JTC said the 15-year contract is valued at S$200 million ($157.3 million).

“The award of the operatorship is a key milestone for the first phase of the Jurong Rock Caverns,” JTC said, adding that the project would be Southeast Asia’s first underground hydrocarbon storage facility.

Jurong Consultants had broached the idea of a joint bid with Vopak to operate the Jurong Rock Caverns as the Singapore-based engineering firm wanted to expand its services beyond design-and-build to operatorship of such facilities, BT said.

New York-based Parsons Brinckerhoff and Germany’s Oiltanking were believed to be interested in becoming operator for phase one of the $702 million (SGD 890 million) Jurong Rock Caverns project, the newspaper added. The appointment of the facility operator, which will be given a 15-year contract, was originally planned for mid-2013.

Jurong Aromatics Corporation (JAC), which plans to start up its $2.4 billion aromatics complex on Singapore’s Jurong Island in the second quarter of 2014, will be Jurong Rock Caverns’ first customer.

Phase one of the project, which is targeted for completion by 2014, will create 51.91 million cubic feet (1.47 million cubic meters) of storage capacity for oil, including crude oil, condensates and naphtha. BCSS will manage, operate and maintain the ancillary and underground facilities at the caverns, but JTC will be responsible for sales and marketing of storage services, a spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said there are currently no plans for a second phase, although it was earlier reported it could involve six caverns with capacity of 1.32 million cu m.