Austrian oil and gas giant OMV (Vienna; www.omv.com) is to invest an unspecified sum into a demonstration oil recycling plant, which it expects will lead to the creation of an industrial-scale operation in 2026, capable of turning up to 200,000 t of plastics waste into synthetic feedstock per year.

The demo facility, based on OMV’s ReOil chemical recycling technology, is expected to become operational in 2023, converting 16,000 t/y of plastics into synthetic feedstock for the petrochemical industry. An existing ReOil pilot facility at OMV’s Schwechat plant has been operating since 2018, capable of recycling and processing 100 kg of used plastics into 100 litres of synthetic feedstock every hour.

Material for the new demo plant will be sourced from within Austria and will consist mainly of materials that cannot easily be recovered by mechanical technologies, including food packaging, plastic cups, lids from takeaway coffee and confectionery packaging, says OMV. The ReOil operation is a partnership with Borealis (Vienna; www.borealisgroup.com), in which OMV has a 75% stake (see Plasteurope.com 21.06.2021).