Shell has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with CNOOC Oil & Petrochemicals to explore building a polycarbonate (PC) plant in China. The facility using Shell’s newly developed technology, which the company currently intends to further test and improve, would be located at the companies’ joint venture complex in Huizhou.

For Shell, it would be the first commercial-scale PC plant. To this end, the oil and energy group has already started building a development facility at its site on Jurong Island, Singapore, as an interim step with start-up said to be scheduled for 2021.

The oil and petrochemicals group is leveraging its patented diphenyl carbonate (DPC) process technology as the platform for a move into PC production. Shell said it has developed its DPC process over recent years to achieve significant advantages in cost, safety, efficiency and CO₂ footprint. It will now combine this process with melt-phase phosgene-free PC technology licensed from Germany’s EPC Engineering & Technologies.

Shell’s PC plants would also produce alkylcarbonates, key components in the production of lithium ion batteries, which are seeing rising demand, particularly from the shift to electric vehicles.