S'pore opens costly chemical park in Jurong
S'pore opens costly chemical park in Jurong
SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore at the weekend inaugurated a multi- billion-dollar integrated chemical hub on a sprawling man-made island that boasts among its clients the industry's brightest stars such as ExxonMobil.
The flagship project on Jurong Island, which rose from the sea after an amalgamation of seven forlorn land chips through reclamation, now hosts 61 companies with total investments of S$21 billion (US$12 billion).
Developers are planning to house 150 companies with investments totaling S$40 billion by 2010.
"What you have accomplished with Jurong island will help entrench the chemical cluster as a key component of Singapore's manufacturing sector," Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said at the inauguration of the hub Saturday evening.
He said the chemical industry contributed a total of S$23 billion last year, or 17 percent of total manufacturing output, the main propeller of Singapore's trade-driven economy.
Reclaimed from the sea in an epic construction effort over the past six years at a cost of S$7 billion, Jurong Island hosts an integrated chemicals hub adjacent to the world's busiest container port here.
Four petroleum refiners, 30 petrochemical firms, five specialty and industrial chemical companies and 22 supporting industries are grouped in clusters across a land area of 991 hectares (2,447 acres) just off the southwestern coast of mainland Singapore.
By 2004, the land area is expected to expand to 3,200 hectares as reclamation is completed.
The facilities are linked through a common pipeline service corridor and locators need not build power stations, tanks, jetties, warehouses or workshops but hire them, officials of developer Jurong Town Corp. said.
The island's tenants comprise a who's who of the oil and petrochemical world.
ExxonMobil's US$2 billion complex greets the visitor as he drives past bougainvillea-lined roads in the Ayer Chawan zone.
Over at the Sakra zone are two plants of Du Pont worth US$810 million and the headquarters of Chevron Oronite, one of the world's top three suppliers of lubricants and additives.
Teijin Polycarbonate, the world's leading producer of optical grade polycarbonate, stands further down the street.