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Has Shell Made The Right Choices on MEG?

Business, China, Company Strategy, Economics, Fibre Intermediates, Middle East, Projects, Singapore, US
By John Richardson on 11-Dec-2009

Looking pretty – the new Shell plant at night:

shell_plant_panoramic_240x178_v1.jpgSourceof picture: Shell Chemicals

 

By John Richardson

WHEN Shell Chemicals officially opened its OMEGA process 750,000 tonne/year monoethylene glycol (MEG) plant in Singapore today, it mentioned how its global production share of the fibre intermediate was only 7%.

One might wonder how effective this is against the dominance of SABIC and MEGlobal in what is a highly commoditised game where final success could hinge on market muscle and economies of scale.

But the new plant at Jurong Island in Singapore is one of the biggest – if not the biggest – in the world.

Plus, Shell claims that its OMEGA process is cheaper on capital and running costs and produces far less diethylene glycol (DEG and triethylene glycol (TEG) by or co-products than conventional processes (in fact, virtually none).

Another advantage will be from the new Shell cracker under construction on neighbouring island Pulau Bukom, from which ethylene will be fed by an undersea pipeline.

“It (the cracker) will run on a full range of feedstocks from heavy paraffin wax to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) supplied by our existing refinery,” said Peter Eijsberg, Deputy Venture Director for Shell Eastern Petrochemicals Complex (SEPC).

SEPC is the wholly-owned Shell subsidiary operating the MEG plant which came on-stream last month.

It will run the 800,000 tonne/year cracker and a 175,000 tonne/year butadiene plant due on-stream in Q1 next year.

The existing refinery is being upgraded to meet the cracker’s feedstock needs,

It would be possible in certain market conditions for 100% of the cracker’s feedstock needs to be met by the refinery, Eijsberg added.

“We can crack vacuum-gas oil (VGO) from our vacuum distillation column, hydrowax from our hydrocracker, naphtha, of course, and LPG from various units in the refinery,” he added.

So how does this compare with an ethane-based cracker and worldscale MEG plant in the Middle East?

“When your gas is practically free, the Middle East is very competitive indeed, but we do have the logistics advantage of being closer to the biggest customers in China. We can also move cargoes smaller than the 50,000 tonnes which typically come from the Middle East.”

Shell, though, has made the decision to licence OMEGA. By so doing, is it in danger of undermining its competitiveness?

“I believe this isn’t a challenge to our competitive position,” said Iain Lo, Vice-President, New Business Development Ventures, for Shell.

Five licenses have been granted for OMEGA, – but only two officially announced, which are to Lotte Daesan in South Korea and PetroRabigh in Saudi Arabia. Both companies are already operating OMEGA plants.

Success in petrochemicals has to eventually always be about being big or getting out if you are at the commodity end of the game, is one argument.

But there is an awful lot of money to be made out of licensing.

And licensing doesn’t mean you give away all the your advantages, especially if you are a company like Shell with its refinery-cracker integration and its experience in running plants.