Dive Brief:
- PureCycle plans to add 1 billion pounds of capacity before 2030 by opening new facilities in Belgium and Thailand. The Florida-based recycled resin producer will also continue with plans to build its purification facility in Augusta, Georgia.
- Plans include building a production line in Rayong, Thailand, capable of producing 130 million pounds annually, and another in Antwerp, Belgium. Both locations offer “access to mature feedstock opportunities, strong infrastructure synergies and low-risk expansion opportunities,” the company said in a news release.
- The major expansion plans, expected to cost around $2 billion, are backed by a $300 million series B capital raise from a group of new and existing investors. PureCycle expects the Rayong facility to open in mid-2027, while the Antwerp facility is expected to open in 2028.
Dive Insight:
The announcement signals a new business strategy for PureCycle, which produces recycled resin using a solvent process. It spent the better part of 2024 and early 2025 working to catch up after a series of operational and budget challenges marked by mechanical problems at its flagship Ironton, Ohio, facility.
After several processing setbacks and years of reported earnings losses, PureCycle announced Q1 revenue of $1.6 million, the first reported revenue in the company’s history. During an earnings call in May, CEO Dustin Olson attributed that change to improved production volume, better uptime at the Ironton facility and higher sales demand for its PureFive resin.
Fixing key problems at Ironton was a critical step toward being ready to execute the company’s larger global production plan, Olson said during a call with investors on June 17.
“We have learned a tremendous amount from our experiences of scaling and ramping Ironton and building out feedstock infrastructure, developing commercial relationships and qualifying numerous customer applications,” he said.
Olson said a combination of factors will help grow demand for PureCycle’s recycled resin, including extended producer responsibility laws and minimum recycled content laws in the U.S. and Europe. Packaging waste regulations are ramping up in Europe.
“We believe an enormous addressable market ahead of us is there for the taking,” Olson said. “We aim to be the first global recycling company that can serve global brands with high-quality product consistently, regardless of location or feedstock.”
The planned new facility locations in Thailand and Belgium are meant to optimize PureCycle’s business operations and “structure a growth plan that we believe is the lowest risk, highest return and fastest to market,” he said during the call.
Series B investors for this round include Duquesne Family Office LLC, Wasserstein Debt Opportunities, Samlyn Capital, Pleiad Investment Advisors and Sylebra Capital Management.
The series B funding is structured as convertible perpetual preferred stock. Shares will pay dividends of 7% a year and can be paid in kind or in cash at the company's discretion, Olson said. The stock has a conversion premium of 30% of the 10-day volume weighted average price set on June 16, the day of the deal’s closing, PureCycle said.
Olson said the $300 million cash infusion from investors, along with “other capital sources,” will allow PureCycle to fund the full $2 billion price tag for the planned additions with about $300 million in “excess financing resources.” The entire project is expected to result in about $600 million of run rate earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, he told investors during the call.
In Thailand, this plan will be propelled by a new partnership between PureCycle and IRPC Public Company Ltd. to build a new polypropylene recycling facility, located in an IRPC's “eco-industrial zone” where IRPC already operates, Olson said.
PureCycle says it can use IRPC’s existing site infrastructure to reduce the costs of its own construction activities. PureCycle expects to start construction there in the “second half” of 2025, the company said in a news release.
Meanwhile, PureCycle is working to receive final permits to build in Belgium, which it expects to be in hand sometime in 2026, Olson said.
PureCycle will still build out a facility in Augusta, Georgia, where it originally broke ground in 2022. Olson said the company has decided to move 230 million pounds of capacity “earmarked” for the Augusta facility to Thailand and Belgium because those locations already have existing infrastructure and lower capital expenditure costs that can bring those projects online faster.
“For Augusta, we're going to focus on finalizing the engineering work we've already been working on” for what it dubs the facility’s Generation 2 design, expected to have a capacity of about 300 million pounds a year before compounding. PureCycle plans to announce the actual design capacity in early 2026, he said.
Pre-processing capabilities at the site are expected to be operational by mid-2026, and PureCycle will be “integrating the learnings from Ironton” into Augusta and future facility designs, the company said in a news release. The first purification line in Augusta is expected to be operational in 2029.
