Neste – the world’s leading provider of renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel – has acquired a minority stake in Alterra Energy, an innovative chemical recycling technology company. Neste’s equity investment supports Alterra Energy’s expansion and commercialisation of Alterra’s proprietary thermochemical liquefaction technology in Europe.

 

Alterra’s technology enables a broad range of plastic waste streams from diverse post-consumer sources to be liquefied into a material similar to crude oil. Such material can be flexibly processed and upgraded by companies like Neste into high-quality feedstock for polymers and chemicals production.

Working towards a global roll-out

The companies are working together towards a global roll-out of Alterra’s liquefaction technology with a strong initial focus on Europe, a leading market in the global transition towards making plastics value chains fully circular. With this, the companies aim to accelerate the adoption of chemical recycling and develop capacity to turn hard-to-recycle plastic waste into high-quality, high-performance polymers and chemicals. The collaboration between the firms supports Alterra Energy’s target of commencing construction of a state-of-the-art liquefaction site in Europe during 2021.

Alterra’s existing industrial-scale waste plastics liquefaction plant in Akron, Ohio, produces commercial volumes that can already be refined and upgraded into high-quality feedstock for plastics and chemicals. This, together with Neste’s refining capability, enables sustainability-oriented brands globally to start introducing recycled content into their products and offerings.

Accelerating the shift towards a circular plastics economy

“Collaboration with Alterra Energy strengthens Neste’s ecosystem of partnerships that are aimed at accelerating the transition to a circular plastics economy. It demonstrates our commitment to continue developing the chemical recycling industry by supporting some of the leading companies in commercializing promising technologies. This partnership also supports Neste’s aim of building new business growth based on chemical recycling, while marking another significant step towards our target of processing more than one million tons of plastic waste from 2030 onwards,” said Mercedes Alonso, Executive VP of Renewable Polymers and Chemicals at Neste. 

“The Neste-Alterra partnership will unlock the full potential of the circular economy, bringing our technology to more partners around the world, creating a cleaner planet,” said Alterra’s CEO Frederic Schmuck. “Neste is a world leader in renewable and circular solutions and its endorsement of Alterra’s proprietary process is both extremely rewarding and validating.”