(SINGAPORE) Shell Chemicals is looking at more value-added, downstream investments in Singapore which will be a catalyst for a significant, new 'high-purity chemicals corridor', and potentially attract more supporting players here, its London-based head said.

An example of a downstream investment is the production of high-purity ethylene oxide (or EO, used for making detergents and soaps).

Disclosing this in an interview, Ben van Beurden, its executive vice-president, also confirmed that Shell and its new Qatari partners in its earlier Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore joint venture, together with other parties here and the Singapore government, are looking at a possible LPG terminal here, to import the gas feedstock from Qatar, for the petrochemical industry here and the region.

'For Shell, Singapore is an absolute key, strategic site - which becomes ever more integrated and robust, and a platform to attract additional investments,' he told BT.

Mr van Beurden was here last Friday to officiate at the opening of the group's latest mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) plant - part of its new US$3 billion Singapore petrochemical complex, which will be fully operational by Q1 next year.

What Shell intends to do is to add value to this just-started MEG plant or an earlier ethylene glycols plant here. ' . . . we are studying the option of making higher-purity EO' at one of the plants, he said.

'There is a very clear market for high purity EO - which through ethoxylation, or putting EO on alcohols - is used for products like detergents or soaps. This is a very important region for doing this, because the alcohols come from palm-grown oil, so a lot of players are looking for high purity EO and facilities to do that.'

While he declined to give any investment numbers, he said that the overall payback will be significant. 'You are talking of very significant investment in this new cluster . . . because besides trade and employment etc, it attracts many small- and medium-sized industries as well.'

Furthermore, EO is also used to make polyols (a natural oil derived from vegetable oil and used to make polyurethanes), he added, and this ties in with the propylene oxide produced at its Seraya Chemicals plant here.

'We can also look at more things to do with the propylene oxide out of Seraya . . . So you see, once you have strong foundations, you find good reasons to add more things to it.'

Last month, state-owned Qatar Petroleum International (QPI) - with which Shell has a lot of dealings - took a half-share in Shell's stakes in Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore and The Polyolefin Company. BT later reported that this had to do with the possibility of Qatari liquefied petroleum gas being supplied to Singapore.

Confirming this, Mr van Beurden said that 'there have been a number of discussions with all parties concerned . . . Qatar, other market players here and the Singapore government on how it will make sense to bring in LPG from Qatar as a feedstock for the petrochemicals industry and it certainly looks extremely attractive for all parties concerned.'

'It is an extremely difficult thing to pull off . . . but we are all talking, and figuring how this should look like.

'We will need to aggregate demand from a number of players for it to have sufficient scale to make sense for an LPG import facility to be built and for it to be a very attractive and strategic outlet for the Qataris. But everybody is directionally in agreement that we should work on this,' he added.

While it is still early days, the Shell Chemicals chief added that such a terminal could potentially also service the wider Asian region, with Singapore becoming an important LPG hub.