Page 23 - Plastics News October 2021

CoMPANY NEwS

ExxonMobil to Build Its First Large-Scale Sukla Mistry Likely To

Plastic Waste Advanced Recycling Facility Be Director At IOCL

he Public
TEnterprises
Selection Board
(PESB) has
recommended
Sukla Mistry as
the next Director
( Re f i ne rie s )
of Indian Oil
Corporation Ltd
(IOCL), potentially setting her up for
the top post at the country’s largest
State-run oil refiner when the present
Chairman and Managing Director
xxonMobil plans to build its first, has successfully recycled more than Shrikant Madhav Vaidya steps down in
Elarge-scale plastic waste advanced 1,000 metric tons of plastic waste, the August 2023.Sukla Mistry is currently
recycling facility in Baytown, Texas, equivalent of 200 million grocery bags, Executive Director and Refinery Head
and is expected to start operations and has demonstrated the capability at IOCL’s Barauni refinery, a 6-million
by year-end 2022.By recycling plastic of processing 50 metric tons per day. tonne (mt) capacity plant built in 1964
waste back into raw materials that Upon completion of the large-scale with the help of the erstwhile Soviet
can be used to make plastic and other facility, the operation in Baytown will be Union. She is the only woman to helm
valuable products, the technology could among North America’s largest plastic a refinery in the country. Refinery
help address the challenge of plastic waste recycling facilities and will have an experience is key to the selection of a
waste in the environment. A smaller, initial planned capacity to recycle 30,000 candidate to the post of CMD. Both
temporary facility, is already operational metric tons of plastic waste per year. Vaidya and his predecessor Sanjiv Singh
and producing commercial volumes Operational capacity could be expanded were Director (Refineries) before they
of certified circular polymers that will quickly if effective policy and regulations were elevated to the top post at the
be marketed by the end of this year to that recognize the lifecycle benefits of company. Sukla Mistry is a graduate in
meet growing demand. “We’ve proven advanced recycling are implemented metallurgical engineering from Bengal
our proprietary advanced recycling for residential and industrial plastic Engineering College, Shibpur, Howrah
technology in Baytown, and we’re waste collection and sorting systems. in West Bengal. She joined IOCL’s
scaling up operations to supply certified ExxonMobil is developing plans to build Haldia refinery as a graduate trainee
circular polymers by year-end,” said approximately 500,000 metric tons of engineer in 1986, after which she was
Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil advanced recycling capacity globally posted as Inspection Engineer in 1987.
Chemical Company. “Availability of over the next five years. ExxonMobil is Mistry is a qualified BE (Metallurgy)
reliable advanced recycling capacity will a founding member of the Alliance to from Calcutta University. She holds
play an important role in helping address End Plastic Waste, which is focused on Advance Diploma in Management
plastic waste in the environment, and we accelerating investment in safe, scalable from ICFAI besides certifications in
are evaluating wide-scale deployment and economically viable solutions to help Industrial Radiography & Ultrasonic
in other locations around the world.” address the challenge of plastic waste Non-destructive testing. She joined
IndianOil in 1986 and steadily rose
The new facility follows validation in the environment through a portfolio to become Executive Director in
of ExxonMobil’s initial trial of its of projects that has grown to more the company. PESB short listed
proprietary process for converting plastic than 30 ongoing projects across several Sukla Mistry after interviewing seven
waste into raw materials. To date, the trial countries.
candidates, including six from IOCL.

22 PLASTICS NEWS OCTOBER 2021 23 PLASTICS NEWS OCTOBER 2021