Singapore is further sprucing up its infrastructure and will even expand Jurong Island to attract investors to continue growing its chemical manufacturing base, particularly for olefins, high-end petrochemicals and specialty chemicals as it aims to move away from low-end products.
"We are trying to differentiate ourselves and move beyond competing with the Middle East and China. We want to compete with the more established countries like Japan and Germany, and 'the Houstons' of the world," Julian Ho, executive director for energy, chemicals and engineering services at Singapore's Economic Development Board, told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview. But why olefins? "We need to have a critical mass of these (olefins) for companies to add value downstream," Ho said. Olefins - made up predominantly of ethylene, followed by propylene, butadiene and a host of other carbon and hydrocarbon molecules - are the core feedstock required for plastics, textiles, coatings, paints and a string of products, be it at the low or high end of the chain. By 2011, Singapore's olefins capacity will nearly double to 4 million metric tons a year from the current 2.1 million tons when Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) each start up new naphtha crackers in 2010 and 2011 respectively. The target is to raise the country's total olefins capacity to 6 million to 8 million tons a year, but no timeframe has been set. The additional olefins can come from new crackers or from methanol-to-olefins conversion, said Ho. But Singapore is unlikely to have any MTO projects before 2011. "We envision that if there's an MTO plant in Singapore, it will come after 2011 at the earliest," he said. | |
| Reinforcing Its Infrastructure | |
To keep investors interested in Singapore, the government has already mapped out how else it can beef up its infrastructure besides building the Jurong Rock Cavern, a 1.47 million-cubic-meter underground storage facility to hold crude and oil products. Work is currently underway to upgrade Jurong Island's checkpoints to ensure faster traffic flow, where departure lanes will be reversed into arrival lanes during the early morning peak hours. The upgrading is expected to end in mid-2008. Additionally, two new security towers will be built to enhance security checks. All in all, S$1 billion (around US$666.5 million) has been set aside to reinforce its infrastructure within five years. A separate amount of money will be allocated to expand Jurong Island to 3,200 hectares from 3,000 hectares currently through land reclamation, but an actual time frame has yet to be set. So far, its efforts have already borne fruit, with 20 more chemical and non-chemical projects waiting to come on line on the island, which is currently home to around 90 manufacturing plants. The upcoming projects, which will produce high-end petrochemical products using advanced technologies, include those of the U.K.'s Lucite International, Japan's Mitsui Chemicals Inc. (4183.TO) and Shell. Lucite International will roll out is patented Alpha technology for the first time ever, after having developed it over the last 12 years. This technology will enable Lucite to use readily available feedstocks such as ethylene as opposed to the more expensive acetone. The process will be adopted at its US$150 million 120,000-ton-a-year methyl methacrylate plant slated to come on stream in the second quarter of next year. Methyl methacrylate is used in digital devices and liquid crystal displays, as well as plastic and coatings. According to Ho, besides infrastructure, protection of intellectual property is also a key reason Lucite decided to introduce its technology in Singapore rather than in China, where it already has a methyl methacrylate plant. For the same reasons, Shell is also implementing its Omega technology at its upcoming 750,000 ton-a-year monoethylene glycol plant in Singapore, scheduled for commercial operation in 2009-2010. The technology will allow Shell to achieve a higher monoethylene glycol yield compared with other methods. Applications of monoethylene glycol include coolants and packaging material production. Meanwhile, Mitsui Elastomers Singapore Pte. Ltd., a unit of Mitsui Chemicals, is doubling the capacity of its patented Tafmer alpha-olefin copolymer in Singapore by building a US$165.8 million 100,000 ton-a-year plant. Construction will begin in March next year, and the facility is expected to begin operating in August 2009. Mitsui's Tafmer is a flexible and light resin modifier used to improve impact resistance for molding materials such as automobile bumpers. It can also be applied to the midsoles of athletic shoes. These are but a few of the high-end manufacturing projects on the list, and Singapore wants more 'first-of-its-kind' or advanced technologies to be introduced into the country. | |
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