Jurong Island becomes more and more important for Singapore

For the past a few years, investment in oil & gas sector in Singapore are significantly increasing. Quite a number of big players came to Singapore to set up their new plants or announced for ambitious expansion plan. As I knew, the new plant for Ciba, Lucite already in progress, a integrated investment package worth US$3 b including a new cracker in Bukom & jurong island by Shell also already started last year, and recently ExxonMobil announced at least US$4 b (most probably more than that amount) for a new steam cracker (SPT), another big US$2b investment for Singapore aromatics complex… then what will happen now and later

1. Shortage of manpower. Almost all the contractors are busy for whole year, and a lot of project within hands, most of them are scraping for supervisor or engineers, most of them from Malaysia, china, India or other countries, local people don’t like it;
2. Need to bring in a lot of construction workers from outside, maybe from Malaysia, India, Philippines, or others. It is easy to bring in, but challenging to manage, a lot of rules & regulation related to this industry in Singapore.
3. Jurong Island is expanding by continuous reclaiming from sea, and also raised a lot of concerns from neighboring countries like Malaysia and Indonesia. Cost of land is increasing because of its scarcity in Singapore and checkpoint is heavily congested during weekday morning.
4. Safety is extremely important for oil & gas industry, it is not only inside island, outside resident also concern the impact if there is anything happen, e.g. toxic gas leaks, chemical reactor or boiler explosion;
5. Traffic jam at checkpoint every morning…