Shell starts up 2 new S'pore petrochem plants
Singapore
SHELL has started up two new world- scale petrochemical plants on Jurong Island, further strengthening its manufacturing presence in Singapore and boosting its chemicals footprint in Asia.
The start of the high-purity ethylene oxide (HPEO) purification unit and the ethoxylates unit more than doubles the production of these products on Jurong Island, Shell said. Each of these units has an annual capacity of 140,000 tonnes.
HPEO is used in a wide range of household and industrial applications, and is an intermediate chemical that is further processed into alcohol ethoxylates - key ingredients for products such as shampoo and body wash.
"The demand for HPEO and alcohol ethoxylates in Asia has been rising over the years," said Shell Chemicals executive vice-president Graham van't Hoff. "These two projects are part of Shell's strategy to serve the growing needs of existing and new customers locally and in the region."
Shell delivers HPEO through an ethylene oxide pipeline grid to "over-the-fence" customers and its own expanded ethoxylation operations on Jurong Island. The new HPEO plant will take feedstock from Shell's ethylene oxide/mono-ethylene glycol plant, which is integrated with its ethylene cracker through to its largest fully-owned refinery on Pulau Bukom.
The new Shell plants have been instrumental in attracting new downstream players including surfactant and detergent makers which have invested millions of dollars and helped to build a new "high-purity chemicals corridor" on Jurong Island. This is similar to the raft of synthetic rubber manufacturing investments seen on Jurong Island a few years ago, following greater availability of butadiene feedstock from the petrochemical crackers here.
"We are pleased to have companies such as Shell partnering us in the development of the energy and chemicals cluster in Singapore," said Yeoh Keat Chuan, managing director of the Economic Development Board. "These new facilities have brought about new investments in the manufacturing of specialty chemicals on Jurong Island, which creates good jobs for Singaporeans. We look forward to writing the next chapter of our chemicals growth story with Shell."
These latest projects follow a spate of new Shell investments in Singapore in recent years.
In 2013, it increased polyols capacity by more than 100,000 tonnes per annum and added new grades to its product offering. In December 2014, it took full control of Ellba Eastern, its then styrene monomer and propylene oxide (PO) joint venture with BASF. Shell said the move enabled integration with and optimisation of its existing assets on Jurong Island in a difficult cost environment, with the increased PO volume allowing it to make the most of its polyols assets here.
Shell had also recently increased the capacity of olefins and aromatics by more than 20 per cent to over one million tonnes a year, after the completion of work to debottleneck its Singapore ethylene cracker on Pulau Bukom.
