The fact that there will be conditionally favorable advice became clear yesterday at an important meeting of the Regional Environmental Permitting Committee.
After the previous permit was revoked last year, Ineos re-examined the impact of nitrogen emissions from the plant in the Port of Antwerp and presented the results. Sources within the Flemish government assure us that the advice on this matter from the Regional Environmental Permitting Committee will be positive.
Concretely, this means that the Committee believes that the Flemish government can issue a new permit. But there will be conditions attached. It is not yet known exactly what these conditions are. The advice must also be written on paper.
Once this is implemented, the relevant Flemish Minister Zuhal Demir (N-VA) can in principle issue a new permit for the ethane cracker, an investment worth billions. But it remains to be seen exactly how stringent the conditions are set by the committee, and how much work needs to be done to issue the permit.
The official advice may be delivered to Minister Demir tomorrow. In any case, Ineos itself hopes that everything will be resolved soon. The chemical giant wants to resume work on its ethane cracker as soon as possible.
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