OMV innovation project produces synthetic crude from Austrian Airlines plastic cups

• Since January 2019 OMV has been processing Austrian Airlines plastic cups in the OMV ReOil® pilot plant
• OMV produces new fuels and plastics from used plastic cups
• The idea of recycling the cups is an initiative of the Austrian Airlines "Fly greener" team 

The OMV ReOil® pilot plant has been processing drinking cups used by Austrian Airlines passengers since January 2019. Under this initiative the disposable cups are used to produce synthetic crude.

Since the end of 2018, Austrian Airlines flight attendants have been separating the plastic cups used by passengers from the rest of the waste. A disposal company then cleans and shreds them before delivering them to the ReOil® pilot plant at the Schwechat Refinery. A process known as thermal cracking is used to produce synthetic crude from plastic waste. This crude is then processed in the Schwechat Refinery into fuel or other raw materials for the plastics industry. With this recycling initiative, Austrian Airlines is supporting a circular economy that conserves resources. In addition, Flughafen Wien AG is a key logistics partner in this process.
 
"Austrian Airlines is consistently striving to reduce waste on board our flights. Our flight attendants have been making a key contribution for many years by recycling. I am delighted that – together with OMV – we have been able to take another crucial step towards this goal on the initiative of the crew members from the Austrian Airlines "Fly greener" team", said Vera Renner, Vice President Cabin Operations of Austrian Airlines, commenting on the cooperation with the home carrier as part of OMV's ReOil® pilot project. 

Thomas Gangl, OMV Senior Vice President Refining & Petrochemicals: "The exceptional properties of plastic as a material mean make it hard to imagine life without it. In the ReOil pilot plant, we are able to turn the AUA drinking cups into synthetic crude and then process them into fuel or back into plastics. Our OMV research project allows us to close the circle and reduce waste. These joint efforts send a clear signal of how important conserving resources is to both of our companies".

OMV has been exploring the potential of used plastics since 2011. After a test unit in the technology center of the Schwechat Refinery yielded successful research results, the significantly larger ReOil® pilot plant started operations in early 2018 in the Schwechat Refinery. 100 kilograms of used plastics can produce 100 liters of synthetic crude. 

The cooperation with OMV on the ReOil® project can be traced back to the initiative of the Austrian Airlines team from "Fly greener". "Fly greener" is a project spanning the entire Lufthansa Group. Its goal is to reduce waste volumes and mitigate the environmental impact while optimizing the requisite processes on aircraft. Every Lufthansa Group airline is developing its own ideas and concepts to this end. Several years have already passed since Austrian Airlines started to sort various materials on board and send them for recycling. This involves PET bottles, glass bottles, tetra packs, cans, paper and newspapers. Various projects are currently underway to make air travel more efficient and more environmentally friendly across the group.

Contact:

AUSTRIAN AIRLINES
Marleen Pirchner
Telephone +43 (0) 5 1766-11254
marleen.pirchner@austrian.com
http://www.austrianairlines.ag/Press/

OMV Public Relations
Andreas Rinofner
Telephone +43 1 40440 21357
Email: public.relations@omv.com 
https://www.omv.com/en/press

Austrian Airlines 
Austrian Airlines is Austria's leading airline. The once state-owned and still convincing red-white-red airline operates a route network of around 130 destinations. Thanks to its favourable geographical location and Austrian history as a melting pot of the former crown lands, its home airport Vienna Schwechat is still a hub between East and West today. About 120 of the 360 daily flights lead to Central and Eastern Europe. “AUA", as it is often abbreviated in Austria, transports around 14 million passengers a year and employs 7,000 staff from 58 nations. AUA has been part of the Lufthansa Group since 2009. Austrian Airlines is also a member of the Star Alliance, the first global alliance of international airlines. Austrian Airlines has been in the black since 2012. It celebrated its 60th anniversary in 2018.
Here you can find pretty nice photos of AUA and its charming crew: https://www.flickr.com/photos/austrianairlinespress/albums 
Owner. Editor. Reproducer: Austrian Airlines AG. Corporate Communications, media.relations@austrian.com. Please find further information concerning the disclosure according to §§ 24 and 25 Media Act on www.austrian.com
 

OMV Aktiengesellschaft 
OMV produces and markets oil and gas, innovative energy and high-end petrochemical solutions – in a responsible way. With Group sales of EUR 23 bn and a workforce of more than 20,000 employees in 2018, OMV Aktiengesellschaft is one of Austria’s largest listed industrial companies. In Upstream, OMV has a strong base in Romania and Austria as part of the Central and Eastern Europe core region as well as a balanced international portfolio, with Russia, North Sea, Middle East and Africa as well as Asia-Pacific as further core regions. 2018 daily production stood at approximately 427,000 boe/d. In Downstream, OMV operates three refineries with a total annual processing capacity of 17.8 mn tons and more than 2,000 filling stations in ten countries. OMV runs gas storage facilities in Austria and Germany; its subsidiary Gas Connect Austria GmbH operates a gas pipeline network. In 2018, gas sales volumes amounted to around 114 TWh. Sustainability is an integral part of the corporate strategy. OMV is set to invest EUR 500 mn in innovative energy solutions by 2025.