Second chemical recycling unit operational at ExxonMobil’s Baytown, Texas, facility

The company says the new unit, part of a deeper chemical recycling investment, has doubled the Baytown plant’s capacity.

Equipment at a chemical recycling plant.
ExxonMobil's Baytown, Texas, advanced recycling facility.
Image courtesy of ExxonMobil

Global petrochemical company ExxonMobil recently announced the expansion of its operations at its Baytown, Texas, chemical recycling facility with the addition of a second recycling unit.

Combined with the site’s first unit, which has been in operation since late 2022, the Houston-based company says Baytown had processed more than 100 million pounds of plastic as of May. It notes that third and fourth units are planned for Baytown, along with its first unit in Beaumont, Texas.

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“We’re ready for this expanded capacity,” the company says. “We’ve learned from the first unit what works well and what to do better. These lessons have been applied to the second unit and improvements will continue with each new unit.

“These units are sound investments, and they’re part of how we’re helping to address plastic waste.”

The company claims that through its existing facilities, it can convert nearly 90 percent of used plastic into useful raw materials, keeping it out of landfills and incinerators and helping its customers meet their plastic usage goals.

The capacity expansion at Baytown is part of a more-than $200 million investment ExxonMobil is making into its chemical recycling operations there, as well as in Beaumont. The company announced the investment in November 2024, saying at the time it planned to build additional chemical recycling units to reach a global plastic recycling capacity of 500,000 tons per year by 2027.

In its investment announcement, ExxonMobil said it would add 175,000 tons per year of chemical recycling capacity at Baytown and Beaumont combined, bringing its total capacity to 250,000 tons per year.

ExxonMobil also works with communities, customers and other companies to collect plastic scrap for its recycling units. Notably, it helped form a joint venture with Cyclyx International LLC to collect and sort a wide variety of plastic and helped found the Houston Recycling Collaboration to expand the collection of residential plastic scrap.

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The first Cyclyx Circularity Center, or CCC1, is under construction in Houston. Once operational, the facility will have the capacity to produce 300 million pounds of custom-formulated feedstock annually. A second Circularity Center, CCC2, is planned for the Dallas-Fort Worth area and will double the joint venture’s processing capacity.

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