A 108-metre tall xylene splitter used in the petrochemicals industry has been successfully installed by the Jurong Aromatics Corporation at its US$2.4 billion (S$3 billion) aromatics project on Jurong Island.

Believed to be among the tallest structures on Jurong Island, the Korea-built spiltter also weighs 1,147 tonnes and has a diameter of 8m.

It is designed to extract xylene for the manufacturing of aromatics. The most important aromatics product is paraxylene, a raw material used to make fabric as well as plastic bottles.

Owing to the size of the splitter, it took 12 hours to travel 6 km to the facility by self-propelled transport vehicles after arriving on Jurong Island.

"The xylene splitter is one of the tallest, if not the tallest, fractionation column in the Singapore petrochemical industry," said Jurong Aromatics chief executive Simon Lam.

"This event is an important milestone for [us], as we move our construction progress beyond the 60 per cent mark."