The project to build a plastics chemical recycling plant on the Carling-Saint-Avold platform (Moselle) is suspended. Carrier of the “Parkes” project with the Canadian Loop Industries, the South Korean SK Geo Centric (SK group), Suez RV France confirmed the decision to L’Usine Nouvelle. «[Le projet] is put on hold by mutual agreement,” indicates Suez, which points out “the inflation of project costs and the macroeconomic situation call into question the balance of the project”.
A hard blow for the project when the three companies had exercised at the end of October the option to purchase 20 hectares of land from the Saint-Avold Synergie (Casas) urban community. The three partners planned to invest 440 million euros in the area of a former coking plant attached to the 600-hectare platform where TotalEnergies, Arkema, the GazelEnergie coal-fired power plant, as well as several chemical units are located. green. The aim was to deploy the technology developed by Loop Industries to depolymerize polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic waste and thus obtain monomers that can be reintroduced into PET production lines. Suez specifies that “molecular treatment remains a technology of the future in which [il croit] and for which [il va] continue [son] research and development work”.
Site decontamination almost complete
After a public consultation phase conducted in the fall of 2023 under the aegis of the National Commission for Public Debate, the Parkes project should have initiated its public inquiry at the end of 2024. The president of Casas, Salvatore Coscarella, regrets the silence of industrialists, explaining “being without news from the project leaders for more than three months”. The elected official indicates that Loop Industries, SK Geo Centric and Suez RV France, requested “the lifting of land reserves which gave them priority to acquire the site”.
The plastics chemical recycling unit raised many hopes in the region. It was expected to create 200 direct jobs when it came into service in 2027, thus participating in the reconversion of the petrochemical platform of 1,200 employees into recycling processes and green chemistry. The factory was to be established on part of the 45 hectares acquired in February 2023 by the Public Land Establishment of the Grand Est (EPFGE) on behalf of the urban community, from the liquidator of Cokerie de Carling. The public establishment specializing in the reconversion of wastelands carried out the studies, managed and co-financed the decontamination work on the 20 hectares. The project, initiated in the first quarter of 2024, mobilizes nearly 10 million euros of investment and is due to be completed at the end of the year.
Industrial land available
Alain Toubol, the director general of the EPFGE, remains confident in the future of this former wasteland whose land retains “an exceptional character” and “a strategic interest” due to its size, its “Seveso high threshold” classification » and its geographical location in the heart of Europe, close to Benelux and Germany. “From a reindustrialization perspective, finding land of this magnitude to set up heavy industry is far from easy. This is why there is a major territorial interest in continuing its rehabilitation”he concludes. On a total of 600 hectares, the platform, which came into service in 1954 with the rise of Lorraine carbochemistry, does not, however, lack available land reserves to accommodate industrial projects. These reserves are estimated at 240 hectares.
Philippe Bohlinger and Olivier Cognasse
