Expanding the company’s R&D activities in Asia, Shell last week (March 31, 2017) opened a new technology hub in Bengaluru. The 52-acre, custom built technology centre can house up to 1,500 experts working collaboratively on innovative projects worldwide.
Shell Technology Centre Bangalore (STCB) brings together R&D staff who previously worked at separate locations in Bengaluru and also provides additional space for high-tech innovation and demonstration facilities. By housing all R&D staff in Bangalore in one centre, the technology hub will create new opportunities for multidisciplinary collaboration, and drive relevant and affordable innovations.
“Innovation and technology are vital to providing more and cleaner energy solutions for a growing world population. We consider R&D a fundamental part of Shell’s past and future success. Therefore we continue to invest in people, projects and facilities, such as this high-tech hub,” opined Harry Brekelmans, projects and technology director, Shell.
He added, “Successful innovation, however, is more than just making balanced investments. Collaboration across different disciplines and with other sectors externally is a key enabler of successful innovation. And collaboration is essential to meet our biggest challenge: timely development and deployment of the best and affordable energy solutions, for today and for the future as the world transitions to a low carbon energy system. Our new Bengaluru technology hub brings together the right people in a city that buzzes with innovation.”
The new centre houses a variety of technical experts, laboratories and technology demonstration units. It is home to a wide spectrum of technical disciplines and specific expertise in fields such as liquefied natural gas, subsurface modelling, data analysis, engineering design, bitumen, distillation and enhanced computational research. The centre is also helping to pioneer efforts to turn forestry, agricultural and municipal waste into transportation fuels, with a new demonstration plant being built at the site.
Specialists at Shell Technology Centre Bangalore work closely with experts from external industrial partners, universities and institutes. These collaborations will ensure a healthy influx of new ideas and speed up the deployment of new technology in the company’s operations. For example, Shell is collaborating with the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) for chemistry & catalysis research and with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the area of advanced computing.
Shell Technology Centre Bangalore is one of the three main technology hubs in the company’s global network of R&D centres, with the other two located in the Netherlands and the US. More than 4,000 staff work at these hubs and smaller technical centres on a broad range of projects, such as turning natural gas into more efficient and cleaner fuels, developing affordable technologies to unlock energy thousands of metres below the sea surface, and R&D projects on low carbon technologies.
Shell is one of the most diversified international oil companies in India's energy sector with more than 6,000 employees. It is a major private sector supplier of crude oil products, chemicals and technology to public and private sector oil companies. Shell maintains a significant presence in the country with its lubricants and retail businesses. Shell also has a technology centre, a financial business operations centre, an in-house global IT centre and operates a joint venture liquefied natural gas receiving and re-gasification terminal.
Through its subsidiary company BG Exploration and Production India Limited, Shell holds a 30 percent interest in, and is joint operator of, the Panna-Mukta oil and gas fields and the Mid and South Tapti gas and condensate fields (PMT fields). Shell also holds a 32.5 percent equity stake in Mahanagar Gas Limited (MGL), a distributor of piped natural gas in Mumbai and its neighbouring areas.
