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Tue, November 10, 2020 – 5:39 pm
SHELL Companies, the local subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, will cut 500 jobs or about 38 percent of its local workforce over the next three years as the group makes changes to its largest refinery, in Pulau Bukom.
A Shell spokesperson told The Business Times that the company will go from 1,300 employees to about 1,100 by the end of 2021, and will drop further to about 800 employees by the end of 2023.
The first personnel movement related to the reorganization will take place in the fourth quarter of 2021, the spokesperson added.
In a statement Tuesday, Shell said that Pulau Bukom will move from a list of products based on crude oil-based fuels towards new low-carbon value chains. This is the company’s latest step towards its overall ambition to be a net zero emissions energy business by 2050.
It said: “The changes that will have to take place in our businesses will have a corresponding effect on the number of our staff. As Bukom transforms and becomes smaller and smarter, the change in the size of the operations will result in fewer jobs. but more highly skilled jobs such as the progress of digitization and automation. “
The company said that this measure would cut its crude processing capacity in half and could lead to a “significant reduction” in carbon dioxide emissions.
Some “significant changes” to the configuration of the Pulau Bukom refinery will require “higher investments”, such as a site-wide digitization program, as well as a study of products that are resistant to the energy transition, such as biofuels. Shell is also considering different future raw materials that are based on higher circularity and renewable raw materials.
“Today our extensive presence in Singapore’s energy sector carries a carbon footprint. Our companies in Singapore must evolve and transform, and we must act now if we are to achieve our ambition to thrive through the energy transition,” said the President of Shell. Companies in Singapore Aw Kah Peng.
This round of job cuts at Pulau Bukom closely follows parent company Royal Dutch Shell’s announcement in September that it would cut as many as 9,000 jobs amid a company-wide restructuring into low-carbon energy operations.
In August, the oil company announced that the Pulau Bukom site will put its virtual manufacturing technology to the test. Under the name Digital Twin, the new technology will be completed in 2024. Shell said at the time that it was preparing a pool of technical talent to support this digital transformation.
READ MORE: Singapore’s refineries begin to cut production amid pandemic pains
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