Danish green plastic project for 200,000 tons per year of polypropylene (PP) and 100,000 tons per year of polyethylene (PE) underway in China

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On January 16, Vioneo, a subsidiary of the Danish shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk, announced that it was canceling its plans to build a green plastics factory at the port of Antwerp in Belgium, and instead moving forward with this project in China. The project was initially planned to require an investment of around 1.5 billion euros; it was intended to serve as Vioneo’s first large-scale production facility, capable of producing 300,000 tons per year of fossil-free \"green plastics.\" Commercial operations were expected to begin in 2028, and it was regarded as one of the key projects that would help Antwerp Port advance its green transformation. Vioneo states that its main goal remains the conversion of bio-based methanol into polyethylene and polypropylene, but building facilities in China will make this goal more cost-effective and enable its achievement more quickly. China can provide it with better access to green methanol. This will reduce costs, cut carbon dioxide emissions, and speed up the time to market for products. At the same time, the overall carbon emissions of the factory located in China will be lower than those of the Antwerp factory as originally planned. The Chinese factory will adopt the same technical partners, product specifications, and sustainability commitments as the planned European facility, with production capacity remaining unchanged at 200,000 tons per year for polypropylene (PP) and 100,000 tons per year for polyethylene (PE). The production of PP and PE will use renewable electricity to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Vioneo has previously selected several technology partners to build the Antwerp plant: the ECI Group is responsible for producing low-density polyethylene (LDPE), Lummus Technology is responsible for producing polypropylene (PP), and Wood Company is in charge of the front-end engineering design. Honeywell’s Methanol-to-Olefins (MTO) technology has been selected to produce plastics that do not require traditional fossil fuel feedstocks. Vioneo emphasizes that it remains a European company and says it is still possible to build factories in Europe in the future. Founded in 2024 by A.P. Moller Holding, which owns 100% of its shares, Vioneo was created to promote large-scale \"fossil-free\" plastic production based on green methanol. A.P. Moller Holding is the controlling shareholder of the shipping giant A.P. Moller-Maersk. On January 11, Maersk’s CEO (Vincent Clerc) said in an interview with the Financial Times that the company plans to increase the use of bioethanol as a low-carbon fuel for ships, in order to reduce its reliance on green methanol from China. Ke Wensheng admitted that although Maersk is at the forefront of the use of green methanol fuel in the shipping industry, over-reliance on China has its drawbacks.