In California, Origin Materials is cutting its workforce by 28% and focusing its commercial activities on its polyethylene terephthalate caps business.
John Bissell, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Origin Materials, said the move it to proactively reallocate resources. “Our first caps customer has signed an [memorandum of understanding] for billions of caps, totaling over $100 million over an initial two-year term. Today, we are positioned to bring the world’s first PET cap solution to a $65 billion market with attractive margins.”
Origin’s technology converts woody biomass into chloromethylfurfural and hydrothermal carbon. CMF can be converted to para-xylene, a precursor of ubiquitous bottle plastic PET, and furandicarboxylic acid, which is used to produce bioplastic polyethylene furanoate.
The company also announced it would operate its Origin 1 biomass conversion facility at Sarnia, Ontario for requested customer samples only.