Shell Cancels Rotterdam Biofuels Plant as Green Energy Push Falters

Shell has cancelled plans to build a major biofuels plant in Rotterdam, marking a significant retreat from green energy initiatives for one of the world’s largest oil and gas groups. The decision represents a setback for efforts aimed at reducing aviation emissions, especially as sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, remains a challenging and expensive alternative to traditional jet fuel.

Construction of the Rotterdam facility began in 2022, but Shell paused the project last year citing weak market conditions. This led to a substantial post-tax impairment charge of about 780 million US dollars in Shell’s second quarter results. After a comprehensive commercial and technical assessment, the company decided continuing with the project would not be competitive enough to meet customer demand for affordable low carbon products.

The Rotterdam plant was designed to produce 820000 tonnes per year of sustainable fuels, using feedstocks such as used cooking oil, waste animal fats, and various industrial and agricultural residues. Shell intended SAF to account for more than half of production, with the remainder comprising renewable diesel. The company also planned to capture carbon emissions from the production process and store them in an empty North Sea gas field.

Over recent years, Shell has shifted away from less profitable renewable projects under Wael Sawan, who became chief executive in 2023. This has involved abandoning several wind farm projects and a loss making domestic energy supply business in Britain, as well as focusing on low carbon hydrogen and renewable biofuels.

SAF take up in aviation remains stubbornly low, accounting for less than 0.1 per cent of the market. Sawan has indicated that significant growth in SAF use depends on government mandates or obligations placed on airlines or customers, as the higher costs of SAF discourage voluntary adoption by airlines.

Despite scrapping the Rotterdam project, Shell remains a major player in global biofuels, having traded over ten billion litres of low carbon fuels last year and supplied almost a fifth of total SAF sales in North America and Europe. Shell emphasises the continuing importance of low carbon molecules, including biofuels, to the future energy system and vows to concentrate investment on projects that deliver value for both customers and shareholders.

The challenges facing sustainable aviation fuel illustrate the difficulties in decarbonising the aviation sector, despite new mandates such as the UK requirement that airlines use at least two per cent SAF in their tanks. With production costs still high and volumes limited, the path to greener aviation remains lengthy and uncertain.