Carbios, Indorama Ventures to build world’s first PET biorecycling plant

Iranpolymer/ Baspar  Biotech company Carbios and Bangkok-based chemical giant Indorama Ventures, a global sustainable chemical producer, have signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to form a Joint Venture for the construction of the world’s first PET biorecycling plant in France based on the enzymatic depolymerisation process developed by Carbios.  The technology enables the efficient and solvent-free recycling of PET plastic and textile waste into virgin-equivalent products. Carbios and Indorama Ventures have been working together for over a year to assess the commercial and technical feasibility of the technology.
The announcement is ‘a significant landmark in our partnership with Indorama Ventures and a major step forward in realizing our joint first-of-a-kind PET biorecycling plant’, said Emmanuel Ladent, CEO of Carbios. According to the terms of the MOU, Indorama Ventures will mobilise about 110 million euros (or about $118 million) for the joint venture in equity and nonconvertible loan financing, pending final engineering documentation and final economic feasibility studies.
The companies said they both fully support the venture and intended to finalise the contract documentation before end 2023.
Under the agreement signed today, Carbios, would acquire 13ha land from Indorama Ventures’ existing PET plant at Longlaville, where the new biorecycling plant will be built. Carbios filed for plant permitting in December 2022, and expects to be granted the relevant permits by Q3 2023. This would allow construction to be started by the end of 2023, with commissioning targeted for 2025.
On its part, Indorama Ventures will be responsible for repolymerising 100% of the output of the PET recycling facility. Both partners will collaborate on securing the feedstock supply.
The plant at Longlaville will be able to process about 50,000 tonnes of post-consumer PET waste per year, equivalent to 2 billion PET coloured bottles or 2.5 billion PET trays. The plot on which the plant is to be built offers space to double the capacity in the future.
If this first plant in France is a success, Indorama Ventures has also indicated it will potentially expand the technology to other PET sites for future developments.
The project is part of Indorama Ventures’ Vision 2030 sustainability ambitions, which include spending $1.5 billion to increase its recycling capacity to 50 billion PET bottles per year by 2025 and 100 billion bottles per year by 2030. To meet these goals, Indorama Ventures is investing in new – mechanical and chemical – recycling technologies.
“We are encouraged by the positive results of the due diligence our teams have performed so far on the technical soundness of Carbios’ technology. We are confident that this groundbreaking development could be a valuable addition to the range of solutions for the circular economy of PET plastics and fibers,” said Yash Lohia, Chairman of the ESG Council at Indorama Ventures.
The total capital investment for the new plant is re-estimated to be around €230 million, taking into account recent impact from inflation. Project costs will be financed by the sums mobilized by Indorama Ventures, the French State and Grand-Est Region subsidies available for the project, and by equity capitalisation of the joint venture by Carbios. Part of Carbios’ equity injection into the joint venture will be financed by a portion of Carbios’ current cash position – €86 million as of 30 April 2023. Carbios is actively examining the best options to finance its remaining equity injection into the joint venture and will choose the most appropriate solution and timeline based on market conditions.

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