The future has been in the making at Shell Pernis for over a century,
and in that period, Shell Pernis has moved with the rhythm of the port,
always rejuvenating and modernising...
Now and in the future,
it remains our ambition
to deliver more efficient, dependable and cleaner products.
We are Europe's largest refinery.
Our site, including Shell Europoort,
is almost as large as 1,000 football fields.
We have 1,900 employees working in 60 different plants.
All of the plants are interconnected by pipelines.
The network consists of tens of thousands of kilometres of pipes.
Locations like our chemical plant in Moerdijk, Schiphol,
and industrial zones, like Antwerp and the Ruhr area,
are connected to our company through underground pipelines.
The Port of Rotterdam is the largest in Europe,
partly due to the supply of large quantities of crude oil
and the extensive trade in oil products.
The oil is stored in tanks at the Maasvlakte and at Shell Europoort,
and then it's pumped to Pernis.
CLEANER PRODUCTS
We can process both light and heavy grades of crude oil.
The most important products we make
are gasoil or diesel, petrol, kerosene and LPG.
The refinery also makes other products
like bitumen, sulphur, solvents and base chemicals,
for example, for Shell Moerdijk.
When the plants operate at full speed,
we process over 400,000 barrels of crude oil per day,
which equals 20 million tonnes a year, or 750 litres per second.
Products made in the refinery plants
include polyols, propylene and solvents.
We supply them to other companies, which process them into products
like mattresses, glue and packaging materials.
The way in which we process our oil goes as follows...
We start with distillation.
The molecules in crude oil are split up
into different components,
based on different boiling points.
This happens in a distillation tower.
We heat the crude oil to a temperature
of about 350 degrees Centigrade,
which causes the lightest molecules or fractions to evaporate.
This vapour then rises in the tower.
The higher up in the tower,
the lower the temperature.
Thus, condensation will ensue,
causing the gaseous molecules
to turn back into fluids
at different heights.
Moreover, we can turn almost all crude oil into lighter products.
To this end, we use not only distillation but also cracking processes.
Through heat and catalysts,
we crack the molecular chains, as it were,
in order to produce smaller and lighter components.
These products can then be used for petrol, kerosene or diesel.
SAFETY AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Our aim is to keep reducing safety hazards.
We do this with careful designing and robust construction,
through regular maintenance
and with a high level of training for our employees.
This way, Shell can warrant the safety and health of everyone
to a maximum, at and around the site.
We also take future-oriented steps to be more environmentally-friendly.
For instance, think of the greatly reduced use of natural gas,
made possible because we send large amounts of CO2 to the Westland.
Another example is our residual heat project.
From 2018 onwards, we will supply enough residual heat to the city of Rotterdam
to provide thousands of houses with hot water and heating.
Our new SDA plant will also play its role,
as it's going to remove asphalt from fuel oil components.
Thus, from the same amount of crude oil,
more valuable and cleaner products can be obtained.
CONNECTING WITH OUR ENVIRONMENT
In 1998, we established the Community Council
to discuss issues in a structured way,
to create understanding for each other's situation.
Of course, we also think of the future.
That's why we have our own Children's Council.
This enables us to offer a programme to local young people
in the fields of technology, safety and the future of energy.
VISION FOR THE FUTURE
Energy issues are constantly changing.
The demand for petrol and diesel for passenger traffic will decline,
but there will be a continuous demand for fossil fuels for heavy transportation.
In the past, we have always moved with the times, and we'll continue to do so.
So we think that Pernis has a bright future ahead of it.