Finnish fuel and renewable tech firm Neste is to receive a grant of up to 135 million euros from the EU Innovation Fund, to help finance the company's chemical recycling project at its refinery in Porvoo, the company announced on Wednesday.
Neste calls the effort "Pulse" (Pretreatment and Upgrading of Liquefied Waste Plastic to Scale Up Circular Economy), an initiative it said will use proprietary tech to pretreat and upgrade liquefied waste plastic.
The firm said the project is part of a longer-term goal to process more than one million tonnes of plastic waste annually by 2030. Neste said the project is to begin operations in 2024.
In a statement, the firm's EVP of renewable polymers and chemicals, Mercedes Alonso, said the company was excited the EU Innovation Fund decided to support the project.
"While showing recognition for and faith in our work on chemical recycling, the funding also highlights the importance of the approach itself. If we want to move towards a circular economy for polymers and chemicals, chemical recycling will have a major role to play," Alonso said in the statement.
According to the firm, last year Neste's revenue exceeded 15 billion euros, with profits of 1.3 billion euros. As of 2021 it employed around 4,900 people and operates in Finland, the Netherlands and Singapore.