SHELL'S NEW CHEMICAL PLANT AT STANLOW, CHESHIRE
Photographs by Shell Photographic Unit.
Aerial view of the Chemical Plant.
The opening on July 20th of Shell's new plant at Stanlow. Cheshire, for the production of chemicals from petroleum, bears significance greater than the launching of a new British industry or its economic implications. It represents another major step the first of its kind in Europe in the establish- ment of petroleum derivatives as a dominating factor in our modern civilisation.
In countless ways the products of this new industry will find a place in everyday life. In the home, for paints, varnishes, enamels and lacquer finishes for furniture-for perfumes and cosmetics—for clothing and textiles, particularly acetate rayon, and for coating and waterproofing fabrics; in hospitals, for drugs and surgical spirits; in leathercraft, for the finishing of light, fancy and patent leathers and American cloths; for plastics, in the manufacture of household articles such as combs, toothbrush handles, toys and transparent paper; for photographic films, safety glass, printing ink, gas manties, nail varnish and removers, and in many other ways petroleum- derived chemicals will be widely used.
Tailor-made Solvents
Events leading to the birth of Britain's new industry can be traced back more than half a century when the demand for kerosene (paraffin) for lamps became so great that a chain of problems was created in those early days of the oil industry.
The main problem confronting petroleum scientists of those days was to find a use for the enormous quantities of gasoline (petrol) left over after distilling the kerosene from the crude oil, As no solution to this problem was found, the then valueless gasoline was burned as a waste product. The motoring age which began in the closing years of the nineteenth century, as well as the replacement of paraffin lamps by electricity and gas, led to a complete reversul of the earlier position. So much crude oil had to be refined to produce motor spirit that more kerosene and heavier fractions were produced than could be marketed.
This disequilibrium brought into being in the early 1920's a process known to oil technologists as "cracking"-
-a process which, by applied heat and pressure combined at a certain stage in the refinery process, broke down the larger molecules of which fuel oil is composed to smaller molecules which form gasoline.
Further research in the fascinating field of "cracking" revealed the vast possibilities of petroleum as a source of chemicals. As research on these lines developed, it became evident that there was an increasing demand for the once- surplus products of crude oil which could be used as new alternative raw materials to relieve the drain on coal and molasses, the other sources for chemicals, which were and still are in greater demand for other purposes.
Fruits of Research
Through its world-wide research organisation, Shell has pioneered in the fleld of chemicals from petroleum and, for many years, has manufactured these chemicals on a large scale in the U.S.A. Commercial production of synthetic chemicals in the United States was begun in 1925 with a mere 70 tons per annum; by 1942 production of chemicals from petroleum had reached 220,000 tons and is to-day some ten times this volume.
The new Stanlow Chemical Plant-the most up-to-date of its kind in the world and 97 per cent built with British equipment has been constructed as part of Shell's extensive refinery scheme for the U.Ka scheme which includes the construction of new full-scale refineries on a nearby site at Stanlow and Shell Haven on the Thames estuary. Both refineries, which will operate mainly on Middle East crude oil, are expected to be completed by 1952.
Important as they are, these projects form only a part of a vast reconstruction programme involving a capital outlay of over £100,000,000 for almost every type of oil industry operation. Orders placed by Shell with British equipment
A view of the Laboratory and Administrative Offices.
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