Indorama Ventures (IVL), a global chemical producer, recently purchased IMP Polowat, a PET recycling company located in Poland. The company boasts two facilities, one in Biels-ko-Biala and the other in Leczyca. Both facilities are located near major markets (Krakow and Warsaw respectively, and will drastically strengthen the Thai companies' presence in the Polish market.

The deal is expected to close sometime in the third quarter of 2020, depending on the speed of regulatory approval.

Indorama first entered the Polish marketplace in 2011, when it purchased a PET facility in Wloclawek. Company spokespeople have repeatedly cited Poland as a strategic market and feels it has made significant progress on both recycling and waste management.

Currently, the goal is to implement a deposit / return scheme and ramp up the process of collections, ultimately capitalizing on growing demand for recycled PET.

The IMP Polowat facility is one of the top producers of recycled plastics in the country, with a production capacity of 4,000 tonnes of rPET pellets 23,000 tons of rPET flakes. It also employs some 118 people.

According to IVL executive director Yashovardhan Lohia, the facility represents a perfect strategic fit, and will serve as a major stepping stone toward achieving a recycling capaci-ty of 750,000 tonnes a year. He further added that IVL plans to reach this goal by 2015, and is investing some US $1.5 billion toward the endeavour.