en.Wedoany.com Reported - Technip Energies (PARIS:TE), Alterra, and Neste have announced the commercial launch of Nerea™, a new industrial product designed to accelerate the deployment of chemical recycling projects for plastic waste. By shifting from custom engineering to a standardized product model, Nerea™ enables waste operators, project developers, and refining and petrochemical companies to scale circular plastic production with greater predictability.
Over the past two decades, global plastic production has nearly doubled, reaching approximately 431 million tons in 2024. Recycling rates have failed to keep pace with sustained consumption growth, resulting in large volumes of plastic waste ending up in incinerators, landfills, or being released into the environment. Meanwhile, regulatory developments in Europe and other regions are driving stronger demand for recycled and circular feedstocks.
Based on a cooperation agreement signed by Technip Energies, Alterra, and Neste in November 2024, Nerea™ integrates Alterra's thermochemical liquefaction technology, Neste's chemical recycling expertise, and Technip Energies' engineering, project delivery, and modularization capabilities. Alterra's technology has demonstrated over five years of continuous commercial operation, processing real-world plastic waste streams.
The product adopts a standardized modular design that minimizes upfront investment and reduces project complexity, while offering greater certainty in cost and schedule. Designed for rapid deployment across various industrial environments, Nerea™ units convert heterogeneous and hard-to-recycle plastic waste into high-quality feedstocks for the petrochemical industry.
Julie Cranga, Senior Vice President of the Carbon Capture and Circular Products Line at Technip Energies, stated that through Nerea™, the partners have integrated proven technology, feedstock expertise, and industrial delivery into a standardized product ready for large-scale deployment. She expressed excitement about now offering Nerea™ to customers, providing greater predictability and performance during its development, investment, and operational phases to help accelerate global chemical recycling.
Fred Schmuck, CEO of Alterra, said that Nerea™ reflects the shared vision of the three companies to make circular solutions easier to deploy at industrial scale. By combining proven technology, industrial expertise, and a standardized delivery model, the collaboration is helping remove barriers that have traditionally hindered the development of chemical recycling, creating a more predictable and scalable path to convert hard-to-recycle plastics into valuable feedstocks for the circular economy.
Lars Peter Lindfors, Senior Vice President of Technology and Innovation at Neste, noted that Neste's recently upgraded unit at its Porvoo refinery in Finland is the largest in the world in terms of capacity, and the company knows how to convert low-quality feedstocks into high-quality solutions. He looks forward to supporting industry scale-up through robust and easily deployable technologies to meet the growing demand for liquefied waste plastics, both for Neste and others.
