Shell’s Ambitious Plan to Create a Digital Twin of an Entire Facility

Shell is in the process of creating a digital twin of its Pulau Bukom facility, a 600-acre site located in Singapore. The facility is one of the largest petrochemical production and export centers in the Asia-Pacific region. The facility includes an Ethylene Cracker Complex (producing a million tons annually), a Butadiene Extraction Unit (producing 155,000 tons annually), and processes 500,000 barrels of oil daily.

The digital twin project commenced in 2017 and involves mapping site data to inform the machine learning algorithms; by August 2020, Shell reported that approximately 60% of the site had been mapped. The project is expected to take another 4 years to complete.

Taking 7 years from start to finish underlines the complexity of Shell’s plant and the company’s long-term thinking. The potential of digital twins to provide an exact replica of plants and operations provides manufacturers with the opportunity to test scenarios and understand the inter-relationships between different parts of the operation, but is predicated on the manufacturer taking the time to ensure that the information is 100% accurate.

Objectives for investing in the digital twin include improving productivity by reducing downtime and maintenance costs as a result of analyzing information in real time, plus improving safety by reducing the number of staff required to be on site. The digital twin is expected to improve the inspections processes at the facility, especially in hard to access areas, by putting the data already being collecting by drones into context. Furthermore, the digital twin will help Shell conduct scenario planning regarding the effects that extreme weather conditions could have on the facility.

With the project being completed in 2024, Shell expects that staff in 2025 will be remotely conducting critical field operations. A key underpinning of the remote working model is the rollout of tablet devices. The devices are expected to deliver live information of the plant operations via augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies in order to aid troubleshooting and collaboration between operators/technicians and Shell’s subject matter experts.

Shell supported the digital transformation in 2019 with digital bootcamps and hackathons involving 140 staff members. The training programs will ramp up in 2021. Shell is anticipating that for all 1,300 staff members to have the necessary capabilities to operate the digital twin will require the firm to dedicate 6,000 training hours annually for 2 years.

Shell has already implemented digital twins of facilities in Norway and Nigeria. Kongsberg Digital is building a dynamic virtual representation of Shell’s Nyhamna Gas Plant in Norway and Akselos has launched a digital twin of the company’s Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel off the Nigerian coast.

The digital twin deployment in Nigeria has direct parallels with the digital twin being created in Singapore with the objectives being to improve physical inspections and support scenario planning for extreme weather events. Shell has been working with Akselos since 2015 when Akselos was a startup participating in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Industrial Liaison program. Since then, Shell became a minority shareholder in Akselos via its venture capital arm Shell Ventures. At the time of writing, the identity of the supplier delivering the digital twin at the Pulau Bukom facility was not in the public domain.

The digitalization projects and working on the digital twin position Shell as a forward-thinking company, enabling it to attract highly talented individuals. The digital twin will also engender a new work culture where individuals no longer have to be on-site, but can still collaborate remotely. Prioritizing digital transformation and Industry 4.0 technologies aligns Shell with the Singapore government’s Smart Nation initiative; especially concerning the resources dedicated to staff training.

All in all, the digital twin project benefits Shell’s operations, the digital skills and safety of Shell’s employees, and the Singapore government’s desire to have a highly skilled labor force.