The world’s first,S$200 million ready-mixed concrete ecosystem has officially opened at Jurong Port. Its productivity will double, and it will reduce carbon emissions by more than 25,000 tons per year, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of about 12,750 four-room HDB flats.

Ready-mixed concrete is one of the most commonly used materials in construction. It is made up of four components: cement, water, aggregates and additives. Most of the concrete components used locally are imported by sea. The construction of a ready-mixed concrete facility at Jurong Port will allow the entire ecosystem to be concentrated in one location.

Under the traditional local operating model, the different ingredients are imported from different seaports or terminals, and the operators then use heavy goods vehicles to transport the materials from the seaports to multiple facilities across the island for processing and prefabrication, before finally delivering them to construction sites as modular units. For this reason, there are as many as 4 million concrete-related heavy goods vehicle trips in Singapore each year. The transportation process is cumbersome and lacks economies of scale.

In contrast, the new facility can directly transport materials from the ships moored at Jurong Port to the storage warehouses via automated conveyor belts. These warehouses are leased by private operators for 30 years, and they set up their own equipment to process different materials into concrete.

The facility covers an area of 11.8 hectares, equivalent to the size of 16 football fields, and can accommodate four importers and seven processors. The earliest ones started operating in October last year, and the latest ones will move in by mid-2027. By then, the facility’s concrete production will account for 30% of the country’s total, mainly supplying construction projects in the southwest.

Loh Kah Son, president of Pan-United, one of the importers and processors that has already moved in, said that having the concrete ingredients and processing plant in the same location improves supply chain efficiency and land use. “Our processing plant is close to the port, and the cement supply is close at hand.”

Jurong Port CEO Siu Kok Leong said that these operators previously rented storage and processing facilities for shorter periods of between three and nine years. With a longer lease of 30 years, operators can benefit from the economic benefits of the automated equipment in the new facilities and are more willing to invest in upgrading the equipment, doubling the hourly output productivity. Another processing operator, Island Concrete, is trialling automated equipment in the new facility to reduce the reliance of the production line on manpower.

The new centralized facility will also reduce the number of heavy goods vehicle trips by more than 1 million, and by installing solar panels, it will achieve half of its electricity consumption. Overall, it will reduce carbon emissions by more than 25,000 tons per year, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of about 12,750 four-room HDBs. Jurong Port also provides auxiliary services such as collective wastewater recycling and sludge treatment.

Jurong Port will be the first integrated building area in the region by 2027

National Development Minister Lee Chee-sheng officiated at the opening ceremony for the ready-mixed concrete ecosystem on Wednesday (November 27). He said that in order to further integrate the supply chain and manufacturing facilities, Jurong Port will build a new integrated construction prefabrication hub and a steel ecosystem by 2027, making it the first Integrated Construction Park in Singapore.

The Integrated Construction Park will benefit industry players through more efficient use of land and production of building components. The Building and Construction Authority (BCA) plans to set up more Integrated Construction Parks island-wide, including a site of about 74 hectares along Pulau Punggol Barat. BCA has earlier invited tenders to conduct a feasibility study and conceptual design there, which is expected to be completed in 2027.