Ineos and Norwegian recycler Recuro have signed a memorandum of understanding to build a chemical recycling facility at Ineos' Bamble polymer site in Norway. Once commissioned, the plant will process up to 33,000 metric tons of plastic scrap annually, according to Ineos.

The project — branded "Full Circle" — remains at the MOU stage. No commissioning date, capital cost or permitting timeline has been disclosed. What is on record is the design intent: a pyrolysis unit co-located with existing industrial infrastructure, land and services at Bamble, an approach Ineos says will cut capital costs and the overall environmental footprint compared with a greenfield build.

Feedstock flows to the cracker. The recycled material will serve as feedstock for recycled ethylene production at Ineos' Rafnes steam cracker, enabling the adjacent Bamble plant to manufacture recycled polyethylene (PE). Ineos says the output will meet European Union regulatory requirements for high-performance applications such as food and medical packaging — a segment where mechanical recycling has historically struggled to deliver food-contact-grade material at scale.

The company says the plant will run entirely on renewable energy produced in Norway and is designed to operate with minimal emissions. The pyrolysis technology, according to Ineos, maximizes recovery of embedded carbon by retaining both the oil and gas fractions generated during recycling for further use rather than burning them for energy generation. Ineos frames carbon retention as the core metric: keeping carbon-based materials such as plastics in circulation, the company argues, is key to reducing overall CO2 emissions.

Built on an existing site. "What makes the Full Circle project stand out is its holistic approach," Recuro CEO Arve Jakobsen says. "By reusing an existing industrial site, optimizing infrastructure and locating the plant next to a steam cracker facility, we can recover and reuse both oil and gas streams. This is circularity in its truest form."

Jakobsen credits the project's progress to partnerships, noting support from the Norwegian government through Innovation Norway, technology partner Vixla, and Ineos itself.

"Advanced recycling plays a critical role in expanding the potential for plastics recycling and closing the loop for high-performance applications," says Liz Rittweger, CEO of Ineos Olefins & Polymers Europe. "This project reflects Ineos' commitment to making a low-carbon circular economy a reality for our customers and wider society."

Rittweger paired that pledge with a direct ask to policymakers: "Regulators can support this effort with clear, harmonized rules that recognize advanced recycling outputs, create legal certainty and give investors the confidence to invest in new technologies at scale."

That regulatory point is not incidental. Mass-balance accounting rules that recognize chemically recycled feedstock in cracker output determine whether recycled-content claims — and the premium pricing attached to them — hold up under EU packaging rules. Without harmonized recognition of pyrolysis-derived outputs across member states, projects of this type face uncertainty in how their recycled ethylene and PE can be marketed and counted toward recycled-content targets.

The material math. A 33,000-tonne-per-year pyrolysis unit is a mid-scale installation by European advanced recycling standards, but its integration with the Rafnes cracker gives it a direct route into virgin-equivalent polymer production. The oil and gas fractions retained through pyrolysis would flow back into the petrochemical chain rather than exiting it as fuel — the distinction that separates chemical recycling from energy recovery under EU waste framework rules.

For now, the project sits in the announced category: an MOU, a named site, a technology partner and a throughput target, but no confirmed final investment decision, construction schedule or permit filings in the public record. The distance between this MOU and an operating plant will be measured in permits, offtake agreements and the mass-balance rulebook Rittweger references.

The next milestones to watch: a final investment decision from Ineos and Recuro, Norwegian permitting for the Bamble installation, and EU-level harmonization of rules recognizing advanced recycling outputs — the regulatory variable that will decide how fast this and comparable European pyrolysis projects reach financial close.