Minister of National Development Desmond Lee (centre) taking a look at conveyor lines during a tour of Jurong Port's new RMC ecosystem. - ST
SINGAPORE: A new one-stop facility to manufacture concrete in Jurong will shorten production times and reduce carbon emissions by cutting over a million truck journeys a year.
The ready-mixed concrete (RMC) ecosystem at Jurong Port uses five conveyor belts to move cement and raw materials shipped to the port to storage sites and production plants where they are mixed into concrete.
The S$200 million facility, which has been operational since September 2023, will reduce the need for these materials to be moved by trucks, and takes Jurong Port a step closer to completing Singapore’s first integrated construction park, which will house different construction facilities.
In the next phase of the integrated construction park’s development, an integrated construction and prefabrication hub (ICPH) - where precast building components are made with automated systems - and two more RMC batching plants will be built by 2027.
At the launch of the integrated construction park on Nov 27, National Development Minister Desmond Lee said the authorities plan to build more of such facilities across Singapore, such as at Pulau Punggol Barat.
“Bringing related construction facilities closer together, such as co-locating the import of sand and granite with cement and steel handling, saves time and resources that would have otherwise been spent hauling materials across the island,” said Lee.
Meanwhile, the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) had on Oct 28 called a tender for consultants to conduct feasibility studies and propose conceptual designs for the next integrated construction park at Pulau Punggol Barat.
The study is expected to conclude by the first half of 2027.
Tender documents seen by ST said the site to be studied for the new development includes a land area of about 74ha, or more than twice as large as the integrated construction park at Jurong Port - which will be about 35ha when completed.
Lee cited the RMC ecosystem at Jurong Port as an example of a project that has increased productivity and sustainability in the construction supply chain.
The ecosystem’s RMC batching plants can each produce 45,000 cubic m of concrete per month, a 50 per cent improvement from their previous capacity, said Mr Lee, who added that these plants will support the projected demand for concrete in Singapore’s western region.
Its 700m-long enclosed conveyor belts can transport 800 tonnes of construction materials to storage areas and batching plants every hour, up from an average of 650 tonnes per hour when trucks were used to send raw materials from Tuas to storage areas across Singapore.
The operations of the Tuas Aggregate Terminal, where raw materials such as sand and granite used in construction processes had been imported, were moved to Jurong Port at the end of 2023.
Lee said Singapore’s aggregate terminals handle up to 33 million tonnes of sand and granite annually, which require over 4 million truck journeys to be moved to storage and production facilities across Singapore.
With Jurong Port’s automated conveyancing system, about a million truck journeys a year can be saved, he added.
“This is a move in the right direction... towards improved operational efficiency and environmental sustainability,” he said.
It will also cut 216 barge trips a year because Jurong Port has deep-water berths where bulk vessels can dock close to shore to discharge construction materials, instead of having to anchor farther out at sea and have barges shuttle the raw materials to the port.
Jurong Port said lowering the reliance on trucks and barges reduces its carbon emissions by 23,500 tonnes, equivalent to the electricity needed to power about 11,850 four-room Housing Board flats for a year.
In response to queries, the port said it also plans to install solar panels over a rooftop area of up to 23,000 sq m at the RMC ecosystem by the end of 2026. These panels can potentially offset about half of the ecosystem’s electricity consumption by generating up to 6.8 GW-hours of solar power annually, added the port.
The RMC ecosystem streamlines production, with cranes scooping materials such as 20mm granite stones out of bulk vessels and barges, and depositing them into a funnel that leads to a conveyor belt.
These belts, which resemble a rollercoaster track, will move the material to storage facilities at the port, which have been leased by firms that imported these materials.
The materials are also taken via the belts to RMC batching plants, where excavators will scoop them up and dump them into an underground conveyor system that will take the materials to a batching plant that manufactures RMC.
The materials are then put into a concrete mixer - along with additives, water and cement - to form concrete, which is later discharged into trucks to be transported to construction sites and precast factories across Singapore.
Jurong Port said the RMC ecosystem creates economies of scale by pooling shared services such as centralised recycling, truck washing and logistics planning, and lowers costs for tenants of its six storage plots and seven RMC batching plant plots.
Shared facilities also free up usable land area and allow RMC firms to use up to 80 per cent of their land plot for RMC production, up from 40 per cent when their plots were developed in silos, said Lee.
All 13 plots have been fully subscribed to by concrete suppliers and aggregate importers, who will lease the facilities for 30 years.
Lee said: “Firms operating within the integrated construction park will also benefit from longer tenures as compared to traditional yards. This gives our firms... better certainty and confidence to make longer-term investments that will boost productivity and production capacity.”
He encouraged professionals in this sector to upskill and equip themselves with the knowledge and capabilities to tap emerging technology, as a more skilled workforce is required to operate, supervise and manage the advanced systems at integrated construction parks. - The Straits Times/ANN
