麻豆传媒

1.What attracted you to the energy industry and what excites you about it today?

My interest came from my parents. My father was a mechanical engineer working, interestingly enough, for Shell, and was lured to the expatriate life and the experience of working abroad. So, my father and mother moved to Mufulira in Zambia where he went to work for a Zambian copper mining company for 10 years. My sister and I were born a few years after arriving.

I saw with my own eyes how a large, responsible organisation has such an impact on the community around it. The mine in Mufulira was responsible for the town that grew up around it and in which I lived. The company provided many of the things we had there such as the school, hospital, shops and most of the social activities including golf, tennis and even the sailing club. This had a great impact on me, and the appeal of working for a large organisation.

When my family moved back to the United Kingdom in 1976, we lived near an oil refinery on the south coast. I remember how impressive it looked to me as a young man. It was around that time I started thinking that perhaps the petrochemical refining industry and the wide range of refined products it created and valued by everyone could be a better direction than mining. As I got older, those ideas continued to appeal to me. My dad encouraged me to go into chemical engineering, and that brought me, eventually, to Shell Catalysts & Technologies.

2.Please tell us more about your current work and how it supports energy transition initiatives. 

Collectively, Shell Catalysts & Technologies works to help our customers begin or better manage their respective energy transition journeys. I work in the strategic marketing part of the business where I鈥檓 responsible for several products we license to customers. My job is to understand very deeply how those products work and how their performance may be increased and enhanced to better fit the ever-changing and evolving needs of our customers. There are several variables that go into how we prioritise those improvements such as customer objectives, feedback and the state of competition in the market.

Learn how to navigate the energy transition

3.Can you tell me about a project on which you worked that was particularly rewarding and why? 

The first one that comes to mind is the Shell Claus Off-Gas Treating (SCOT) ULTRA Process, which is based on a very mature amine-based technology which helps to reduce sulphur dioxide (SO₂) emissions into the atmosphere. The original SCOT Process is a 60 year old technology that has followed typical process technology improvements, however its fundamentals had not changed much in the last 20 years. When I joined the gas processing portfolio here at Shell Catalysts & Technologies in 2015, I became aware of a new solvent that, if was as good as it was claimed to be, could help us turn SCOT into SCOT ULTRA which would deliver a significant improvement in performance.

We were able to collaborate with a third-party company to jointly develop the new and improved amine that, combined with a new SCOT catalyst, can help to lower new SCOT plant capital expenditure (CAPEX) costs by 34% and, more importantly, operating costs (OPEX) by 50%.

Collaboration was critical to the success of the project. More and more companies are shifting focus away, at least in a small way, from being quite broad in capability with diversified portfolios to focus on what they do best. It gives companies a way of achieving a competitive advantage. As companies become more specialised, it increases the need for collaboration. Understanding what other organisations specialise in creates the opportunity to partner on projects.

However, collaboration is not without its challenges.

There are a lot of small companies doing innovative work but have no real way to scale those innovations. Shell Catalysts & Technologies excels at commercialising technologies. By partnering with small innovative companies, we can scale new products and technologies. It helps bring those new technologies and solutions to market much faster, which translates into increased productivity, efficiency and further supports the energy transition. 

4. In addition to SCOT ULTRA, what other amine-based solutions can be utilised in the capture of harmful emissions, especially those created by hard-to-abate industries?

One of the most important technologies in my portfolio is the Shell CANSOLV CO₂ Capture process. The technology has been around for about 10 years and is a key part of helping hard-to-abate industries such as steel, cement and power to decarbonise. These industries need extremely high temperatures to create their respective products. They achieve those temperatures by combusting a lot of methane gas and other fuels. That leads to huge amounts of harmful carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. Integrating the Shell CANSOLV CO₂ Capture System into the existing process can help to reduce harmful emissions by more than 95%.

CANSOLV, like SCOT ULTRA, is an amine-based technology.

The challenge lies, however, in that oxygen is present in the flue gas to be treated. Oxygen is very destructive to amines. So, part of the expertise needed to apply CANSOLV is knowing which amines can perform in harsh conditions.

The Shell CANSOLV CO₂ Capture System utilises a regenerable amine that offers increased performance. Those increases come in a few different forms including low parasitic energy consumption and resilience to degradation in oxygen-containing gas streams. As an example of success, the CANSOLV technology has captured 5 million tonnes of CO₂ from Canada鈥檚 Saskpower Boundary Damn facility.鹿

Shell Catalysts & Technologies is always trying to make improvements because, as I鈥檝e said, CO₂ capture is critical in decarbonising heavy industries. The work to constantly improve performance is important in that it allows for wider adoption of the technology. It鈥檚 part of my job to help make the business case and to encourage investments in making CANSOLV and other technologies better.

5.What motivates you to continue your work and the continued energy transition? 

For me, it is the people around me. They strengthen my passion for my work. I feed off their energy to solve the problems worth solving and the energy to do it while trying to extract as much fun and enjoyment out of each day and each encounter. I believe there are some serious problems the world has to find solutions to, but if you enjoy working and collaborating with others you will find these solutions much faster.

I鈥檓 reaching the latter stages of my career and what I want to see is Shell Catalysts & Technologies and the larger Shell organization successfully set off on the best path to achieve the transition to a carbon-neutral future. The first steps are crucial and I hope my work contributes to that future.

Read more: Collaboration: Driving the Future of Process Technologies

 

¹_{CANSOLV CO2, Energy Transition Glossary, Shell Catalysts & Technologies,}