History of Jurong Island

History of Jurong Island

Jurong Island is a man-made island located to the southwest of the main island of Singapore, off Jurong Industrial Estate.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, three oil companies decided to house their facilities on the islands - Esso in Pulau Ayer Chawan, Singapore Refinery Company in Pulau Merlimau and Mobil Oil in Pulau Pesek. These three oil companies became the pioneers of Singapore's petroleum industry.



In the 1980s, when the Singapore Government identified chemicals as a sector that could contribute significantly to the nation's economic growth, it became the natural choice to develop these islands into a petrochemicals hub.

Also, in the1980s, after a decade of rapid industrialisation, industrial land was growing scarce on Singapore mainland. The idea of joining the southern islands off Jurong to form one colossal island to create more industrial land was therefore conceived.

In 1991, JTC Corporation (formerly Jurong Town Corporation) was appointed the agent of the Jurong Island project. JTC planned and coordinated with various government agencies in providing the necessary infrastructure and services to the island.

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 3,200 hectares.

Jurong was chosen because the sea around Jurong is deep and accessible; land was easy to acquire because it was rural and state-owned; few people lived there, so it was easy to relocate them; and there were low hills of the Jurong Formation which could be used to fill in the swampy lowlands and the shallow coastal waters.

Jurong Island was officially declared opened by Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong on 14 October 2000. The opening marks the completion of a plan by the government to develop Jurong Island into a premier hub for the chemical industry in the Asia Pacific. So far, the island has attracted S$21 billion in investments from 61 companies that plan to capitalise on the optimal concentration of the fully integrated petroleum, petrochemical and chemical industries there.

Jurong Island is currently linked to the main island by a 2.3 km causeway known as the Jurong Island Highway, opened in March 1999.

Social and Economic reasons for the creation of Jurong Island

Jurong Island embodies Singapore's vision of developing a strong and vibrant Global Chemical Hub to take us into the next century.

Our vision was to bring together a collection of upstream and downstream petrochemical plants that supply one another, create synergies for each other, and make viable the whole complex ecology of different operations and products, where a single plant could not survive.

The vision for Jurong Island is to develop it into a world-class(safest and cleanest) chemicals hub in the Asia-Pacific region

Jurong Island was created to provide greater convenience and value for the chemical industry

Jurong Island embodies the government’s industry cluster strategy, where industrial policy is targeted not at the level of individual industries, but at industry clusters, so as to reap the positive network externality effects .


The vision of wanting to turn Jurong Island into a symbol of National Enterprise

Jurong Island stands as a symbol of our national enterprise. It demonstrates the vision and the will to succeed against all odds which have enabled us to create the world's third largest petrochemical facility out of coral reefs and a scattering of small islands.