Singapore's first underground chemical storage facility was broken ground Thursday on Jurong Island, the country's petrochemical center.

The 700 million Singapore dollars (about 455 million U.S. dollars) Phase one of the Jurong Rock Cavern will be commissioned in 2011 and will offer 1.47 million cubic meters of storage space for liquid hydrocarbons, Lim Hng kiang, Minister for Trade and Industry, announced at the ground breaking ceremony.

Built at subterranean depths beneath the seabed of Banyan Basin in Jurong Island, the storage facility is able to save an equivalent of at least 60 hectares of surface land, according to Lim.

Meanwhile, Jurong Town Corporation (JTC), Singapore's lead agency to plan, promote and develop industrial facilities, is already exploring a second phase that could add an additional 1.3 million cubic meters of underground storage.

"For both phases, the primary objective of the Jurong Rock Cavern will be to support the operations of Jurong Island manufacturers," Lim said.

It is expected that the facility will help enhance Singapore's position as a leading chemicals hub, which is now one of the world 's top three refining centers and the third largest oil trading hub and bunker port.

Singapore's chemicals industry made good performance in 2006. The output from the chemicals industry grew by over 10 percent to exceed 74 billion Singapore dollars (about 48 billion U.S. dollars) while it attracted more than 2.6 billion Singapore dollars (about 1.7 billion U.S. dollars) in fixed asset investments.

Along with the electronics cluster, the chemicals cluster is now one of Singapore's largest industry sector in manufacturing, Lim noted.

Source: Xinhua