Coca-Cola Co.ґs joint venture PET recycling plant in Spartanburg — which has been closed since March — now is for sale.
More than a half dozen sources told Plastics News that Coke has given Carlos Gutierrez, president and CEO of Coca-Colaґs joint venture partner United Resource Recovery LLC, the OK to shop the plant to interested buyers.
“My understanding is that Coke wants out and has given Carlos the freedom to shop the plant,” one source said. “They have had people [potential buyers] in the plant over the past two months.”
Another source said the Spartanburg plant could have some potential use for a fiber company that needs post-consumer polyester, and that Coke is “shopping the plant very selectively.”
But that same source said that the asking price could be too high, since the estimated cost to build a new PET recycling plant for fiber consumption is between $12 million and $15 million. The Spartanburg plant represents roughly a $50 million investment.
“Coca-Cola could end up taking a [financial] hosing and one-half on this,” one source said.
Gutierrez neither confirmed nor denied that the plant was for sale.
“At present, the company is not at liberty to discuss publicly current plans for the future of the facility,” Gutierrez said in an email response to questions. “As soon as we have something concrete to report, we will …”
Coke officials did not have an immediate response to questions about whether the joint venture company, NURRC LLC, was looking for a buyer for the plant.
Previously, Coke has said that it is an investor in the JV and cannot comment on NURRCґs business dealings. On April 22, four days after Plastics News broke the story that the plant was closing, Coke executive Scott Vitters told PN in a phone interview that Coca-Cola hoped to resume food-grade PET production at the plant “sometime this summer.”
When the plant opened two and one-half years ago, Coke officials said that when its second full line was operational, the Spartanburg plant would be the largest bottle-to-bottle PET recycling plant in the world.
Instead, the plant has been plagued with problems achieving the quality needs to make food-grade PET. Sources said the plantґs technology is not suited to recycling newer light-weight beverage and water bottles. As a result, yield losses have been high.
Source: Waste & Recycling News
By Mike Verespej