
Technical centres around the world link up through 3D virtual reality suites to progress field development.
In Houston, the USA, Amsterdam and Rijswijk in the Netherlands, and Bangalore, India, our technical centres focus on innovation: developing new technologies and improving existing ones.
Elsewhere – including in the UK, Canada, Germany, Norway, Oman, Qatar and Singapore – seven other centres focus on product development, marketing support and providing specific technical assistance to regional operations.
For issues that relate to all our businesses and operations, such as CO2 solutions or oil conversion processes, our technical teams integrate to share knowledge and work efficiently. Our centres can link up through 3D virtual reality systems to simultaneously work on the design of wells.
Shell is currently the largest investor in research and development among the major oil firms. In 2010 we spent around $1 billion in research and development for technologies that will be needed to produce cleaner energy and more efficient fuels.