Shell Chemicals Europe and Recupero Etico Sostenibile (RES), an Italy-based waste manager, have signed a multi-year offtake agreement for pyrolysis oil to be produced at RES’ plant in Pettoranello del Molise, central Italy.
The pyrolysis plant is currently under construction. The Netherlands-based chemical recycler BlueAlp is supplying the technology licence and will engineer, procure, and fabricate the pyrolysis unit in its workshop in Eindhoven. RES will own and operate the plant to process and convert 20,000 tonnes of mixed plastic waste into 15,000 tonnes of pyrolysis oil a year. Operations are expected to start by mid-2026.
As per the terms of the agreement, Shell will purchase the entire output to be produced at the Pettoranello plant. The agreement also includes the option for Shell to offtake additional volume of pyrolysis oil produced by a second RES Group might build in the future.
When fully implemented, the deal is expected to generate an additional annual revenue of more than €20 million for RES Group.
“This off-take agreement represents confirmation of the right choices made in past years to focus on pyrolysis technology,” commented Antonio Lucio Valerio, CEO of RES. “The investments made for the construction of the new plant are crowned by the signing of this important collaboration with a global player such as Shell, which marks the beginning of a strategic partnership for both parties and a fundamental step in the promotion of sustainable and innovative solutions in chemical recycling.”
At RES’s location, the BlueAlp plant will be integrated into circular waste processing concept that converts the post-industrial and post-consumer waste into recycled products. The plastic waste stream will be in the form of granulates.
In the patented BlueAlp process this granulate is melted, homogenised and further decontaminated in an extruder before it enters the pyrolysis reaction system where the oil product is formed in a fully continuous manner at relatively low temperatures to minimise the formation of undesired byproducts.
Downstream of the reaction system, the oil can optionally be separated into individual fractions to meet the requirements of the end users who then transform it into the building blocks for recycled chemicals or polymers. The ratio between the different oil product fractions and their properties can be easily adjusted to the client’s needs, according to BlueAlp.
BlueAlp estimates that producing one litre of pyrolysis oil with its technology has 68% less impact on the environment compared with the production of a litre of fossil fuel.