Shell Ending Crude Oil Refining at German Refinery

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (The Hague, Netherlands) is to end crude oil refining at one of the largest German refineries with the goal of transforming the site's output to low-carbon and carbon-free products.

Shell's Rhineland refinery in Wesseling, which has an output of 150,000 barrels per day (BBL/d), will stop using crude oil in the future as part of the company's drive to cut emissions. Shell wants to become a net-zero emissions company by 2050 "at the latest'' and claimed that the renovations in Wesseling will result in a reduction of 1 million tons of direct CO2 emissions annually.

Along with the neighboring Cologne-Godorf site, it makes up the Rhineland refining complex, the largest in Germany, with more than 3,000 employees and a total output of 340,000 BBL/d. The company said that crude oil "is to be replaced in future with new or reallocated plants. For more CO2-free or low-CO2 products, hydrogen, circular waste materials and biogenic input materials are increasingly being used. For this purpose, existing systems are to be dismantled, new ones created and existing ones converted or rededicated." The crude oil distillation in Cologne-Godorf will remain in operation while a final investment decision for Wesseling is still pending. The company has also changed the name of the complex to Shell Energy and Chemicals Park Rheinland.

"The transformation from the hitherto still energy-intensive industries to climate-neutral companies is an important contribution to reducing the emission of climate-damaging gases as quickly as possible, curbing climate change and actively protecting resources," said North Rhine-Westphalian Environment Minister Ursula Heinen-Eater. "We therefore welcome the conversion announced by Shell and the associated CO2-neutrality of the refinery site and most of the products produced there. The plans presented today for the 'crude oil-free' part of the refinery by 2025 are an impressive signal in this context and also an important step towards the desired goal of a climate-neutral energy system."

Dr. Marco Richrath, general manager of the Energy and Chemicals Park Rheinland, added: "As a refinery, we have played an important role in the fossil energy market over the past few decades. We want to take over this in the future with a completely changed product portfolio as Energy and Chemicals Park Rheinland. Especially in the course of the energy transition, we want to be a reliable partner for society, business and politics."

This summer, Industrial Info reported that Shell launched Europe's biggest hydrogen electrolysis plant of 10 megawatts (MW)--known as Refhyne--at the Wesseling site. It will produce green fuels as part of a European Union-funded consortium that is looking to expand the plant to 100 MW. Partners include electrolyser producer ITM Power, research organisation SINTEF and consultants Sphera and Element Energy. Today, the Rhineland site uses 180,000 tonnes of hydrogen annually, which is produced by steam reforming from natural gas. The new facility will be able to produce an additional 1,300 tonnes of hydrogen per year. The 10-MW electrolyser will use electricity from low-cost renewable sources to split water into the base components of hydrogen and oxygen. For additional information, see July 13, 2021, article - Shell Starts Europe's Largest Green Hydrogen Plant.

In addition, a bio-power-to-liquids plant is planned, in which synthetic aviation fuels and petroleum are produced from green electricity and biomass. Both projects are at an advanced planning stage, but a final investment decision is still to be made. The final investment decision has already been made for a plant for the production of bio-LNG for heavy goods vehicles.

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