Neste has completed the start-up of its new facility for upgrading liquefied plastic waste (LWP) at its refinery in Porvoo, Finland. The investment of EUR 111 million represents an important step in the development of chemical recycling, enabling the production of high-quality feedstock for the plastics and chemicals industry. The new unit has an annual processing capacity of up to 150,000 tonnes of liquefied plastic waste, which makes it the largest facility of this type worldwide. Processing will be ramped up gradually.
According to the company, the successful commissioning demonstrates the feasibility of industrial-scale processing of liquefied plastic waste. The facility has been integrated into the existing oil refinery, enabling co-processing of liquefied plastic waste together with fossil feedstock. The aim is to reduce the quality gap between crude liquefied plastic waste and the high-quality drop-in feedstocks required by the petrochemical industry. The new unit has been specifically designed to process oils derived from challenging plastic waste streams, such as multilayer packaging, mixed plastic waste and contaminated plastics, which typically are not suitable for mechanical recycling.
Jori Sahlsten, Executive Vice President of Oil Products at Neste, underlines the importance of the start-up for scaling the process: "The successful commissioning proves that we can process liquefied waste plastic at an industrial scale. This achievement demonstrates Neste's capability to develop advanced technology, set safety standards, and create new supply chains for challenging new raw materials. We are proud of this achievement, and I want to express my sincere thanks to our partners and employees whose dedication has allowed us to turn this vision into a reality."
Scaling up chemical recycling of challenging plastic waste
Neste has been processing liquefied plastic waste, including pyrolysis oils, since 2020. Construction of the new upgrading facility and its integration into the existing refinery began in 2023 and was completed at the end of 2025. Production ramp-up started in 2026 and will progress gradually, depending on market developments and the regulatory framework. The plant is intended to increase the share of chemical recycling in the management of plastic waste, especially those fractions that have so far been directed to incineration or landfilling.
The new site is designed to utilise low-quality waste fractions that do not meet the requirements for mechanical recycling. These include, in particular, multilayer packaging structures, mixed plastic waste streams and contaminated plastic waste. The applied upgrading technology is used to improve the quality of liquefied plastic waste to the level required by companies manufacturing high-quality plastics, so that it can replace fossil feedstocks in the existing petrochemical infrastructure.
As pointed out by Maiju Helin, Director of Polymers and Chemicals at Neste: "We enable the scale-up of chemical recycling by upgrading liquefied plastic waste. The plastic originates from low-quality waste streams not suitable for mechanical recycling and destined for incineration or landfills. Thanks to our new facility, even hard-to-recycle plastic waste can be upgraded to meet the feedstock quality requirements of companies manufacturing high-quality plastics."
Regulatory framework and the role of refineries
The development of chemical recycling in the European Union is linked to regulations on recycled content in plastic products, including single-use packaging. The current rules for calculating the share of recycled materials are important for recognising the contribution of chemical recycling to the achievement of EU targets. According to the company, the way refineries are treated in these regulations may limit their role in meeting the required levels of recycled content.
Maiju Helin highlights this aspect: "The current European Commission’s calculation rules on recycled content in the Single Use Plastics Directive threaten to limit the ability of refineries to serve EU’s recycled content targets. For Europe's competitiveness sake, we need to ensure the calculation rules are amended to include refineries in the context of the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation."
In the new facility, Neste processes liquefied plastic waste together with crude oil. A mass balance approach is applied in the process to attribute the use of recycled raw materials to the Neste RE product. Recycled Neste RE is then used as a feedstock for the production of plastics and chemicals in existing plants without the need for major modifications, as it functions as a drop-in material.
Environmental performance of Neste RE
According to the data presented by the company, the use of recycled Neste RE originating from the chemical recycling of plastic waste makes it possible to reduce the consumption of primary fossil resources by more than 70% (abiotic depletion indicator) and to cut greenhouse gas emissions by more than 35%, compared with a scenario in which plastic waste is incinerated and fossil feedstock is used in plastics production. These savings relate to the stage where fossil feedstocks are replaced in plastics manufacturing by recycled material obtained through chemical recycling.
The use of a mass balance approach in co-processing liquefied plastic waste with crude oil is intended to enable a gradual increase of the share of recycled feedstocks in the total input volume. In practice, this allows the petrochemical industry to use existing infrastructure while increasing the proportion of secondary materials in the production of plastics.
Licensing of liquefaction technology for difficult waste
To support the development of chemical recycling of hard-to-treat plastic waste, Neste cooperates with technology partners. Together with Alterra and Technip Energies, the company licenses liquefaction technology for the chemical recycling of plastic waste that is not suitable for mechanical recycling. This includes in particular multilayer, mixed and contaminated waste, which has so far mainly been sent to incineration or landfills.
The licensing of the technology is intended to increase the availability of plastic waste-derived oil for upgrading facilities and to enable the development of similar solutions also beyond the Porvoo refinery. Combined with the new upgrading facility, this is expected to increase the pool of plastic waste that can be brought into a closed loop using chemical recycling.
Neste's new facility to upgrade liquefied plastic waste into high-quality petrochemical feedstock is located at the company's existing refinery in Porvoo, Finland.
