A.P. Moller Holding, the investment group of Danish shipping and logistics company Mærsk, has launched a new company to manufacture fossil-free plastics.
Called Vioneo, the new enterprise has drawn plans to build a 300,000 tonnes/year polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) plant using green methanol as feedstock in the Port of Antwerp, Belgium.
The planned plant will require a €1.5 billion investment. The project will proceed in phases, with Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) set to begin in Q4 2024, followed by Final Investment Decision (FID) likely in 2025. Commercial operations are expected to start during 2028.
Methanol is an essential multi-purpose raw material for the chemical industry, with many applications throughout the wider industry. Currently, methanol is produced using fossil-based raw materials, which emits carbon dioxide from the process.
Green methanol, on the other hand, is produced from low-carbon sources such as green hydrogen, carbon capture, or biomass. It is also used as so-called clean fuel for the shipping industry. Mærsk has already signed long-term offtake agreements for green methanol to power 12 methanol-enabled vessels.
Vioneo said it will use a ‘proven technology’ to convert the green methanol into PP and PE, without adding further details. It said the end-product will be ISCC Plus certified and suitable for applications across all sectors including medical appliances, home goods, automotive and packaging. Production will be powered by renewable electricity to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The plant is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by 1.5 million tons in comparison with fossil-based plastic production.
“Vioneo wants to drive the transition of the plastics industry by demonstrating that plastics can be made economically at scale without fossil raw materials,” said Jan Secher, chair of Vioneo. “The initiative offers a major opportunity for Europe to lead in defossilising the €5 trillion global chemicals and materials sector, securing Europe a leading position in the transition, in a sector that today suffers from lack of investment and innovation, as well as higher comparable costs”.
The project’s success will depend on ‘broad stakeholder support, including updated regulatory frameworks and policies supporting a competitive environment for fossil-free plastics, as well as better conditions for the European chemicals industry such as lower energy costs’, Vioneo said in a statement.
Vioneo already has the support of the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, Europe’s largest integrated chemical cluster, and Vopak Belgium, the owner of the Vopak Energy Park Antwerp, where the facility will be built. The site has deep-sea, river, road, and rail access, as well as pipeline connections to Northwest Europe for propylene, ethylene, CO2, and hydrogen transport.
The new company will also benefit from Ineos’ experience in large-scale industrial operations. Alex Hogan, previously business director Ineos Enterprises, will take over as Vioneo’s CEO from Nov. 11. In this almost 22-year career at Ineos, he has been responsible for mergers and acquisitions, integration, and turnaround of businesses.
“I am thrilled to be joining Vioneo, a company with which I share the same passion for sustainability,” Hogan said. “I look forward to leading the way for defossilisation of polymers at scale, with our unique fully segregated and traceable production in the heart of the Europes largest chemical cluster. We will focus on working together with our customers to break the dependance on oil and gas of polymer production.”
In 2020, Inovyn, Ineos’ vinyls producing business, started exploring options for the sustainable production of methanol at the Port of Antwerp. Together with another six partners, it contributed to a joint feasibility study for the production of methanol from captured carbon dioxide and sustainably generated hydrogen. The consortium planned to build an 8,000 tonnes/year plant of sustainable methanol to start operations in January 2022. However, in February 2024 plans were scrapped due to ‘escalating costs’.
At the time of publication, Vioneo did not answer Sustainable Plastics enquire regarding its planned green methanol supplier.