Jurong Island Then

In the beginning, there was just sea. There came a team of island builders and marketeers. Working in unison, they successfully developed and sold these former plots of lands as valuable real estate for chemical business.

The Jurong Island amalgamation project is one of the key initiatives under the M2000 programme to develop a world-class chemical industry cluster. The Jurong Island project is implemented based on a total approach to industry development. The objective is to reduce capital investments and minimise operational costs through creating synergistic linkages, one of which is the concept of sharing facilities.

The Jurong Island project will amalgamate a group of seven small islands off the southwestern coast of Singapore into a single island. The island would house the petroleum and petrochemical industries by reclaiming the channels between them and extending into additional sea space. The seven southern islands are Pulau Merlimau, Pulau Ayer Chawan, Pulau Ayer Merbau, Pulau Seraya, Pulau Sakra, Pulau Pesek and Pulau Pesek Kecil. With an existing land area totaling a little less than 1,000 hectares, the intention is to create an additional 1,790 hectares of land through reclamation. This will form a land mass of about 2,790 hectares which will be available for industries.

Tiny islands become home to oil giants in the 1960s

In the 1960s, this group of seven small islands had been identified as the ideal location for heavy industries. It became home to several large oil refineries including Esso, Mobil and Singapore Refining Company located on Pulau Ayer Chawan, Pulau Pesek and Pulau Merlimau respectively. In 1984, the first petrochemical complex in Singapore was established on Pulau Ayer Merbau. The cracker in this complex is operated by Petrochemical Corporation of Singapore, a joint venture between Shell and a Japanese consortium led by Sumitomo Chemical. The downstream players in the complex include The Polyolefin Company, Phillips Petroleum, Ethylene Glycols Singapore, Denka, and Kureha Chemicals.

With these pioneers in place, it became logical that the surrounding islands, when amalgamated, would be suitable for the development of a petroleum and petrochemical hub. The physical clustering of related chemical industries provides strong opportunities for industry integration and other benefits arising from economies of scale.

In 1991, the government approved the amalgamation plan at an estimated total direct development cost of S$7 billion. This was a direct response to the identification of the chemical industry as a key growth sector, contributing significantly to the Singapore economy. The idea was to reclaim the land in phases to keep pace and to meet the projected demand of the industry. The original schedule for the final phase of the reclamation was year 2030. However, with increasing demand from these industries over the past two years, the reclamation has progressed ahead of schedule. The completion of Jurong Island is targeted for the year 2003.

Physical land reclamation began in 1995, and Jurong Island was officially opened in October 2000. From the 991-hectare land area of the original seven islets, Jurong Island currently has a total land area of more then 3,000 hectares and would have added about 200 additional hectares by the time reclamation is completed.