Eastman confirms offtake agreement with PepsiCo for third US chemical recycling site

HOUSTON (ICIS)–Announced as part of the Q3 earnings release, Eastman has confirmed an offtake agreement with consumer goods giant PepsiCo for its third planned polyethylene terephthalate (PET) chemical recycling facility in the US, the location of which has not been announced.

While the exact volumes of the offtake agreement were not shared, Eastman did confirm that the third methanolysis facility will have a planned input capacity of 160,000 tonnes/year of hard to recycle PET waste and a planned output capacity of over 150,000 tonnes/year.

The facility is anticipated to be online by the end of 2026.

As stated in Eastman’s Q3 prepared remarks, “This definitive agreement is an important milestone for Eastman’s circular economy platform, and we are looking forward to making progress on this and our other two molecular recycling projects in the coming quarters as we continue to prove to the world what is possible.”

Per the call, this latest agreement has given Eastman the confidence in their baseload demand to beginning the engineering work on their third facility. While the location has not been announced, tax documents filed earlier this year suggest they are considering locations in Texas.

Also reiterated during their latest earnings call, Eastman’s first facility in Kingsport, Tennessee should be mechanically completed at the end of the first quarter of 2023, with a processing capacity of 110,000 tonnes/year of hard to recycled PET waste.

Announced several weeks prior, Eastman has also secured feedstock supply with InterZero for their second facility in Port-Jerome-sur-Seine, France. This facility is slated to be operational by 2025.