Austria – OMV and Wood agreed to enter into a mutually exclusive collaboration arrangement for the commercial licensing of OMV’s proprietary ReOil technology via a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU).
By the middle of 2023, the two businesses hope to reach a binding agreement. ReOil is a patented chemical recycling process created by OMV that uses waste plastic from the end of its useful life to create pyrolysis oil, a useful resource. These obsolete polymers would otherwise be disposed of in landfills or burned as rubbish since they cannot be mechanically recycled. The ReOil process runs at temperatures typical for a refinery under a moderate amount of pressure. The oil from the pyrolysis is then largely used once more to create premium, environmentally friendly polymers. Over ten years ago, OMV was one of the first businesses to create a chemical recycling process for spent plastics.
Final investment decision
In the OMV refinery in Schwechat, Austria, a ReOil pilot plant has been running since 2018 and has already processed end-of-life plastics for more than 17,000 hours. OMV made the final investment decision to construct a 16,000 t/year ReOil demo plant at the OMV site in Schwechat in December 2021. The unit is expected to begin operating in 2023.
ReOil will be further scaled up by OMV by the end of 2026 into a fully industrial-scale chemical recycling plant at the Schwechat refinery with a processing capacity of 200,000 t/year.
