textiles and Automotive applications.

Strengthening the profile of biodegradable offerings within the Hygiene Fibers Group’s sustainability portfolio, Trevira introduced a new range of bicomponent fibres based on PLA and PBS (polybutylene succinate) at the Index show. Both biopolymers offer an exceptional technological opportunity in terms of environmental care and sustainability, while delivering optimum performance. Equally to PLA, PBS is recyclable and up to 100% biodegradable under industrial conditions.

Efforts towards supporting customers to achieve circular objectives are a priority within the Hygiene Fibers Group. This is reflected in the recycled fibers expertise deployed across the segment. Four Hygiene Fibers Group brands, IVL Asia, Auriga, Trevira and Wellman International offer an extensive range of 100% recycled, accredited PET fibers, across a multitude of fiber and nonwovens applications.

The development and evolution of sustainable technologies is central to activity across IVL’s Hygiene Fibers Group, with particular focus on sustainable polyolefin solutions. FiberVisions and ES-FIBERVISIONS, leading Polyolefin mono and bico fiber brands and sister company Avgol, have partnered with UK-based Polymateria to commercially harness the innovative ‘biotransformation’ technology pioneered by Polymateria. The patented technology alters the properties of polyolefins to make them biodegradable in a natural process.  Other polyolefin sustainable innovations within the Hygiene Fibers Group were featured at Index include biosurfactant and biocolourant developments being undertaken by the Avgol team with FiberVisons progressing sustainable design solutions, including lightweight, high performance, reduced carbon solutions.

• Forecasts continued growth as global markets recover from pandemic

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL), a global chemical producer, announced its second quarter 2021 financial results, reporting a record Core EBITDA of US$477 million as major economies recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic and drove demand for products across IVL’s businesses. IVL is forecasting similar strong growth in the second half of 2021 and in 2022 as global vaccination programs spur positive sentiment.

2Q2021 Performance Summary:

• Consolidated Revenue of US $3,559M, an increase of 10% QoQ and up 52% YoY
• EBITDA of US$ 552M and Core EBITDA of US$ 477M
• Net profit of THB 8,340M, a growth of 39% QoQ, and compared to THB 154M a year earlier
• Core ROCE of 12.9%, up 443 basis points (bps)  QoQ and up 715 bps YoY
• Project Olympus, the company’s cost saving and business transformation project, yielded US$ 116M in efficiency gains in 1H21, on track to our 2021 target of US$ 287M
• Acquisition of CarbonLite’s recycled PET asset in USA, making IVL the largest global producer of rPET resin

IVL delivered standout results in 2Q21 and a record Core EBITDA of US$477 million, bolstered by their global franchise, scale and leadership across three business segments. The record quarterly results include solid performance across regions. Americas and EMEA yielded a record, performing 59% higher Core EBITDA in 1H21 as compared to 1H20, while Asia grew by 15%.

The remainder of 2021 is expected to parallel the first half on the back of continued strong demand in IVL's products from opening of travel with widespread vaccination and immunity.