
ReOil – Recycling technology for used plastics
Plastics make our lives more efficient, convenient and safe. Yet, when insufficient effort is made to recover and reuse plastics, and to minimize waste, it may have adverse effects on the environment. This is where our proprietary technology ReOil® makes a valuable contribution.
What is ReOil®?
ReOil® is a proprietary technology from OMV. It converts post-consumer and post-industrial plastics to synthetic crude oil (syncrude) and petrochemical feedstock for virgin plastics production at Borealis.
How does the ReOil® process work?
The process used at the pilot plant located at the Schwechat refinery is a so-called pyrolysis process – a proprietary OMV development. The recycled crude can be processed into any desired refinery product, while reducing the dependence on natural resources and improving carbon intensity compared to standard crude oil processing. The OMV ReOil® pilot plant has been fully integrated into the refinery and has a processing capacity of up to 100 kilograms per hour, equivalent to 100 liters of synthetic crude. The mechanical completion of the new pilot plant was reached at the end of 2017. Since then the teams have been making tremendous research progress and are working on gaining further experience for commercial upscaling. The aim is to reach final industrial-scale capacity by 2026 latest.

ReOil is ISCC PLUS certified
ReOil® has been ISCC PLUS certified in 2019. ISCC PLUS is a globally leading certification system covering the entire supply chain and all sustainable feedstocks. Our ReOil® pilot plant complies with high ecological and social sustainability requirements as well as traceability throughout the entire supply chain.

Future ambition
OMV and Borealis are pursuing the clear ambition of becoming technology leader in circular economy. The vision of a circular economy is that we use resources moderately and recycle them endlessly. This is both a business imperative and an opportunity. By 2050, around 60 % of plastic production is expected to come from recycled feedstock.

OMV News
- OMV transforms plastic waste into crude oil
- OMV and ADNOC sign MoU in presence of Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and Austria’s Chancellor H.E. Sebastian Kurz
- OMV innovation project produces synthetic crude from Austrian Airlines plastic cups
- OMV ReOil project: OMV and Borealis extend their partnership at the industrial site in Schwechat
- OMV signs agreement to increase its shareholding in Borealis to 75%, repositioning in a low-carbon world
OMV Blog
- Plastic2Plastic: ReOil completes the circle in plastics recycling
- ReOil: Getting Crude oil back out of plastic
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