Shell has completed the sale of its Singapore refinery and refining assets to a Chandra Asri-Glencore joint venture, the company said on Tuesday, and trade sources said the new owners had already started purchasing feedstock.
Last year, Shell announced the sale of its Bukom and Jurong islands facility, which dates back to 1961. The deal makes Indonesia-based Chandra Asri, the majority owner of the joint venture, one of Southeast Asia’s largest petrochemicals players.
Financial terms of the deal, which was earlier slated to close at the end of 2024, have not been disclosed.
Shell said that its staff at the site will remain with the new venture, Aster Chemicals and Energy Pte Ltd.
Office-based staff have relocated to new premises under the new ownership, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Shell declined to comment on the relocations.
Chandra Asri has already made several open-spec naphtha purchases for Singapore arrivals starting in March as it took charge of Aster’s petrochemicals feedstock procurement, according to several sources familiar with the matter.
Under Shell, the Jurong Island chemicals site imported around 1.5 million tons per year of naphtha in 2023 and 2024, shiptracking data from Kpler showed.
Meanwhile, Swiss trading giant Glencore has made several crude purchases for May and June arrival into Singapore, including from Canada and Kazakhstan, two sources familiar with the purchases said.
Canada-origin crude has rarely, if ever, previously been bound for Singapore, with no such volumes recorded in shiptracking data from Kpler and LSEG dating from 2013 and 2017, respectively.
Both Chandra Asri and Glencore did not immediately respond to a Reuters query for comment, while Shell said that the company had signed crude supply and products offtake agreements that will come into effect following the completion of the sale.
Reuters
