Singapore to merge southern islands into a new industrial Western island

Several islands south of Jurong Island will be merged to form a larger landmass to support a new generation of industries, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said at the National Day Rally on Sunday 23 August. The proposal forms part of long-term plans that are still being studied.

The cluster includes Semakau, which houses the city-state's offshore landfill; Bukom, where its first refinery still operates; and Pulau Sudong, which has an airstrip used by the Singapore Armed Forces during emergencies. Several smaller islands sit within the same group. The merged area could be used for advanced manufacturing, power generation and military purposes.

The precedent is Jurong Island itself. When Singapore needed more space to build a petrochemical industry, it reclaimed land and combined islands to create what is now a global energy and chemicals hub, Wong said. That project delivered lasting benefits, creating jobs, anchoring industries, making the country a critical node in global energy flows and strengthening its energy security and resilience.

Connectivity is part of the plan. The existing causeway linking the mainland to Jurong Island is heavily used, so a second road link will be built, and a further link will connect Jurong Island to the new Western island.

For a bunkering and refining centre with no hinterland to expand into, reclamation is the only route to additional industrial land. Singapore has repeatedly answered constraints on space by manufacturing more of it, and merging islands around an operating refinery and an existing landfill keeps the heavier industrial uses concentrated away from the main island.

The timeline remains open. Wong described the plans as being studied carefully rather than committed, and reclamation projects of this scale are measured in decades rather than years.