BP signs offtake agreement for plastic waste-derived petrochemicals

Oil major BP has signed a 10-year offtake agreement with UK-based Clean Planet Energy for petrochemical feedstocks and ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) derived from plastic waste, according to a press release May 9.

Under the agreement, BP will receive output from Clean Planet Energy's yet-to-be-completed chemical recycling plant in Teeside, UK. The facility is designed to have a capacity to process 20,000 mt/year of waste plastic into liquids such as naphtha, fuel oil, jet fuel and ultra low sulfur diesel.

This agreement is the latest among major oil and petrochemical players as well as startups looking to find a solution to treating hard-to-recycle mixed plastic waste as well as to tap into the circular plastics value chain.

Some of the output from such processes can be used to make plastic feedstocks, such as ethylene and propylene, and therefore can be used to make plastics again.

Clean Planet Energy is developing 12 chemical recycling facilities, the press release said. The company aims to process 250,000 mt/year of plastic waste.

Clean Planet Energy's chemical recycling plants are based on pyrolysis, whereby plastic waste, predominantly polyolefins, which have a high hydrocarbon content, are broken down in the absence of oxygen.

The resulting oil can be treated and separated into liquid fractions, solids and gases.