Air quality

Air quality continues to be embedded in our environmental standards. Good air quality contributes to the health of the world’s population and the natural world.

We are developing a range of choices for customers — from electric vehicle charge points to hydrogen — to help people and companies reduce their transport emissions.

For heavy-duty road transport, liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a fuel and gas-to-liquids fuel and motor oils help reduce sulphur emissions, particulates and nitrogen oxide compared with oil-based products. For ships, LNG also reduces these emissions and is the lowest-carbon fuel currently available at scale today. We have built up one of the largest LNG bunkering networks on key shipping routes to enable more customers to use LNG as a fuel.

Sulphur oxide, nitrogen oxide and volatile organic compound emissions

We follow our own standards and those of local regulators to manage airborne pollutants in our oil and gas production and processing, including emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulphur oxides and volatile organic compounds.

Our sulphur oxide (SO_X) emissions in 2023 decreased to 31 thousand tonnes from 37 thousand tonnes in 2022. The decrease was mainly because of less flaring at the Shell-operated Scotford Upgrader in Canada and divestment of Shell-operated Upstream assets in Tunisia. 

Our nitrogen oxide (NO_X) emissions in 2023 decreased to 88 thousand tonnes from 93 thousand tonnes in 2022, due, in part, to divestments of Shell-operated Upstream assets in Tunisia and the Philippines and downtime of generators at Shell-operated assets in Trinidad and Tobago.

Our emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in 2023 decreased to 36 thousand tonnes in 2023 from 37 thousand tonnes in 2022 because of, in part, planned and unplanned production stops at our Shell MDS gas-to-liquids facility in Malaysia.

To find out more about air quality, visit www.shell.com/airquality.