Norwegian recycling specialist appoints construction partner for £100m Sunderland plant

Wastefront AS, a waste tyre recycling company headquartered in Oslo, Norway, has announced Technip Energies as its engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) partner for the building of its upcoming £100m tyre recycling plant in Sunderland.

Technip Energies was selected following a competitive “Project Analysis and Execution Pathway” (PAEP) study phase which reviewed the earlier project development work and was designed to identify, eliminate, and mitigate project risk, and is now consolidating the engineering design.

Construction will commence in Q2 of 2022 and will be accompanied by Technip Energies until the plant’s opening, expected to be in Q1 of 2024.

Vianney Valès, CEO of Wastefront, commented: “Our mission is to solve complex environmental issues, through a solution that has demonstrated its full alignment with EU/UK Taxonomy targets.

“To succeed, a rigorous approach to project execution is key. Having Technip Energies, one of the most respected EPC companies in the world, endorse our approach and support our Project is yet another step in our ambition to build a world scale green industrial platform.”

Wastefront and Technip Energies have also agreed on a strategic partnership to deploy Wastefront projects internationally, with the Sunderland plant being used as a blueprint for the global replication of a uniquely circular model.

With the aim of solving a “significant and grossly underreported but major cause of pollution”, Wastefront plans to build a global green industrial platform to recycle a portion of the 29m metric tonnes of end-of-life tyres produced annually, into “high value products”.

When fully commissioned, the Sunderland plant will have a processing capacity of 80,000 tonnes of end-of-life tyres per annum.

Arnaud Pieton, CEO of Technip Energies, added: “We are extremely pleased to support Wastefront in their development. This project which leverages both our engineering and project management capabilities, will be led by our teams in the UK.

“It is fully aligned with our strategy to deploy our know-how and our resources to scaling up solutions accelerating the energy transition journey as well as positioning our company as a leading player of the circular economy”.

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