After World War II, the rapid economic development of countries including China, South Korea, and Japan created a huge demand for oil. This makes Singapore, on the main route of the Strait of Malacca, an oil transportation hub for nearby countries. In order to develop the petroleum and chemical industries, the Singaporean government has connected seven islands along the coast to form artificial islands with a total area of 32 square kilometers. This is the petrochemical center of Singapore - Jurong Island.
Through years of concentrated investment, Jurong Island has formed a petrochemical industry model with integrated upstream and downstream development. As one of the three major oil refining centers in the world, Jurong Island has a refining capacity of 69.1 million tons per year; with the further expansion of upstream and downstream industries, Jurong Island has become a world-class demonstration industrial park and an important ethylene production area.
What is it that allows such an artificial island built by reclamation to have a place on the stage of the world petrochemical industry?
Highly intensive development planning
In 1971, the Singapore government put forward the concept of petrochemical specialized area, and has been emphasizing the "chemical cluster" strategy since then. This "chemical cluster" strategy is equivalent to the current "industrial development integration" of domestic chemical parks, that is, the government adopts the industrial chain to attract investment rather than a single enterprise, and focuses on the agglomeration of industries and the cultivation of economies of scale; the formation of upstream and downstream enterprises between enterprises relationship, materials are transported within the park through pipelines, and infrastructure and utilities are shared between enterprises.
The enterprise group in the "chemical group" has a very high degree of integration. There is no storage or inventory of raw materials and finished products, which minimizes the investment cost and logistics cost of the enterprise and improves the competitiveness of the product. After more than 40 years of development, the integration of Jurong Island has developed to a very mature stage. The product of one factory becomes the raw material of another factory, and the material is transported through the pipeline in the park, and the infrastructure and public works are shared among enterprises. This model enables companies to focus on their core business while uniting with companies that are closely dependent on process technology and product supply and demand, to buy and sell raw materials and products extremely conveniently, and to form production synergies.
Take Singapore Oil Refining Company as an example, its 10 surrounding companies supply nearly 20 kinds of raw materials, products and services to each other. The Singapore Refinery Company supplies the naphtha to the Singapore Petrochemical Company for cracking to produce ethylene; the pyrolysis gasoline of the Petrochemical Company supplies the mixed aromatics produced by the Jurong Aromatics Group; the carbon monoxide of the Syngas Company is supplied to Celanese Company, and Shell's styrene plant and Mitsui's phenol plant constitute an industrial chain through the relationship of mutual supply of raw materials; the aromatics of ExxonMobil's third ethylene plant are supplied to Shell Oriental Petroleum to produce styrene monomer and propylene oxide, while propylene Supply to Mitsui Chemicals to produce phenol, phenol flows to Mitsui Chemicals bisphenol A plant, and bisphenol A is then piped to downstream companies to produce polycarbonate.
Another example is Shell Oil Refinery, which added a condensate fractionation unit in the plant area in order to supply the raw materials for the second phase ethylene project of the Singapore Petrochemical Company. This device is jointly constructed by Shell and Singapore Petrochemical Company. The supplied liquefied petroleum gas, naphtha and other raw materials are transported to the storage tank area on Jurong Island by a 4.5-kilometer pipeline laid on the seabed, and then transferred to the Singapore Petrochemical Company for steam Cracking unit is used as raw material.
The biggest feature of the public works and infrastructure of the Jurong Island Chemical Zone is unified dispatch and convenient communication. Water, electricity, natural gas, industrial gas, the "blood" of these enterprises is used uniformly; roads, waterways, pipelines, the "arteries" of these enterprises are opened one by one. The high integration of upstream and downstream products between enterprises enables a large number of chemical raw materials to be transferred between enterprises in the form of pipeline transportation, avoiding road transportation risks, reducing transshipment losses and loading and unloading risks, and improving production efficiency.
Scientific and efficient administration
The Singapore government adopts a unique joint management model for Jurong Island. The development, operation and management of the Jurong Island Chemical Zone are jointly responsible by the Singapore Economic Development Board and the Jurong Township Authority. During the entire development process, Jurong Island's fund raising, land use, and investment promotion all adopt the model of unified government planning, specialized division of labor, construction, management and service coordination.
The Jurong Town Authority is the management agency and main development body of Jurong Island. It is responsible for the planning, construction, leasing and management of Jurong Island and has a high degree of autonomy. The investment promotion work of the park is completed by the Singapore Economic Development Board, which provides investors with full-process license service and policy and legal consulting services. The division of functions enables the Jurong Township Authority to concentrate on the planning, construction and management of the industrial park, and the Economic Development Bureau can also get rid of the heavy burden of infrastructure construction.
Consistent policy support
The investment environment of Jurong Island has attracted more than 100 multinational petrochemical companies from around the world. Singapore is a highly open country as a whole, and many preferential policies have been introduced in the "Corporate Income Tax Act" and other bills it formulated. Singapore's corporate income tax is 17%, and its marginal tax rate is the third lowest in the world. With the incentives, subsidies and other programs formulated by the government, the corporate tax rate will be lower. For the petrochemical industry, there are no import duties on chemicals, and the government agrees that foreign companies will own 100% of the local factories and return all profits, which is extremely attractive to investors.
The attractiveness of regional development policies to investors is not only reflected before investment, but also after the establishment of factories. The Jurong Township Authority and the Singapore Economic Development Board have great autonomy and right to speak in the process of implementing various development strategies, which is very beneficial to the construction, layout and management of the park. Management policies directly determine investors' confidence in the development of the region, which plays a particularly important role when the industrial pattern changes, the international situation is impacted, and multi-dimensional risks are concentrated.
Emergency Mechanism Combining Management and Control
After artificial island construction, Jurong Island Chemical Industry Zone is connected to the outside world through a channel, forming a relatively closed management system and forming the first risk barrier; the island adopts grid management, which divides Jurong Island into several areas Each area is led by local large-scale enterprises to establish emergency response measures to realize mutual knowledge of emergency rules, mutual emergency plan, mutual assistance of emergency resources, and interaction of emergency response; the island has established integrated emergency response of civil defense and fire protection, forming commercial fire protection and enterprise The fire linkage mechanism can ensure that the police on the island arrive at the scene within 8 minutes, and effectively use the market leverage to adjust the emergency force reserve.
The core idea of Jurong Island risk grading management and control and hidden danger investigation and governance is to move the control threshold forward and pay more attention to possible high-risk areas. A variety of technologies, management methods and measures are used to achieve precise control and efficient operation.
Environmental protection first development concept
Jurong Island Chemical Industry Park has always put environmental protection in an important position, and at the same time, it has been concretely implemented in terms of planning, construction, project introduction, management, etc., and has grasped several key links.
The first is to carry out environmental impact assessment in the strategic planning stage of industrial development, establish environmental protection goals, put forward various environmental protection standards and requirements, and first reject projects with serious pollution.
The second is to attach importance to the construction of environmental protection infrastructure. Environmental protection investment accounts for 20% to 30% of the total investment in the park's infrastructure. According to the different geographical environment, Jurong Island has designated the northeast part of Jurong Island as an emerging industry and a pollution-free industrial area, where electronics, electrical appliances and technology-intensive industries are developed in an orderly manner.
The third is to promote the centralized treatment of pollutants. A centralized wastewater treatment plant is established by professional companies in the park; professional operation of hazardous waste incinerators is carried out, and the exhaust gas purification rate of hazardous waste incinerators is close to 100%.
The fourth is to advocate a clean cycle. The park uses the discharge of some chemical plants as raw materials for downstream plants; purifies domestic sewage as industrial water; uses sterilized and inactivated seawater as cooling water, and the entire chemical island uses only 60,000 cubic meters of fresh water per day, effectively protecting water resources.
The inspiration from the experience of Jurong Island is that through reasonable planning and technology application, the impact of industrial enterprises on the environment can be effectively reduced. The concept that lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets means that the developed industry and the good ecology are highly compatible.