Ohio just the start of global growth plans for Octal

Octal has a vision for the future. And that vision is anything but modest.

Deliberate, yes. But modest, no.

The Salalah, Oman-based PET maker believes the pending opening of its initial U.S. facility near Cincinnati is just the first in a series of projects that will see the company expand operations around the world in the coming years.

Eastern Europe, Western Europe, South America and even Asia also are being considered as locations for growth.

Octal was founded in 2006 on a belief that PET is not just a plastic, but the plastic when it comes to packaging.

“We wanted PET to assume its proper place in the packaging universe as a globally supplied preferred packaging substrate,” Chief Operating Officer Joe Barenberg said. “Our view is that PET was really the king of plastics.”

With its headquarters in Oman now cranking out nearly 1 million tons of pellet and sheet PET annually, the company has grown to the point where it's time to look elsewhere for opportunities to build off of success there.

Octal's new Ohio location that will take in flaked skeletal waste from its thermoforming customers and extrude that material into new food-grade sheet.

This closed-loop approach will help Octal manufacture new recycled sheet on a regional basis instead of having to only rely on the company's flagship facility for all of that material.

While West Chester, Ohio, near Cincinnati is the first of these recycling and extrusion facilities planned by the company, it certainly will not be the last, the COO said.

Barenberg and Octal envision a series of similar sites — locations that take in waste from customers and create new sheeting — in key markets around the world.

With the first U.S. site on the verge of completion, Barenberg already is talking about opening another location west of the Rocky Mountains at some point as well.

The amount of scrap that's created in the manufacture of PET thermoformed packaging varies by the shape of the container and can be significant. This creates an opportunity for Octal to recapture much of the material it originally produces in Oman. A rectangular shape can create maybe 13 to 20 percent waste while a round shape like a bowl or cake dome can see scrap levels from 40 to 55 percent, Barenberg has said.

Octal produces virgin sheet directly from molten PET in Salalah, an approach that cuts out several steps from the conventional manufacturing process, including pelletizing and drying.

This approach, called direct PET by Octal, saves energy and creates material that's great for recycling because the company said it has undergone fewer “heat histories” compared with traditional PET. “It actually has seen less heat degradation than the pellets you would buy down the street,” Barenberg said.

“As the fundamental demand for PET grows, it isn't going to be enough just to have these regional recycling centers,” Barenberg said. “We absolutely see at least two, maybe three more dPET complexes where you would have the reactor and the associated direct-to-sheet calendaring lines scaled to opportunity,” he said.

“We're looking at North America. We're looking at Europe. We're looking at South America, potentially Southeast Asia,” Barenberg said.

“We're excited about that vision of taking dPET global and pretty much fulfilling all the packaging opportunities that are available,” he said.