The Company
Shell Chemicals, a part of the Royal Dutch/Shell group, is one of the largest chemical companies in the world, with a multi-billion dollar annual turnover. The company produces the petrochemical building blocks used in everything from cars to computers.

The Challenge
New certification requirements posed by Title V and increased Group reporting requirements led Shell Chemical's U.S. EH&S managers to conclude that it was time to update the company's procedures and implement a new system for environmental information management.  Shell Chemicals wanted a system that was flexible enough that it could potentially be adopted by Shell's entire global operations. It also wanted a system that could be used by everyone from plant operators to top management, and that could help minimize the amount of manual labor spent on data collection, data processing, and the creation of regulatory reports.

The Solution
Shell Chemicals implemented opsEnvironmental™ in 2001.  The software is currently used in the company's North American facilities to manage air, water and waste compmliance issues. Using the company's Deer Park Chemical and Refining Complex as an example, some of the benefits realized from the implementiation of opsEnvironmental include:

Streamlined Air Emissions Inventories. Prior to the implementation of opsEnvironmental, air emissions inventories at the Deer Park Chemical and Refining Complex took more than 185 person-hours to complete.  Gary Hart, Air Specialist at the Deer Park Chemical and Refining Complex, reports that "Now that we are using opsEnvironmental, emission inventories can be completed in 75% less time."

Streamlined U.S. Form R Preparation. Every June, large manufacturing facilities in the U.S. that emit SARA 313 chemicals are required to prepare the U.S. Form R report for EPA submission. This is a tremendous challenge, and staff at the Deer Park Chemical and Refining Complex formerly spent a great deal of time preparing this report. Now that the report is being prepared out of opsEnvironmental™, reporting time has been decreased from 100 hours to about 40 hours.

Streamlined Corporate Reporting. Shell Chemicals U.S. facilities submit both quarterly and annual reports to Royal Dutch Shell, covering a variety of metrics including CO2 emissions, fuel usage, and others.  Now that the reports are being generated out of opsEnvironmental, Deer Park staff save approximately 128 hours per year.

Reduction of On-site Audits. One of the big advantages of opsEnvironmental™ for Shell Chemicals is that it stands up to third party auditing standards, thereby reducing the need for on-site audits.  "Now that we have opsEnvironmental™," says Hart, "our system has been 'blessed' and we expect on-site 3rd party audits to take place only about once every three years instead of every year."

A major consideration in Shell Chemicals' selection of opsEnvironmental™ was the flexibility of its design and its suitability for possible rollout to other areas of Shell.  The initial implementation at Shell served as a test case, and the project yielded strong results. This proved opsEnvironmental™ to be a low-risk, high value candidate for expansion throughout other areas of Shell.  Accordingly, in 2002, Shell Oil Products U.S. began implementing opsEnvironmental, and in 2004 a project to roll the system out to Shell International E&P began.  For Shell, opsEnvironmental™ has proved to be a truly global solution.