September 18, 2025 15:37

In an interview with Reuters, ExxonMobil Executive Vice President Jack Williams announced the suspension of two chemical recycling investments in Europe worth around €100 million, citing draft EU rules on the calculation of recycled content via the mass balance approach, currently under public consultation.

The projects, located in Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Antwerp (Belgium), with a combined capacity of 80,000 tonnes per year, are part of a wider investment program in chemical recycling across Europe, Asia and the United States.

According to Reuters, ExxonMobil argues that the draft methodology gives an unfair advantage to standalone recycling plants, where tracing waste through to the final product is more straightforward, while penalizing integrated petrochemical sites that process both virgin and recycled feedstocks.
Williams added that under the proposed law, ExxonMobil’s facilities would receive less than half the credits granted to standalone operations.

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