How Singapore’s Jurong Island is powering the future of low-carbon innovation in Energy and Chemicals

From a man-made island to a 3,000-ha refining and petrochemical powerhouse, Jurong Island is marking 25 years as a cornerstone of Singapore’s energy and chemicals (E&C) sector.

It is home to more than 100 companies including global leaders. To help incumbents stay competitive and attract new investments, Singapore is strengthening Jurong Island’s ecosystem, to focus on low-carbon transformation, specialty chemicals and sustainable materials and being a global testbed for new energies and low carbon technologies.

At the Asia Downstream Summit Fireside Chat on October 30 featuring EDB Executive Vice-President Lim Wey-Len and JTC Chief Executive Jacqueline Poh, Lim highlighted the macro trends that had fuelled Jurong Island’s pivot.

Urbanisation in the region is driving demand for specialty advanced materials in areas like mobility, healthcare, electronics, and consumer goods. Vehicle electrification is also increasing the need for performance polymers, thermal management solutions, and high-reliability industrial platforms, especially in new growth areas like data centres. At the same time, decarbonisation remains a priority for the industry.

“These macro trends are driving a portfolio shift in the E&C industry, as many chemical companies are shifting from commodity molecules towards specialties, where innovation, application development, and proximity to customers drive value,” Lim said.
 

Supporting incumbents and their transformation

E&C remains a strategic pillar for Singapore’s diversified manufacturing industry, with Jurong Island at its core. The sector contributes about 3 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), roughly a quarter of total manufacturing output and employs 27,000 people. In the last three decades, it attracted more than S$50 billion in investments.

Lim emphasised that Singapore’s E&C ecosystem is integrated across the entire value chain, from refining and cracking to petrochemicals and specialty chemicals. This integration spans both mainland Singapore and Jurong Island, with many companies operating across both locations.

They include Neste, which transports hydrogen from Jurong Island to manufacture sustainable aviation fuel on the mainland, before returning the product to the island for storage – all via pipelines.

As a result, Jurong Island has become a highly interlinked industrial hub, with seamless connections between upstream and downstream companies. 

EDB continues to support this ecosystem by helping companies upgrade existing infrastructure to produce higher-value, lower-carbon products, and to improve energy efficiency.

“Supporting incumbents is not an afterthought. It is central to Singapore’s industrial strategy,” said Lim.

For example, ExxonMobil has launched its Singapore Resid Upgrade Project, a multi-billion-dollar upgrade that converts low-value streams into higher-margin lube base stocks and distillates.

Denka has shifted from general-purpose polystyrene to specialty-grade styrenics, while Evonik’s SIMEX expansion - now powered by green hydrogen - increased capacity and reduced energy consumption by 6 per cent, demonstrating that growth can co-exist with decarbonisation.

Firms are not left to shoulder transition costs alone. EDB provides co-funding to close viability gaps for credible abatement and efficiency projects, such as through the Resource Efficiency Grant for Emissions (REG(E)).

Since 2021, 35 projects have been supported under the grant, and these are expected to abate over 340,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) when completed, equivalent to removing 80,000 cars from Singapore’s roads.

The grant was enhanced in 2024 to lower eligibility thresholds and increase support rates per tonne of carbon abated.
 

Growing High Potential Sub Sectors

The global chemical industry is facing challenges, with rationalisation underway across Europe and Asia, but specialty chemicals and sustainable materials are a bright spot for growth.

More than 30 new specialty chemical projects have been set up in Singapore since 2021, with the majority on Jurong Island. Companies have noted that being in Singapore allows them proximity to regional customers, spurring co-innovation.

In addition, Singapore’s strong logistics performance – it is top in the World Bank’s 2025 Logistics Performance Index – shortens time to market and allows MNCs to accelerate product qualification.

These factors led to Kuraray setting up its Asia-Pacific Technical Centre in Singapore’s Science Park in September 2025 to complement its ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer production facility on Jurong Island, enabling collaborative development with regional customers.

Changing consumer preferences are also giving rise to growing demand for products made from circular or bio-based feedstock, or with superior sustainability benefits. 

For instance, Arkema’s PA-11, which is used in medical devices like syringes and catheters, and hydraulic hoses in the automotive and transportation industry, is made entirely from castor oil.

With Southeast Asia projected to generate 56 million tonnes of mismanaged plastic waste annually by 2050, Mura Technology plans to build a 50 kilotonnes per annum advanced recycling facility within the PCS complex on the island. Singapore provides the ideal platform for Mura’s new facility to recycle both local and regional plastic waste into premium, circular feedstocks.

PCS, a key company at the S$5.4 billion Singapore Essential Chemicals Complex on Jurong Island, has also partnered with Neste to replace fossil raw materials with bio-naphtha to enable the production of lower-carbon products like ethylene, propylene, and butadiene. These are essential feedstocks for materials used in daily living, including plastic food packaging, car tyres, athletic shoe soles, gloves, and household appliances.
 

Testbed for innovation, new energies and low-carbon technologies

“With dedicated infrastructure and a tightly connected ecosystem, we are transforming [Jurong Island] into a hub for new energies and low-carbon innovation to power Singapore’s next phase of growth,” said Poh.

She highlighted several exciting new projects that are taking shape across the island.The island is home to Singapore’s largest land-based solar farm, largest rooftop solar deployment, and largest battery energy storage system.

By 2030, Jurong Island will be home to a total of nine hydrogen-ready power plants, with the potential to contribute more than 3.7 gigawatts (GW) of power. Singapore’s peak electricity demand is expected to grow to between 10.1 GW and 11.8 GW by 2030.

The island will also host Singapore’s first ammonia pathfinder project for power generation and bunkering, which has the potential to generate electricity from imported low-or-zero carbon ammonia.

To support the growing digital economy, JTC is developing a 20-hectare low-carbon data centre park on Jurong Island that will accommodate up to 700 megawatts of capacity. It will tap into the island’s energy ecosystem, including shared energy storage and clean energy infrastructure.

The government is continuing to invest in sustainable infrastructure and capabilities, such as the new Low Carbon Technology Translational Testbed (LCT³), a S$62.5 million national facility by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). It will provide modular pilot bays and shared systems to help firms move from lab to plant faster and more cost-effectively. Companies such as CRecTech, FlueVault, Metha8, and Turnover Labs have expressed interest in using LCT³ to scale their solutions.

Poh noted that to accelerate innovation, JTC launched the Jurong Island Innovation Challenge, which invites companies to co-develop and test solutions in real-life industrial settings.

One pilot by Croda and Singapore start-up NanoSun is in wastewater treatment that aims to cut freshwater use and carbon emissions by 25 per cent.

In addition, JTC and the Energy Market Authority’s Renewable Energy request for proposals has enabled a collaboration between Advario, VFlowTech, and JTC to scale vanadium flow batteries using existing infrastructure on Jurong Island.
 

Building Talent and Capabilities

Lim noted that for the E&C sector, the co-location of pharmaceuticals, consumer hubs, and semiconductor companies in Singapore boosts the country’s attractiveness as a hub for R&D and talent development.

“Many workers have built long careers in this industry and developed deep skills that Singapore values and intends to retain,” he said, referring to the sector’s 27,000 employees. Poh added that for key industries, Singapore’s approach has always been to try to hold on to “human capacity as well as their skillsets” throughout the ups and downs of industry cycles.

For the E&C sector, it has meant that workers with deep experience in refining and petrochemicals have been able to pivot into “new industries, new alternatives and new types of products that are adjacent to things that we have been producing … as these are molecules that require process engineering and require chemical engineering degrees,” she said.

The government also works closely with industry and Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) to align training programmes with emerging needs, including new energy systems, circular economy models, and digitalisation in plant operations.
 

Looking Ahead

Jurong Island’s transformation is already delivering results.

Sustainable product output has grown 1.4 times since 2019, with a target of 1.5 times by 2030.

Lim said that as EDB works towards making Jurong Island a hub for specialty chemicals and sustainable materials, and a global testbed for low-carbon innovation, it expects to “see a more diverse group of companies, a diverse supply chain that will help connect Singapore to the rest of the world.” He said that the government would closely partner with companies to ensure transformation and transition takes place smoothly.

Poh added that that Jurong Island “was never one of those places” where companies would have to go at it alone, after setting up.

“It's highly managed, curated and assisted. And we do want to continue to foster that spirit of collaboration between companies and the government so that we can actually move things along,” she said.
 

Singapore is one of the world’s leading energy and chemicals hubs. Discover what Singapore offers the sector and companies at EDB’s Energy & Chemicals page. For more details about Jurong Island’s ongoing transformation, visit the JI microsite.