Finance
Exxon pauses European plastic recycling plans over draft EU rules
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 17, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Global Banking & Finance Review®
Company
Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on September 17, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
ExxonMobil pauses €100M EU recycling investment due to draft rules affecting recycled content calculations, impacting projects in Rotterdam and Antwerp.
By Philip Blenkinsop
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -ExxonMobil is pausing 100 million euros ($118.4 million) of investment in European plastic recycling because of draft EU rules that determine the recycled content in a final product.
The U.S. energy producer has two projects for chemical recycling at existing plants in Rotterdam and Antwerp to process 80,000 metric tons of plastic waste per year.
However, Senior Vice President Jack Williams told Reuters in an interview the two projects had now been paused because of the draft EU rules he said discriminated against using existing petrochemicals sites versus standalone facilities.
"Everything else is on track. We've had local support," he said. "We want to make these investments... The only thing standing between us and doing this project is EU policy."
At issue is a draft law to calculate the recycled content based on the mass of waste going into the system and the mass of the output.
ExxonMobil says it significantly favours standalone technologies where the path from plastic waste to output is clearer and penalises more complex integrated facilities into which fossil feedstocks are fed.
Williams said that, based on the draft law, its facilities would get less than half of the credits due.
The draft has been the subject of a public consultation that ended a month ago. Industry groups and companies, including Finland's Neste, share Exxon's view.
The EU has targets to increase plastic recycling rates, such as 30% recycled content in plastic bottles by 2030.
The industry says it needs to combine mechanical recycling that reprocesses waste without changing its chemical structure and chemical recycling, which can process more complex plastics by breaking them down into basic chemicals.
Williams also said that although U.S. import tariffs were not a significant problem for the company, EU regulation was.
He specifically urged the EU to repeal the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) that requires larger companies to check if their supply chains use forced labour or cause environmental damage.
Williams said it was complex, bureaucratic, costly, in some cases unachievable and applied beyond the EU. The EU has already eased the rules and delayed its implementation.
($1 = 0.8447 euros)
(Reporting by Philip Blenkinsop, editing by Ed Osmond)
Plastic recycling is the process of recovering scrap or waste plastic and reprocessing it into useful products, reducing the need for new plastic production.
EU regulations are legal acts of the European Union that are binding and directly applicable in all member states, aimed at harmonizing laws across the EU.
Sustainability in business refers to operating in a manner that meets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, often focusing on environmental, social, and economic impacts.
Chemical recycling is a process that breaks down complex plastics into their basic chemical components, allowing for the creation of new plastics or other materials.
An investment pause refers to the temporary halt of financial commitments or projects, often due to regulatory, market, or strategic considerations.
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