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Shell project meets Asia's growing demand for raw materials
04 May '10
5 min read
The refinery and cracker can handle a wide range of raw materials selected to take advantage of fluctuations in market conditions and supply, squeezing the most value out of every barrel of oil.
The cracker, for example, can process heavier, lower cost raw materials from the refinery, thanks to proprietary Shell technology. This gives it a competitive advantage over crackers that process more costly raw materials. It increases the margins between the cost of raw materials and the sale of the high-value petrochemicals that it makes.
”We can maximise our margins depending on feedstock prices,” says Huck Poh, General Manager of the Pulau Bukom Manufacturing Site. “We can direct chemicals streams to the product that gives the biggest bang for the buck.”
Second mega-petrochemicals project
The refinery on Bukom Island off the coast of Singapore processes over 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day, enough to fill 3.9 million cars.
The cracker was built within the existing refinery while it was still pumping out its products. It started up in March 2010 and has the capacity to produce 800,000 tonnes a year of ethylene, a colourless gas used to make many products from polyethylene packaging to detergents; 450,000 tonnes of propylene, used in car parts, insulation and synthetic rubber; and 230,000 tonnes of benzene, a base chemical needed to make styrene and computer casings. A unit to extract butadiene — used, for example, to make rubber — is currently starting up.
The MEG plant started up in November 2009 and has the capacity to produce 750,000 tonnes of MEG a year.
The SEPC investment is a 100% Shell project and its largest chemicals investment to date. It is Shell's second mega-petrochemicals project after the Nanhai joint venture with CNOOC that started up five years ago, and is the latest step in its strategy to concentrate the global downstream business into fewer, larger markets. Shell has been in Singapore since 1891.
The cracker, for example, can process heavier, lower cost raw materials from the refinery, thanks to proprietary Shell technology. This gives it a competitive advantage over crackers that process more costly raw materials. It increases the margins between the cost of raw materials and the sale of the high-value petrochemicals that it makes.
”We can maximise our margins depending on feedstock prices,” says Huck Poh, General Manager of the Pulau Bukom Manufacturing Site. “We can direct chemicals streams to the product that gives the biggest bang for the buck.”
Second mega-petrochemicals project
The refinery on Bukom Island off the coast of Singapore processes over 500,000 barrels of crude oil a day, enough to fill 3.9 million cars.
The cracker was built within the existing refinery while it was still pumping out its products. It started up in March 2010 and has the capacity to produce 800,000 tonnes a year of ethylene, a colourless gas used to make many products from polyethylene packaging to detergents; 450,000 tonnes of propylene, used in car parts, insulation and synthetic rubber; and 230,000 tonnes of benzene, a base chemical needed to make styrene and computer casings. A unit to extract butadiene — used, for example, to make rubber — is currently starting up.
The MEG plant started up in November 2009 and has the capacity to produce 750,000 tonnes of MEG a year.
The SEPC investment is a 100% Shell project and its largest chemicals investment to date. It is Shell's second mega-petrochemicals project after the Nanhai joint venture with CNOOC that started up five years ago, and is the latest step in its strategy to concentrate the global downstream business into fewer, larger markets. Shell has been in Singapore since 1891.
Shell Chemicals Limited
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