Europe's largest PET recycler sold to Indorama

Major global PET supplier Indorama Ventures is set to own Europe’s largest PET recycler - Wellman International.

Bangkok-based Indorama revealed that it has agreed to buy Wellman, which has operations in Ireland, from Aurelius, a Grünwald, Germany-based holding company.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Aurelius bought the business from US-based Wellman Inc. in July 2007. It has three production facilities in Europe, recycling more than 1.6 billion PET bottles annually.

The company has plants in Spijk, the Netherlands, and Verdun, France, plus a head office and fibre production in Mullagh, Ireland.

In 2010, Wellman International posted sales of €124m, according to Aurelius.

The acquisition, to be completed this year, is expected to help the company meet its customers’ sustainability, including demand for post-consumer PET.

Indorama said there is also potential to use Wellman International’s recycling technology in Asia.

“The target acquisition has the know-how to blend recycled PET and industrial waste and will potentially contribute to make Indorama Ventures a ‘zero waste’ company with a low carbon footprint able to serve both the beverage and fiber segments of our customer base,” said Indorama chief executive Aloke Lohia.

“The project will act as a springboard to launch [Indorama] into recycled PET following our ongoing construction of recycling plants in Decatur, Ala., and Rayong, Thailand,” Lohia said.

“As this is the largest recycling capacity in the whole of Europe we will have both economies of scale and lower production costs to serve our customers in both the bottle and fibre segments,” he said.