Shell's largest integrated petrochemicals hub comes onstream in Singapore

05-May-10

Royal Dutch Shell's largest integrated petrochemicals manufacturing hub including a new cracker at the refinery on Bukom Island and other Shell facilities on Jurong Island, has come onstream in Singapore. With this new capacity, Shell will be in a better position to serve the Asian market and also spur a new wave of high-value downstream investments in the chemical industry. The company has planned a capacity revamp that will enable Shell to operate its Singapore oil refinery at 500,000 bpd. Along with the two new units, the revamped existing ones will widen feedstock choices for its new ethylene cracker. The cracker has the options to use a range of feedstock other than naphtha like liquefied petroleum gas and heavy liquid hydrocarbon such as hydrowax. A high vacuum unit has been added to provide feedstock to the refinery's hydrocracker that will produce hydrowax for the new ethylene cracker. Shell has also built a new sulphur-recovery unit which allows the refinery to process more sour crude. The project also includes a 750,000 tpa monoethylene glycol (MEG) unit on nearby Jurong island which started up in December 2009.