Shell is reportedly working with advisers to market its European chemical assets, while simultaneously exploring the sale of its US chemicals business, which could fetch up to $8 billion.
Assets potentially on the block
United States
- Shell Polymers Monaca, Pennsylvania — 1.5 million tonnes/year ethylene and 1.6 million tonnes/year polyethylene capacity.
- Deer Park, Texas — 889,000 tonnes/year ethylene capacity, alongside aromatics and intermediates.
- Norco, Louisiana — 1.512 million tonnes/year ethylene capacity.
- Geismar, Louisiana — 400,000 tonnes/year ethylene glycol and 1.39 million tonnes/year higher olefins capacity.
Europe
- Moerdijk, Netherlands — Shell’s largest European chemical complex, with 971,000 tonnes/year ethylene, 815,000 tonnes styrene monomer and 153,000 tonnes ethylene glycol capacity.
- Rheinland, Germany — 307,000 tonnes/year ethylene capacity.
- Shell also lists smaller chemical operations at Rotterdam, Karlsruhe and Schwedt, although it has not publicly confirmed whether all are included in the proposed sale.
The problems on either side of the Atlantic, however, are different.
In Europe, Shell faces a structural competitiveness problem: high production and energy costs, declining export competitiveness and growing imports of cheaper chemicals.
The US remains structurally more competitive, particularly because of its ethane feedstock advantage. But weaker margins, changing feedstock economics and insufficient returns on enormous amounts of invested capital have made the business less attractive to Shell. Monaca is particularly striking: Shell invested around $14 billion in a complex that only began operating in 2022.
Ironically, Shell’s chemicals performance improved sharply in 2026.
Europe has a competitiveness problem. America has a returns problem. Shell appears to have concluded that neither problem needs to remain Shell’s problem.