EVENT REVIEW PETplanet Insider Vol. 25 No. 03/24 www.petpla.net 45 Review Petcore annual conference - The PET market under the microscope Challenging times The annual Petcore Europe conference took place in Brussels on February 7&8, 2024. The conference is becoming increasingly important and is growing from year to year. It is an important platform for European and international companies active in the PET plastic packaging and recycling industry to obtain international market analyses and the latest updates on EU regulations. This year has proved particularly challenging for Europe and global markets generally. Companies are still struggling with high energy costs brought about by the continuing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Attacks on shipping in the Red Sea by Houthi militants have forced companies to divert ships from using the Suez Canal which has greatly increased costs of transportation. Consumers are cutting back on spending due to high inflation. Elections in the UK, EU and the United States are also expected to contribute to political uncertainty in the West. Finally, and more specifically, there is considerable concern in the plastic packaging and recycling sector that many EU regulations are unhelpful and not always sensible. As a result, there was a wide range of topics to discuss. After the 330 guests were welcomed by Roberto Bertaggia, Executive Director of Petcore Europe, and Antonello Ciotti, President of Petcore Europe, the first day began with Session1 - Market Dynamics. Patrick Bouzekri, Executive Vice President at SBA-CCI, Inc., offered his perspective on the worldwide PET packaging resin production growth rates in % p.a. from 20122027. From 2022 to 2023, the growth rate fell from 4.1% to 3%. The forecast from 2023 - 2024 - 2025 is steady growth of 2.3% until 2024 and 2.4% until 2025. From 2025, Bouzekri expects the growth rate to fall sharply by 3.8% by 2027. He puts the global nominal PET packaging resin capacity for 2023 at 45.5 million tonnes. It is expected to grow to 55.3 million tonnes by 2027. China in particular will see an annual increase (2023-2027) of 7,700kt and India an increase of 1,650kt. Bouzekri sees packaged water and packaged CSDs as important applications. He predicts a more relaxed situation in 2024. After a negative growth rate for packaged water in Western Europe of -0.9% in 2023, he sees growth recovering slightly to 0.3%. The average global growth rate for packaged water will be 3.3% in 2024. Above-average growth is seen in Asia at 5.9% and Africa at 4.1%. The percentage trend for CSDs is very similar, but not quite as high. The growth rate here is 0.7% in Western Europe in 2024 and 4.2% in Asia. The global average is 2.4%. These two beverage applications and the production capacities for PET resin show the clear trend in the growth markets of Asia and Africa. Bouzekri added that he expects a potential shortage of PTA in Europe as both Ineos and IVL shutdown PTA assets. In the event of a PTA shortage, brand owners will switch to recycled PET material on a large scale, which will boost the rPET market but also put pressure on it. This last piece of information was the perfect introduction for the next speaker, Nicholas Hodac, Director General of Unesda. He gave some interesting figures on Unesda before discussing the challenges of EU legislation for the soft drinks sector. He explained that 1.8 million people in the EU are directly or indirectly employed in the soft drinks industry, adding that the soft drinks value chain accounts for 1.29% of the EU’s GDP. Last but not least, he mentioned 34 billion euros in taxes paid to EU Member States through the soft drinks value chain. He then explained Unesda’s sustainability commitments. He began by talking about their vision of circular packaging. Unesda supports the plan to have 50% recycled material in plastic packaging by 2025 and 100% recyclability of the packaging. By 2030, 90% of all packaging should be collectable and 100% rPET or renewable PET should be used for PET packaging. Finally he explained that Unesda also supports the increased use of reusable beverage systems. He then presented and commented on the most important EU regulations, starting with the EU Green Deal. This Deal has the ambition to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent and it includes many actions to reduce emissions, to decarbonise transports, and to improve energy efficiency. He stated that as a part of the Green Deal, the Commission developed an action plan to move towards a more circular European economy. A key element of the plan is the shift towards more sustainable packaging, including in the food and drink sector. Hodac also briefly mentioned the Single Use Plastic Directive (SUPD), which was implemented in 2021. Here, he emphasised the Recycled Content calculation and the litter clean-up costs. He added a proposal to ban recycled content not coming from the EU. Regarding the PPWR he called for a mandatory DRS. Priority access to food-grade recyclates in order to meet the recycled content targets. In addition he asked for the complementarity of reuse and recycling with well-designed exemptions from the reuse targets. In his view, refill is one of the solutions to achieve the reuse targets and he is opposed to a ban on single-use plastic grouped packaging. Regarding recycled content, he added that Unesda is calling for an open market with a level playing field (e.g. well-designed certification schemes for rPET, both for EU and non-EU feedstock, as an alternative to introducing limits for rPET). At the end of his presentation, he looked ahead to the coming year, noting that new EU Commissioners and a new European Parliament will be elected. “There is a lot of uncertainty about their priorities, but for us the main focus must be on the proper implementation of the transposition of the adopted EU legislation,” he concluded. www.petcore-europe.org Patrick Bouzekri, Executive Vice President at SBACCI, Inc. Nicholas Hodac, Director General of Unesda
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