Our challenges

Yet it is widely accepted that the world must reduce CO₂ emissions to mitigate the threat of climate change. Much will depend on the choices of policy makers but there is also much society can do now.

Shell Bitumen believes that these challenges will impact the road construction industry in a number of ways:

• Demand: More roads will be needed, cities will require further mobility, infrastructure budgets will remain constrained and prices may become increasingly volatile.
• Conventional oil supply: Due to a variety of technological and market factors, refinery products such as bitumen and petrochemical compounds may become increasingly difficult to obtain. Crude oil inputs to refineries may become more variable with the decline of conventional feedstocks, thus impacting product quality.
• Climate stress: Governments globally can be expected over time to increase regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to impacting large emitters such as the refineries that produce road bitumen, the fossil fuels used by road contractors are also likely to be subject to some form of carbon tax.

Shell Bitumen is able to bring to bear a wide variety of technologies and an extensive research capacity to meet customer challenges, and address stakeholder concerns related to the use of our products. Together we can deliver leading-edge technologies that benefit many parties: asphalt manufacturers, road builders, contractors, governments, and the communities in which the roads themselves are constructed.