Dutch pyrolysis chemical recycling company BlueAlp has been selected to receive €21mn ($23.5mn) from the EU Innovation Fund towards a new 49,000 t/yr pyrolysis unit and pyrolysis oil (PPO) upgrader in Kampen, Netherlands, it said.
The firm also said it plans to add a 24,500 t/yr pyrolysis reactor at its site in Oostende, Belgium.
Kampen was a joint venture with Shell, but BlueAlp took control as part of a decision to expand into building and operating plants, alongside its technology licensing business. The company said a final investment decision (FID) on Kampen, which will comprise two 24,500 t/yr lines, can take place after "further preparations". It expects construction to begin in early 2028 and a 2029 start up.
The cost will be €100mn, including the Innovation Fund grant. Chief executive Valentijn De Neve told Argus the remainder of the capital is "by and large secured". Shell continues as a BlueAlp shareholder and technology partner, and as a PPO offtaker, he said.
The EU Innovation Fund selected 77 projects from 358 applications in this round. These will proceed to grant agreement preparation before funding is formally confirmed, which BlueAlp expects to take 3-4 months.
The decision to expand Oostende from current capacity of around 20,000 t/yr is seen as financially attractive as it can make use of existing utilities and infrastructure, De Neve said. He expects the new unit to be operational by mid-2028, pending a FID.
The new plants will be based on the same core technology as BlueAlp's commercial reactor in Oostende, with upgrades such as additional redundancy to increase operating times and improved access for cleaning and maintenance, De Neve said. Kampen will include an upgrader, to prepare PPO produced for direct use as steam cracker feedstock, which will be based on licensed technology. Building the upgrader alongside the PPO unit is intended to reduce costs compared with stand-alone upgrading capacity, he said.
Planning capacity to come online closer to the end of the decade, when demand for chemically-recycled polymers is likely to rise ahead of EU recycled content requirements for contact-sensitive non-PET packaging, has helped BlueAlp secure offtake agreements, De Neve said. Having these projects — and others including a licensing agreement with BioBTX in Delfzijl, Netherlands, and a 40,000 t/yr front-end engineering and design (Feed) stage plant in Rotterdam in partnership with LBC Tank Terminals — in relative proximity will allow the company to realise synergies in logistics, feedstock supply and staffing, he said.
