Shell has more than doubled the production of high-purity ethylene oxide (HPEO) and ethoxylates at its site on Jurong Island, Singapore, the company confirmed on Tuesday.

Shell has successfully started up a new purification unit with a capacity of 140,000 tpy of HPEO, while a new world-scale production unit will also manufacture 140,000 tpa of ethoxylates. 

Shell delivers HPEO through an ethylene oxide pipeline grid to ‘over-the-fence’ customers and its own expanded ethoxylation operations on Jurong Island. 

Feedstock for the new HPEO plant comes from Shell’s ethylene oxide/mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) plant, which is integrated with the company’s ethylene cracker through to its largest fully-ownedrefinery on Pulau Bukom.

“The demand for HPEO and alcohol ethoxylates in Asia has been rising over the years. These two projects are part of Shell’s strategy to serve the growing needs of existing and new customers locally and in the region,” said Graham van’t Hoff, executive vice president for Shell Chemicals.

More than 6 million man-hours went into both projects, which were completed without disruption to existing operations. Some 400 kilometers of cable, 60 kilometers of piping, and 180 pieces of equipment (including columns, reactors, vessels, heat exchangers) were installed across 35,000 square meters of land (about the size of seven football fields) over two years.

Singapore continues to be an important refining and petrochemicals hub for Shell. The two newpetrochemicals production units on Jurong Island further strengthen Shell’s portfolio of world-class manufacturing facilities, and boost its chemicals footprint in Asia. 

The availability of both ethylene oxide and propylene oxide (PO) at the same location offers an advantageous value proposition for specialty chemical companies, who commonly use both of these intermediates to produce value-added products, according to company officials.

The HPEO and ethoxylates projects are the latest successes in a string of investments over the last few years, aimed at strengthening Shell’s largest oil-chemicals integrated site spanning Singapore’s Bukom and Jurong islands.