Investment in Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore to bring circular chemicals to Asia Pacific customers

Shell Eastern Petroleum (Pte) Ltd (Shell) today announced a new investment that supports the growth of the plastic waste to chemicals industry in the region. Shell will build a new pyrolysis oil upgrader unit that improves the quality of pyrolysis oil, a liquid made from hard-to-recycle plastic waste that would have gone into a landfill, and turns it into chemical feedstock for its plant. Slated to start production in 2023, the unit at Shell’s manufacturing site on Pulau Bukom will be the largest in Asia and Shell’s first globally, with a capacity of 50,000 tonnes per annum (tpa). What it processes is equivalent to the weight of about 7.8 billion plastic bags.

Shell will use the treated pyrolysis oil to produce circular chemicals that are used in hundreds of useful, everyday products, from tyres to mattresses. This responds to growing customer demand and Shell has already signed its first circular chemicals agreement in Asia with Asahi Kasei.

The new investment is a key element in the transformation of the Bukom manufacturing site into the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore. The Energy and Chemicals Park will be fully integrated with Shell Jurong Island and together will focus on the low-carbon energy and sustainability needs of our customers today and in the future, supplying biofuels, circular chemicals, bitumen, advanced lubricants and renewable energy.

In line with the company’s global targets, Shell Singapore will accelerate its transition and cut its own emissions from its operations by half in 2030 from 2016 levels. As Shell reduces production of traditional fuels in Singapore, including halving its crude processing capacity, it is developing plans to produce sustainable aviation fuel and set up a carbon capture and storage hub, which would capture and safely store emissions for Shell and its customers in the region.

“The Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore is a key driver in our Shell Singapore strategy to transform our business, reduce our own emissions and those of our customers as we move to a low-carbon economy together,” said Chairman of Shell Companies in Singapore, Aw Kah Peng. “We have been progressing with the country for 130 years. The transformation that we are embarking on is unprecedented for the industry here. We will be bold, we will innovate, and we are committed to provide the low-carbon and sustainable products and solutions that our customers want here and around the world.”

Singapore’s Minister for Trade and Industry Gan Kim Yong officiated the ground-breaking ceremony for the new pyrolysis oil upgrader unit, noting the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore’s relevance to Singapore’s Sustainable Jurong Island plan he unveiled.

“Shell’s strategy is to accelerate our transformation into a provider of net-zero emissions energy products and services. As a key global hub for Shell, Singapore has a very important role to play in this. Together, these investments will help us to cut carbon emissions at our operations and provide the low-carbon and circular solutions that our customers want, in sectors ranging from chemicals to automotive to aviation,” said Shell Downstream Director, Huibert Vigeveno, who was also speaking at the event.

The Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore is exploring a range of projects to deliver low-carbon energy solutions to customers in the region and globally, and meet the target of halving its own emissions by 2030:

Shell is exploring a regional carbon capture and storage (CCS) hub and will work with a range of customers, including the power sector in Singapore, to reduce the CO2 emissions from their existing operations. Not only will this help Singapore cut its carbon footprint , CCS will also become a cornerstone of the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore, enabling Shell to design and produce innovative lower carbon fuels, chemicals, and energy solutions like hydrogen.
Subject to a final investment decision, a 550,000 tpa biofuels facility is planned, where hydrogen made from renewable resources and bio-feedstock, such as used cooking oils and animal fats, can be turned into low-carbon fuels, such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), renewable diesel for road transport or renewable chemicals.

Shell’s actions will contribute to Singapore’s delivery of its enhanced nationally determined contribution (NDC) for 2030 and Long-Term Low-Emissions Development Strategy (LEDS) for 2050 under the Paris Agreement and its strategy to achieve a low-carbon transition through the transformation of industry and adoption of advanced low-carbon technologies.

About Shell

In November 2020, Shell Singapore outlined a 10-year plan for how the company could make significant investments in people, assets and capabilities to repurpose its core business and aim to cut its own CO2 emissions in the country. In line with Shell’s global targets, Shell Singapore will accelerate its transition and cut its emissions from its operations by half in 2030 from 2016 levels.
Shell’s transformation in Singapore includes a pivot away from processing crude, as Shell aims to reduce the production of traditional fuels globally by 55% by 2030.
Shell Bukom has installed solar panels to provide energy for its canteen and offices. It is also working on electrifying the ferries that bring people between the island and the mainland
By 2025, Shell aims to annually process one million tonnes a year of plastic waste globally. Shell’s chemical recycling capability will also include two units in Asia that will convert waste plastics into pyrolysis oil for the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore. This is part of an agreement with BlueAlp, which was announced in September.
Shell has an ambition to produce around 2 million tonnes of SAF a year by 2025, and aims to have at least 10% of the global aviation fuel sales as SAF by 2030.
CCS can play an important role in decarbonising harder-to-abate sectors like power generation, which today accounts for almost 40% of Singapore’s CO2 emissions and could increase with continued electrification of our economy. CCS involves the integration of proven technical elements – CO2 capture, compression and transport, and storage. Shell has a proven track record of helping to develop large-scale commercial projects that involve the full carbon capture utilisation and storage value chain. These include:
Building and operating Quest in Alberta, Canada that has safely stored more than 6 million tonnes of CO2 since 2015 under budget and ahead of schedule,
Partnering with Equinor and Total in Norway on project Northern Lights to transport CO2 from industrial sources by ship to a central receiving hub and then send the CO2 through pipeline to an offshore store, and
Capturing our CO2 emissions from our Pernis site as part of project PORTHOS in the Port of Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Shell is a leader in bitumen technology and has more than 200 bitumen and asphalt related inventions. It focuses on increasing the recyclability and reducing the environmental impact of bitumen with technology that lowers energy consumption, emissions and odour.
Shell has also taken final investment decision on a 35,000 tpa polyols unit at Shell Jurong Island which uses the company’s proprietary processes to improve energy efficiency. It will start production from 2023 to meet growing demand for performance chemicals from customers in the Asia Pacific region. Polyols are the raw materials used in the manufacture of high-quality foams in furniture, bedding and the automotive industry.
Singapore has long been a talent hub for the Shell group. As part of the transformation, reskilling its people will be a vital part of the change journey. Shell supports staff for selected SkillsFuture courses under Upskill ShellSG. For our frontline employees, such as process and maintenance technicians across our businesses in Singapore, we have worked together with the union (SSEU) and the National Trades Union Congress to design and offer courses in new skillsets, such as digital literacy and data analytics, under the Joint Capability Council.

About Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore

The Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Singapore is located at Pulau Bukom (Shell Bukom), which measures about 2.4 square km or equivalent to about 330 football fields. At Shell Bukom, we aim to produce cleaner energy products, such as biofuels, incorporating circularity, like waste plastics for feedstock, as well as being run on and supplying renewable energy. It is Shell’s only energy and chemicals park in Asia. Shell Bukom houses a world-class Ethylene Cracker Complex and is integrated with one of the world’s largest mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) plants at Shell’s petrochemical site at Jurong Island to supply energy and chemical products to meet the growing needs of customers in the region and beyond. Shell Bukom is one of the first sites in Shell globally to deploy the digital twin technology to create a virtual representation of the site, with the ambition to enable its engineers to operate the plant remotely via augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies. When fully implemented, the digital twin will enable the Park to operate more safely, competitively and innovatively, delivering new levels of efficiency, and plant intelligence.