Neste to enable PET bottles pro­duced with bio-based mater­i­als with Sun­tory, ENEOS and Mit­subishi Corporation

• Cooper­a­tion marks the first time renew­able Neste RE is used for pro­duc­tion of PET, one of the most com­monly used poly­mers for drink­ing bottles
• Intro­duc­tion of bio-based mater­i­als will reduce fossil resource depend­ence in the PET value chain

Neste has entered a cooper­a­tion with Sun­tory, ENEOS and Mit­subishi Cor­por­a­tion to enable the pro­duc­tion of PET (Poly­ethyl­ene Tere­ph­thal­ate) res­in made with renew­able Neste RE™ on a com­mer­cial scale. Neste RE is Neste’s feed­stock for poly­mers pro­duc­tion, made 100% from bio-based raw mater­i­als such as waste and residues, e.g. used cook­ing oil, to replace fossil feed­stock in the value chain. Japan­ese bever­age com­pany Sun­tory will util­ize the renew­able PET res­in to pro­duce bottles for its products in 2024. 

A new part­ner for Neste in Japan, ENEOS will use bio-inter­me­di­ates based on Neste RE to pro­duce bio-PX (Bio-Paraxylene) at its Mizushi­ma Refinery in Okayama, Japan. The bio-PX will then be con­ver­ted to PTA (Pur­i­fied Tere­ph­thal­ic Acid) and sub­sequently to PET res­in for Sun­tory to use to man­u­fac­ture their PET bottles. Mit­subishi Cor­por­a­tion will be coordin­at­ing the col­lab­or­a­tion between the value chain partners. 

“In order to tackle the immin­ent cli­mate crisis and its con­sequences, com­pan­ies are required to take respons­ib­il­ity now. Through part­ner­ing along the value chain, Neste can con­trib­ute to redu­cing the poly­mers and chem­ic­als industry’s depend­ence on fossil resources as well as to man­u­fac­tur­ing of products that have a lower car­bon foot­print,” says Lily­ana Budy­anto, Head of Sus­tain­able Part­ner­ships APAC at Neste Renew­able Poly­mers and Chem­ic­als busi­ness unit. 

A mass bal­an­cing approach will be applied to alloc­ate the bio-based mater­i­als to the PET bottles.