About Shell Deer Park
At Shell Deer Park, we are proud to power progress by manufacturing the energy products that fuel our world and are the solutions for our future, all from the historic birthplace of Texas since 1929.
Powering Progress Behind the Scenes
Title: Powering Progress Behind the Scenes
11309 Shell San Jacinto October 4 2018
For more than a century, crude oil processing has helped enable society's mobility, powering the world's cars, ships planes and trains. In turn, the movement of people and goods has made development and prosperity possible in Texas and around the world.
Welcome to Shell Deer Park - a fully integrated refinery and chemical plant that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week—all due to the 2,700 men and women who work at this site.
This facility covers 2300 acres and is located on the ship channel about 20 miles east of downtown Houston.
This location provides the site with numerous transportation advantages when delivering and receiving products.
Annually an average of more than 2,500 marine vessels are loaded or offloaded at the site, that's about 100 million barrels of crude products, enough to fill the Astrodome over nine times.
Once the oil arrives at the site, the first stop is the Distillation Tower.
Crude is a mixture of different sized molecules. This tower boils the crude oil until it vaporizes, then cools it to separate it into light groups of molecules.
Let's take a closer look.
The smallest molecules rise to the very top, they are the lightest range of hydrocarbons which we turn into products like propane and butane.
This is Naphtha. Its journey continues to other units where its octane is increased and contaminants are removed to make gasoline.
Then at the middle range we have jet fuel which travels to the Hydrotreater where we use heat, hydrogen and a catalyst to remove sulfur, cleaning the fuel before this product is used in planes worldwide.
Finally, the largest molecules.
Down here it takes a bit more work to refine. This includes a visit to our catalytic cracker, or "cat cracker"—by mixing these large molecules with a catalyst and heating them to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit they break into smaller molecules producing gasoline and diesel.
Driving past the site you may see a white cloud coming from one of the units - this is steam produced by the wet gas scrubber, a key part of our process to recycle catalyst from the cat cracker and clean the air before routing it to the atmosphere. This helps us meet our objective to manufacture cleaner gasoline and diesel.
Okay, let's go back and check on the hydrocarbons. Through refining there are additional products that are created and used in the chemical plant, these are the building blocks for many of the items we use in everyday life.
Ethylene, propylene, and butylenes are used in plastics and detergents.
Isoprene, butadiene and piperyline are used to make latex paints and synthetic rubber.
Another thing you may notice while driving past the site is the flare stack in 2012, a flare gas recovery system was introduced to minimize flaring. This system collects gas that would be sent to the flare, compresses it and returns it to be used as a fuel source for furnaces and other equipment.
We strive to operate without flaring but in the event that we do flare we want our community to know flaring plays a key role in keeping our plant safe.
Once flared the hydrocarbon has been safely treated and potential emissions have been reduced by at least 98 percent.
Globally we keep safety, the environment and our neighbors at the heart of everything we do.
Shell's life-saving rules are designed to keep all workers at our sites safe, and we continue to work with and respond to our community.
Moreover our people are part of the local community - as little league coaches fun-run volunteers, and as members of the local fire station, and that's a responsibility that we take to heart.
Overview
Just before the Great Depression, Shell Oil Company became the first manufacturer to call Deer Park home in 1929. At that time, Deer Park had no other businesses or buildings in what is now a bustling community about 20 miles east of downtown Houston.
The original 800-acre refinery site was carefully chosen for its location along the Houston Ship Channel. In the 1940s, Shell added a chemical plant. Between 1945 and 1950, the site completed major expansions that added to the refining and chemicals operations. Today, Shell Deer Park covers 2,300 acres and is a fully integrated refinery and chemical plant with about 1,500 employees and to 1,200 contractors.
The site operates 24 hours a day and is a unique combination of processing equipment, control rooms, storage tanks, environmental protection equipment, office buildings, shops and warehouses – all run by highly skilled, well-trained and experienced employees. Shell Deer Park has its own security staff, medical facility, fire stations and utilities, as well as railroad, marine docks and pipeline networks.
Shell Deer Park’s location near major crude oil and products pipelines – in addition to extensive dock facilities – is one of its most important assets. This provides the site with numerous transportation advantages and significantly increases efficiency when delivering or receiving products.
Annually, an average of more than 2,500 vessels are loaded or off-loaded at the site, which represents about 100 million barrels (4 billion gallons) of crude oil and products for the refinery and chemical plant. The dock facility ranks (in volume of materials) as one of the 25 largest ports nationwide.
More from Shell Deer Park
Powering Progress in Our Community
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Environmental Excellence
Shell Deer Park invests in the latest technology and makes improvements in operating procedures and training programs so it reduces its footprint and achieves continuous improvement in environmental performance.
Social Investment & Membership
We have built a strong relationship with the community through decades of collaboration and a commitment to powering progress together.
Giving Back
For more than three-quarters of a century, Shell Deer Park has demonstrated its dedication to the community through our focus on safe, secure, environmentally responsible operations.
Contact Us
For more information about Shell Deer Park, please contact us.
