Borealis AG

Borealis AG is an Austrian chemical company which is the world's eighth largest producer of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP). It is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.

For the natural light display in the Northern Hemisphere known as Aurora Borealis, see Aurora (astronomy).
For other uses, see Borealis (disambiguation).
Borealis AG
TypePublic Limited
IndustryPetrochemical industry
Founded1994
HeadquartersVienna, Austria
Key people
Alfred Stern, Chief Executive (CEO), Mark Tonkens (CFO)[1]
Productspolyolefins, hydrocarbons, base chemicals, fertilizers
RevenueEUR 8.1 billion
EUR 872 million
Number of employees
6,900 approx. (2019)
WebsiteBorealisGroup.com

Overview

Borealis is an international provider of polyolefins, base chemicals, and fertilizers. The company has its head office in Vienna, Austria, currently employs about 6,900 people,[2] and operates in over 120 countries. In 2019 Borealis generated a net profit of about EUR 872 million. [3] The company operates primarily in Europe, with manufacturing plants in Belgium, Central Europe (Austria and Germany), Finland, and Sweden. It also operates compounding units in Brazil, Italy, and the USA, two "innovation centres", its European Innovation Headquarters, as well as customer service centres in several countries.

At the beginning of 2017, the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) of Abu Dhabi and Mubadala merged. Mubadala, through its holding company, owned 64 % of Borealis, with the remaining 36 % belonging to Austria-based OMV, an integrated, international oil and gas company. As of autumn 2020 OMV now owns 75 % of Borealis, while Mubadala owns 25 %.

Borealis provides services and products to customers around the world in collaboration with Borouge, a joint venture with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)

Innovation

Borealis employs over 500 people in research and development. There are two research centres in Sweden and Finland, as well as the European Innovation Headquarters in Linz, Austria. In the latter, 300 experts from 30 different nations work on the implementation of new ideas. In 2019 Borealis filed a total of 179 new patent priority applications, which is more than any other Austrian company. [4]

History

Borealis was founded in 1994 by the merging of the petrochemical interests of Finnish Oil company Neste and the Norwegian oil company Statoil (now renamed Equinor). In 1998 the petrochemicals sector of OMV was included; OMV and IPIC took over the 50% business share of Neste. In 2005 Statoil gave up its share of Borealis and one year later, in June 2006, the headquarters was relocated from Copenhagen to Vienna. Mubadala, through its holding company, owns 64% of the company, with the remaining 36% owned by OMV, an integrated, international oil and gas company.

In 2020 Borealis announced a new corporate strategy which builds on its core values and capabilities in order to achieve sustainable growth moving forward. The essential dimensions of the new strategy include the transformation to a circular economy and the creation of an even more customer-centric organization that adds value of a global scale. The successful implementation of the strategy will strengthen Borealis’ leading position in the industry.[5]

Products

Polyolefins

The polyolefin products manufactured by Borealis form the basis of many plastics applications that are an intrinsic part of our daily lives. Borealis polyolefins have a role to play in saving energy along the value chain and promoting more efficient use of natural resources.

Consumer Products

Borealis supplies superior polyolefin plastic materials used in consumer products, advanced packaging and fibre. More specifically, Borealis polyolefins are used to make applications possible in flexible packaging (including blown film, heat seal and extrusion coating), rigid packaging (caps and closures, bottles, thin wall packaging, thermoforming), non-woven and technical fibres, and appliances.

Automotive

Borealis supplies polyolefin plastic materials for engineering applications in the automotive industry. Plastic materials replace conventional materials such as metal, rubber and engineering polymers. In automotive vehicles, Borealis’ polyolefin plastic materials are used in a wide range of exterior, interior, and under-the-bonnet applications, including bumpers, body panels, trims, dashboards, door claddings, climate control and cooling systems, air intake manifolds and battery cases.

Energy

The company provides extra-high, high and medium voltage cable applications as well as semi-conductive products that are used for energy transmission and distribution, data and communication cables, and for building and automotive wires and cables.

Pipes & Fittings

Borealis offers pipe solutions used in water and gas supply, waste water and sewage disposal, in-house plumbing and heating, and the oil and gas industry, including multi-layer coating solutions for onshore and offshore oil and gas pipelines.

New Business Development

The company develops innovative products and solutions in the areas of healthcare, plastomers and foamable materials.

Base chemicals

At Borealis, base chemicals is a solid foundation to build upon. Borealis produces a wide range of base chemicals such as melamine, phenol, acetone, ethylene and propylene for use in numerous and diverse industries, as well as fertilizers and technical nitrogen products.

Hydrocarbons & Energy

Borealis sources basic feedstock such as naphtha, butane, propane and ethane from the international oil and gas markets and converts these into ethylene, propylene and cracker co-products through its hydrocarbon units.

Melamine

Agrolinz Melamine International (AMI) was consolidated into Borealis in 2007 and renamed Borealis Agrolinz Melamine GmbH. Agrolinz provides melamine (used to treat flooring and furniture for resistance to wear and tear) and fertilizer. Borealis produces melamine at its plants in Linz, Austria, and in Piesteritz, Germany. Gained through conversion from urea, melamine is an essential material for the global production of synthetic resins.

Fertilizers

Borealis supplies over five million tonnes of fertilizers and technical nitrogen products each year via its Borealis L.A.T distribution network. Borealis L.A.T has 60 warehouses in Europe and an inventory capacity of over 700 kilotonnes. Its distribution network stretches from its headquarters in Linz along the Rhine and Danube, all the way from the Atlantic to the Black Sea. There are subsidiaries all across Europe: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria. In Germany, Italy and France, dedicated L.A.T sales representatives work on site for customers.

Borealis operates fertilizer production plants in Austria, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. In France, Borealis is the largest producer of nitrogen fertilizers with three production facilities in Grand-Quevilly, Grandpuits and Ottmarsheim, as well as a storage site at La Rochelle. Borealis sites are located at the heart of important grain-producing regions.

In 2013, Borealis acquired a majority interest in Rosier SA, a mineral fertilizer producer with plants in Belgium and the Netherlands. At present, Borealis has a 77.4% holding in Rosier. With the recently announced world-scale ammonia project in the United States, Borealis continues its ambitious growth strategy in the fertilizer business.[6]

Technology

Borealis controls an extensive technology portfolio spanning from the catalyst  (Borealis Sirius Catalyst Technology), to process (Borstar®), product and application (Borlink™). The company develops solutions tailored to the end-use application. The design process always starts with understanding and interpreting the needs of the whole value chain from polymer to end user.[7]

Borstar proprietary technology

Borstar is Borealis' proprietary technology for manufacturing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP). Combined with Borealis' catalyst technology, it supports the production of a wide range of enhanced PE and PP products by enabling molecular design.[8]

Joint ventures

Borouge

Borouge is Borealis’ joint venture with the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Its facility is in Ruwais, Abu Dhabi (UAE) and consists of 3 facilities:

Borouge 1 was founded in 2001 and has an ethane-based cracker for production of 600.000 tonnes ethylene per year and two PE lines with a combined capacity of 580.000 tonnes/year and utilises Borealis' Borstar PE technology.

Borouge 2 was a major expansion project complete in 2010 which tripled the annual capacity of polyolefin capacity in Ruwais to 2 million tonnes/year.

Since its completion in 2016 the Borouge 3 plant expansion makes Borouge the world’s largest integrated polyolefins complex. The additional 2.5 million tonnes of polyolefins capacity yield a total Borouge capacity of 4.5 million tonnes, and a combined Borealis and Borouge capacity of 8 million tonnes. [9]

ADNOC and Borealis have moved to the pre-FEED phase for the construction of the Borouge 4 complex, which is slated to come on stream around 2023. Borouge 4 encompasses a world-scale mixed feedstock cracker, using existing feedstock available in Abu Dhabi and downstream derivatives units for both polyolefin and non-polyolefin products. [10]

Borealis Brasil

Borealis Brasil S.A. is a joint-venture between Borealis (80%) and the Brazilian Braskem (20%). Located in Itatiba and Triunfo in Brasil and formed in 1999. It serves the automotive industry in South-America.[11]

Total

The French oil company Total joined with Canada’s Nova Chemicals and Austria’s Borealis (themselves in a joint venture known as Novealis) to build a $1.7 billion ethylene cracker plus a polyethylene plant, adjacent to Total's Port Arthur refinery in Texas. The cracker, also known as Bay-Pol, will have 1 million metric tons per year of capacity with an ethane cracker feeding two polyethylene units.[12][13]

Commitment to circular economy and plastics recycling

EverMinds

EverMinds is a platform created by Borealis that brings stakeholders together to continuously innovate technologies and products with circularity of plastics at the core. It aligns with the Borealis aim to ensure that 100 per cent of its consumer products are recyclable, reusable, or produced from renewable sources by 2025.[14]

Project STOP in Indonesia

Borealis has confirmed majority funding for Project STOP Ocean Plastics (STOP). Project STOP is a joint initiative with SYSTEMIQ and Sustainable Waste Indonesia. It works with city governments to eliminate leakage of plastics into the ocean, increase plastics recycling and support the wider system changes required for a plastics circular economy. The funding secures the start of Project STOP’s second phase. [15]

Project STOP’s city partnerships include Muncar and Pasuruan in Indonesia as well as Jembrana in Bali.[16]

Acquisition mtm

In July 2016, Borealis acquired one of Europe's largest manufacturers of post-consumer polyolefin recyclates - mtm plastics GmbH and mtm compact GmbH. Borealis builds on mtm's recycling process knowledge to significantly expand the scope of recycling solutions offered by the Borealis Group over the next few years. The company is currently investing EUR 15 million in the expansion of mtm.

As a European technology leader, mtm is able to process PO post-consumer plastic waste (also mixed and inferior) and converts around 70,000 tonnes of this raw material annually into high-quality recyclates. mtm uses mixed packaging, bulky household and industrial waste as raw materials.

mtm's recyclates are mainly used in injection moulding and extrusion processes. Typical applications: Containers and transport packaging, household goods, products for the building sector or lawn grids. [17]

Acquisition Ecoplast

In August 2018 Borealis announced the acquisition of 100 % of the shares in Ecoplast Kunststoffrecycling GmbH, an Austrian plastics recycler. Based in Wildon, Austria, Ecoplast processes around 35,000 tonnes of post-consumer plastic waste from households and industrial consumers every year, turning them into high-quality LDPE and HDPE recyclates. [18]

Resources
  1. https://www.borealisgroup.com/company/about-borealis/management-ownership/executive-board Borealis website: Executive Board], visited 15 October 2018
  2. "Polyolefins | Base Chemicals | Fertilizers - Borealis". Borealisgroup. Retrieved 2020-03-17.
  3. Walker, Tom (2020-02-28). "Borealis delivers strong financial results despite softening market environment". British Plastics and Rubber. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
  4. Office, European Patent. "Patent Index 2019". www.epo.org. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
  5. Walker, Tom (2020-02-28). "Borealis delivers strong financial results despite softening market environment". British Plastics and Rubber. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
  6. Borealis Fertilizers, borealisgroup.com, retrieved 14 April 2017.
  7. "Innovation Technologies - Borealis". Borealisgroup. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
  8. Borealis Borstar Technology, borealisgroup.com, retrieved 14 April 2017.
  9. Expansion moves forward at Borouge petrochemicals plant at Ruwais, thenational.ae (16 July 2017), retrieved 15 October 2018.
  10. Expansion moves forward at Borouge petrochemicals plant at Ruwais, thenational.ae (16 July 2017), retrieved 15 October 2018.
  11. Borealis Joint Ventures, borealisgroup.com, retrieved 14 April 2017.
  12. Total, Nova, and Borealis to form cracker joint venture, cen.acs.org (27 March 2017), retrieved 14 April 2017.
  13. Total, Borealis and NOVA Chemicals close their Joint Venture in petrochemicals, prnewswire.com (23 May 2018), retrieved 3 July 2018.
  14. "Borealis produces certified renewable PP". Labels & Labeling. 2020-03-12. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
  15. Borealis pledges majority funding for ‘Project STOP Ocean Plastics’, plasticsinsight.com (27 April 2018), retrieved 15 October 2018.
  16. "Our Approach". Project STOP. Retrieved 2020-03-16.
  17. Borealis launch €15 million investment in mtm plastics, eppm.com (06 June 2018), retrieved 15 October 2018.
  18. Borealis buying recycler Ecoplast adding film recycling to portfolio, plasticsnews.com (17 July 2018), retrieved 15 October 2018.
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