MOSCOW (MRC) -- Global major Royal Dutch Shell may build a biofuels plant in Singapore to meet the region's rising demand for sustainable aviation fuels (SAF), reported Reuters with reference to the head of the company's downstream business' statement on Wednesday.
The proposed 550,000 tpy project at Singapore's Bukom Island could produce SAF, bionaphtha for petrochemicals and renewable diesel to supply major Asian hubs such as Hong Kong International Airport and Singapore's Changi, Shell Downstream Director Huibert Vigeveno told reporters.
Citing discussions with Asian airlines, including Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines and Nippon Airlines, he said the appetite for SAF was not just in Europe or the United States.
As Shell seeks to move away from fossil fuels, in response to pressure for climate action from governments and some shareholders, it is already building a 820,000 tpy biofuels plant in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Globally, Shell aims to make about 2 MMtpy of SAF by 2025, although the renewable fuel accounts for less than 0.1% of today's global jet fuel demand.
To make room for low-carbon fuel production, Shell has shut a crude distillation unit at Bukom, which reduced its refining capacity by half, Vigeveno said, despite a recovery in global refining margins.
As MRC wrote previously, Royal Dutch Shell has restarted its cracker in Pulau Bukom, Singapore after resolving technical issue. Thus, this cracker with an annual output of 960,000 tons/year of ethylene and 550,000 tons/year of propylene came back on-line on 5 November, 2021. It was shut on 1 November, after a flare occurred at the plant.
We remind that Royal Dutch Shell plans to reduce its refining and chemicals portfolio by more than half, it said in July 2020 without giving a precise timeframe. The move is part of the Anglo-Dutch company's plan to shrink its oil and gas business and expand its renewables and power division to reduce greenhouse gas emissions sharply by 2050.
Ethylene and propylene are the main feedstocks for the production of polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), respectively.
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,868,160 tonnes in the first nine months of 2021, up by 18% year on year. Shipments of all grades of ethylene polymers increased. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 1,138,510 tonnes in January-September 2021, up by 30% year on year. Supply of propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) and block-copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymers) increased, whereas supply of injection moulding statistical copolymers of propylene (PP random copolymers) decreased significantly.
Royal Dutch Shell plc is an Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It is the biggest company in the world in terms of revenue and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors". Shell is vertically integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading.
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