(plastemart) -- 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.
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