W2C Rot­ter­dam pro­ject wel­comes Shell as partner

A con­sor­ti­um of world-lead­ing com­pan­ies com­pris­ing Air Liquide, Noury­on (formerly AkzoNo­bel Spe­cialty Chem­ic­als), Enerkem and the Port of Rot­ter­dam – has announced that Shell will join as a part­ner in Europe’s first advanced waste-to-chem­ic­als facil­ity in Rot­ter­dam, the Neth­er­lands. Shell will become an equal equity part­ner in the pro­posed com­mer­cial-scale waste-to-chem­ic­als (W2C) pro­ject, which will be the first of its kind in Europe to make valu­able chem­ic­als and bio-fuels out of non-recyc­lable waste mater­i­als. ​“We are thrilled to have Shell join our group of part­ners,” says Marco Waas, Chair­man of the waste-to-chem­ic­als pro­ject in Rot­ter­dam and Dir­ect­or RD&I at Noury­on. ​“The EU Renew­able Energy Dir­ect­ive (RED II) com­ing into effect in 2021, as well as oth­er envir­on­ment­al ini­ti­at­ives such as the Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Pack­age are cre­at­ing an ideal envir­on­ment for lead­ing com­pan­ies to drive sus­tain­able growth through innov­a­tion. The pro­ject will be fur­ther strengthened with the addi­tion of anoth­er lead­ing glob­al part­ner.” Andrew Murfin, Gen­er­al Man­ager, Advanced Bio­fuels, Shell, said: ​“Industry part­ner­ships, just like this one, are crit­ic­al to deliv­er­ing some of the many solu­tions soci­ety will need to meet energy demand while redu­cing emis­sions to tackle cli­mate change and air pol­lu­tion. Advanced bio­fuels, includ­ing those pro­duced using bio-meth­an­ol, have the poten­tial to decar­bon­ise the trans­port­a­tion sec­tor, in par­tic­u­lar. This is an excit­ing pro­spect giv­en trans­port­a­tion accounts for one fifth of glob­al energy-related CO2 emis­sions, and will con­tin­ue to rely on liquid fuels, espe­cially for long jour­neys and heavy-duty vehicles, for years to come.” The con­sor­ti­um, which has set up a ded­ic­ated joint ven­ture com­pany, has already under­taken extens­ive pre­par­at­ory work, cov­er­ing detailed engin­eer­ing and the per­mit­ting pro­cess. It aims to take the final invest­ment decision (FID) later in 2019 as it pur­sues the devel­op­ment work and final­izes the selec­tion of an engin­eer­ing and pro­cure­ment con­tract­or (EPC). The planned facil­ity will con­vert up to 360,000 tons of waste into 220,000 tons (270 mil­lion litres) of bio- meth­an­ol – a chem­ic­al build­ing block that is used to man­u­fac­ture a broad range of every­day products, as well as being a renew­able fuel. This rep­res­ents the total annu­al waste of more than 700,000 house­holds and rep­res­ents a CO 2 emis­sion sav­ings estim­ated at about 300,000 tonnes when com­pared to the pro­duc­tion of meth­an­ol from fossil fuels. The pro­ject is sup­por­ted by the Dutch Min­istry of Eco­nom­ic Affairs & Cli­mate Policy, which has agreed to devel­op mech­an­isms and reg­u­la­tion that will help bring this new tech­no­logy to full scale to sup­port the low-car­bon trans­ition of the Dutch eco­nomy. The waste-to-chem­ic­als pro­ject is also sup­por­ted by the City of Rot­ter­dam, the Province of Zuid-Hol­land and Innov­a­tionQuarter, the region­al devel­op­ment agency. The facil­ity will be built with­in the Botlek area of the Port of Rot­ter­dam using Enerkem’s pro­pri­et­ary tech­no­logy, and will con­vert non-recyc­lable mixed waste, includ­ing plastics, into syn­gas and then into clean meth­an­ol for use in the chem­ic­al industry and for the trans­port­a­tion sec­tor. This is a depar­ture from the real­ity of today, where meth­an­ol is gen­er­ally pro­duced from nat­ur­al gas or coal. The plant will have two pro­duc­tion lines, or twice the input capa­city of Enerkem’s com­mer­cial plant in Edmon­ton, Canada. It will bene­fit from the state-of-the-art infra­struc­ture avail­able with­in the Port of Rot­ter­dam, as well as syn­er­gies with Air Liquide (large indus­tries) for sup­ply­ing the required oxy­gen and with Noury­on, for the hydro­gen raw mater­i­al. The cur­rent aim is that the facility’s sus­tain­able meth­an­ol out­put will be pur­chased by Noury­on and Shell. The waste-to-chem­ic­als pro­ject in Rot­ter­dam is an import­ant step towards a more sus­tain­able chem­ic­al industry and cir­cu­lar eco­nomy. Lever­aging Cana­dian cleantech Enerkem dis­rupt­ive pro­pri­et­ary tech­no­logy, the com­mer­cial-scale facil­ity will be the first of its kind in Europe to provide a sus­tain­able solu­tion for non-recyc­lable wastes, con­vert­ing unre­cov­er­able plastics and oth­er mixed waste streams into new raw mater­i­als. The waste ‑to-chem­ic­als pro­ject in Rot­ter­dam is a prime example of how a true cir­cu­lar eco­nomy can be achieved by pre­vent­ing the use of fossil sources for new mater­i­als, diver­si­fy­ing the energy mix and by mak­ing every­day products lower car­bon while offer­ing a smart, sus­tain­able altern­at­ive to land­filling and incin­er­a­tion. The pro­ject can help the Neth­er­lands real­ize its ambi­tion to become vir­tu­ally car­bon-neut­ral by 2050. Source: Port of Rot­ter­dam, press release, 01 March 2019