Shell’s Shanghai technical centre to open in early 2014

Shell is setting up a lubricants technical centre in Shanghai to work closer with customers in the region, The Nation reports.
Selda Gunsel, vice president of global commercial technology within Shell’s Projects & Technology organization, said that the centre would be up and running in the first quarter of 2014. It will be Shell’s first such centre in Asia.
The new research centre will focus mainly on next-generation automotive and industrial lubricants and greases.
Shell currently has three innovation hubs located in Houston, Amsterdam and Bangalore.
“Based on our previous experience, building partnerships with original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs) is difficult, because they are far away. That’s why we want to be close to our customers, particularly the OEMs, to co-engineer our products,” she said. Gunsel, who was in Bangkok last week to give a keynote address during F+L Week 2013 Conference & Exhibition, relocated to Shanghai in late 2012 to oversee the establishment of this new lubricants technical centre.
Shell has spent between US$1.3 and 1.5 billion annually on research and development.
Gunsel said Shell is developing a wide range of fuels to support rising global energy demand, which is expected to double by 2050, with the population set to increase from 7 billion to 9 billion.
“This is a very big problem, and there are no single solutions. For example, for fuel we are looking at low-carbon fuels such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) and biofuels,” she said.
LNG is relatively clean with better emissions, as it has no sulphur or heavy metals, “but to make it successful for road transport, we have to work with gas engine manufacturers such as Caterpillar and Volvo,” Gunsel said.
She also stressed the importance of developing second-generation, cellulosic biofuels that do not compete with food supply. The company plans to introduce E20 in Thailand later this year, in support of the government’s policy.
Shell is also looking to bring its gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology to Asia, she said.