In an extension of a partnership that goes back to 1998, OMV (Vienna / Austria; www.omv.com) and Borealis (Vienna; www.borealisgroup.com) are exploring synergies for OMV’s “ReOil” recycling facility at the Schwechat refinery in Austria to advance the chemical recycling of post-consumer plastics waste.

The two companies share the site with the refinery supplying Borealis with petrochemical feedstock for its plastics production.

Already integrated into the refinery, OMV's ReOil pilot plant recycles plastics waste into synthetic crude, processing up to 100 kg/hr. The Austrian oil and gas group is planning one more scale-up step before reaching final industrial-scale output.

Thomas Van De Velde, Borealis senior VP hydrocarbons and energy, said the cooperation with OMV on recycling plastics waste was an "important and concrete step for our circular economy strategy."

In April, OMV announced it had teamed up with Austrian Airlines (Schwechat; www.austrian.com) to process passengers’ used disposable plastic cups in the ReOil plant – see Plasteurope.com of 08.04.2019.