Business and property

Chemicals

Our plants produce a range of base chemicals, including ethylene, propylene and aromatics, and intermediate chemicals, such as styrene monomer, propylene oxide, solvents, detergent alcohols, ethylene oxide and ethylene glycol. We have the capacity to produce around 8.1 million tonnes of ethylene a year (including the Shell share of capacity entitlement (offtake rights) of joint ventures and associates, which may be different from nominal equity interest). Our Pennsylvania Chemical project, SPM, which commenced operations in November 2022, was not fully functional during 2023 due to operational and start-up challenges. The facility ramped up to full operation during the first quarter of 2024. We are expanding our product portfolio to include sustainable chemicals made from bio-based and circular feedstocks, and more intermediates and performance chemicals, such as polyethylene and polycarbonate. We operate chemical plants worldwide and have a balance of locations, feedstocks and products.

In addition to our stand-alone, chemicals-only production sites, we are repurposing our refineries into energy and chemicals parks. This is under way at Norco in the USA, Scotford in Canada, Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Rheinland in Germany. We continue to explore options for the former Convent Refinery in Louisiana, USA, which has been shut down. The energy and chemicals parks are expected to focus more on meeting customers' low-carbon and sustainability needs.

In 2023, we supplied more than 11 million tonnes of petrochemicals to more than 1,000 industrial customers. Products made from chemicals are used in everyday life, including in medical equipment, construction, transport, electronics, agriculture and sports.

Products – Refining & Trading

Refining

We have interests in eight refineries worldwide, with a capacity to process a total of 1.6 million barrels of crude oil a day. The distribution of our refining capacity is 60% in Europe, 26% in the Americas and 14% in Asia.

We continue to evaluate ways to high-grade our refining portfolio to meet our strategic aims and to capitalise on the strong integration between our customers, trading operations and chemical plants. We are repurposing our refining sites into energy and chemicals parks. This will mean developing new facilities or converting existing units to support low-carbon products, while dismantling existing units that do not deliver sustainable long-term value. We initiated a strategic review of our Bukom and Jurong Island assets in Singapore.

We announced the final investment decision to convert the hydrocracker of the Wesseling site at the Energy and Chemicals Park Rheinland in Germany into a production unit for Group III base oils. These mineral base oils have a very high viscosity index and are produced with hydrocracking technology. The market for high-quality engine and transmission oils, as well as e-fluids and cooling fluids, some of which are made from these oils, is expected to grow. Crude oil processing will end at the Wesseling site by 2025 but continue at the Godorf site.

Trading and Supply

Through our main trading offices in London, Houston, Singapore and Rotterdam, we trade crude oil, low-carbon fuels, refined products, chemical feedstocks and environmental products. Trading and Supply trades in physical and financial contracts, lease storage and transportation capacities, and manages global shipping and wholesale commercial fuel activities.

Operating in around 25 countries, with about 180 Shell and joint-venture (including pipeline) terminals, we believe our supply and distribution infrastructure is well positioned to make deliveries around the world.

Shipping and Maritime enables the safe delivery of the Shell Trading and Supply contracts. This includes supplying feedstocks for our refineries and chemical plants, and finished products such as gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel to our Marketing segment and customers.

Shell Wholesale Commercial Fuels provides fuels for transport, industry and heating. These range from reliable main-grade fuels to premium products.

Wind and hydrogen for decarbonisation in Rotterdam

We are aiming for more value with less emissions by working to integrate our assets and projects. Take our investment in Holland Hydrogen 1 (HH1), for example. HH1 will be one of Europe's largest renewable hydrogen facilities when it is operational in the middle of the decade.

Construction of the 200 MW electrolyser facility HH1 began at the end of 2022. HH1 is designed to produce up to 80,000 kilograms of renewable hydrogen per day and will be powered by the Hollandse Kust Noord wind farm, operated by the CrossWind joint venture (Shell interest 79.9%) with Eneco. HH1 will supply hydrogen to the Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rotterdam, which will use it to partially decarbonise its production of petrol, diesel and jet fuel.

In June 2023, Hollandse Kust Noord, which lies 18.5 kilometres off the west coast of the Netherlands, produced its first electricity. Hollandse Kust Noord has been operational since December 2023 with an installed capacity of 759 MW, generating at least 3.3 TWh per year. CrossWind is exploring the use of innovative technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), to help ensure a continuous supply of electricity, even when there is no wind.

HH1 is energy transition being put into action where we are leveraging our expertise across the value chain to produce renewable hydrogen which will be used to decarbonise our own energy products and, when the hydrogen market develops, potentially supply other customers.

Pipelines

We own and operate eight tank farms across the USA through Shell Pipeline Company LP (Shell interest 100%). It transports around 1.5 billion barrels of crude oil, refined products and chemicals a year through around 6,000 kilometres of pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico and nine US states. Our non-operated ownership interests provide another 13,000 kilometres of pipeline.

We carry more than 40 types of crude oil and more than 20 grades of fuel and chemicals, including gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, chemicals and ethylene.

We own, operate, develop and acquire pipelines and other midstream and logistics assets. Our assets include interests in entities that own crude oil and refined products pipelines and terminals that serve as key infrastructure to:

• transport onshore and offshore crude oil production to US Gulf Coast and Midwest refining markets; and
• deliver refined products from those markets to major demand centres.

Our assets also include interests in entities that own natural gas and refinery gas pipelines that transport offshore natural gas to market hubs and deliver refinery gas from refineries and plants to chemical sites along the US Gulf Coast.

Oil Sands

Synthetic crude oil is produced by mining bitumen-saturated sands, extracting the bitumen and transporting it to a processing facility where hydrogen is added to make a wide range of feedstocks for refineries. The Athabasca Oil Sands Project (AOSP) in Alberta, Canada, includes the Albian Sands mining and extraction operations, the Scotford upgrader and the Quest CCS project.

We have a 50% interest in 1745844 Alberta Ltd. (formerly known as Marathon Oil Canada Corporation), which holds a 20% interest in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project.