As common facilities and services such as utilities, energy, and transport are shared, less land is required for manufacturing, leading to substantial cost-savings. Refineries provide the primary feedstock for conversion to petrochemicals, which in turn, undergoes downstream processes using the latest infrastructure, utilities and energy provisions, available inside the cluster. With improvement in chemical manufacturing processes over the years, the industry has moved towards having integrated manufacturing in a cluster, which has everything within itself.
Today, Jurong Island is an amalgamation of seven small islands, which after reclamation gives it a total land area of approximately 3,000 hectares. Why Choose Singapore as Your Asian Chemical Hub JRC, while providing strategic storage for better fuel security, gives a competitive advantage to foreign investors looking to incorporate a chemical company in Singapore. The idea came about when faced with a growing demand for oil storage and scarcity of industrial land, JTC ventured underground in the subterranean depths beneath the sea to fulfil the storage needs for liquid hydrocarbons such as crude oil, condensate, naphtha and gas oil. Located 150m beneath the Jurong Island, the new facility developed by JTC Corporation at the cost of S$950 million saves over 60 hectares of land that can be used for setting up more manufacturing units on the Island.
In yet another testimony to Singapore’s growing prominence as a powerhouse of petrochemical and chemical production in Asia, the country’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on September 2 officially inaugurated South-east Asia’s first commercial underground liquid hydrocarbon storage facility, the Jurong Rock Caverns (JRC).