SK Geo Centric buys a stake in Florida's PureCycle

Industry

Published: 15 Mar. 2022, 18:00

SK Geo Centric buys a stake in Florida's PureCycle

Na Kyung-soo, president and CEO of SK Geo Centric, right, poses for photo with Mike Otworth, CEO of PureCycle, after signing a deal to acquire a stake worth $55 million in the U.S. plastic recycling company on Tuesday. [SK GEO CENTRIC]

SK Geo Centric said Tuesday it has acquired a stake worth $55 million in a U.S. plastic waste recycling startup, in a step to bolster its green business.

It acquired the stake in PureCycle Technologies, a Florida-based plastic recycling company, through a recent rights offering, SK Geo Centric said in a release, without disclosing details on the size of the stake.

SK Geo Centric has already partnered up with PureCycle to build a polypropylene recycling factory in Ulsan.

The factory will have a processing capacity of 64,000 tons a year. The two companies plan to complete the construction by end-2024.

PureCycle is building a line in Ohio capable of producing 50,000 tons annually and plans to set up a factory in Georgia that will have an annual production capacity of 300,000 tons, according to SK Geo Centric.

PureCycle specializes in recycling polypropylene waste into ultra-pure polypropylene resin, which can be reused in various consumer goods, as well as in automotive and construction materials.

SK Geo Centric, formerly SK Global Chemical, has said it plans to invest 5 trillion won ($4.02 billion) by 2025 to transform its business portfolio from petrochemicals to green products, aiming to expand the plastic waste recycling capacity to an annual 900,000 tons.

Yonhap