It is a well-known fact that Singapore is surrounded by water. We are basically a small, red island. Oil spills that happen anywhere around us will affect us eventually, and there is no escaping it.
The Strait of Singapore lies between Singapore and Riau Archipalego of Indonesia. This forms a link between the Strait of Malacca and the South China Sea. The Strait of Singapore has a width ranging from 5 to 12 km and measures about 113 km in length. It is also known to be one of the hot spots for oil spills in the world (Thompson, 2014).
Furthermore, Singapore’s oil industry is an integral part of our economy. Known as the undisputed oil hub in Asia, Singapore is one of the world’s top 3 export refining centers (Singapore Economic Development Board, 2017). A refinery is a facility where the crude oil imported to Singapore is refined into other petroleum products that are more useful, such as gasoline for cars. Since Singapore is not an oil reservoir, imports and exports of oil happen in large volumes at our ports. An energy snapshot in 2015 showed that crude oil and petroleum products accounted for 93.8% of imports and 100% of exports, as reported by the Energy Market Authority. With this much movement of oil at our ports, oil spills cannot be avoided, especially when people make mistakes and mechanical equipment fail.
With such vulnerability to oil spills, there is no doubt that this is truly of significance to Singapore.