Equatorial Palm Oil PLC (LON:PAL) announced that the installation of the Liberia's only commercial palm oil processing mill is proceeding on schedule, and the facility is expected to be commissioned by the end of this month.
The mill has been constructed on EPO’s Palm Bay plantation by Modipalm Engineering Sdn Bhd, a Malaysian manufacturer of palm oil mills. The plantation is located 160 kilometres southeast of Liberia’s capital Monrovia.
Modipalm's engineers are currently carrying out production test runs on site and it is expected that commercial production of crude palm oil (CPO) will commence in January 2011. The engineering team will remain on site to train EPO mill operators.
The mill will have a throughput of five tonnes of fresh fruit bunches per hour and is expected to produce approximately one tonne of CPO per hour once commercial production is established.
CPO will be produced from existing rehabilitated areas owned by EPO, which holds a land position of circa 34,398 hectares at Palm Bay. The mill will provide training and educational facilities for future crude oil mills that EPO is planning to build over the next five years in Liberia.
EPO has also agreed that if additional capacity is available, the mill will produce CPO from fresh fruit bunches bought from out-growers and small farm holders in the region. It is expected that the CPO produced will be sold domestically within Liberia.
EPO's objective is to become a producer of sustainable, low-cost CPO and has extensive operations located near the coast in Liberia, West Africa.
The company's operational strategy is expected to be implemented through three core business activities: the rehabilitation of existing oil palm plantations; the development of new plantations; and the development of out-grower small holdings.
EPO has secured government ratified investment agreements in Liberia for the investment, rehabilitation and participation by the group over a sizeable acreage of existing oil palm plantations. EPO's operations have already commenced at the Butaw plantation and at Palm Bay.
EPO has a large 169,000 hectare land position, covering three distinct areas - Palm Bay, Butaw and River Cess County. The company intends to plant 50,000 hectares of oil palm over the next ten years, taking production to 250,000 tonnes per annum (tpa).
The strategy sees the scale of plantations double to 100,000 hectares in the longer term.
Liberia is in a region where the oil palm is indigenous. The company believes that the application of South-East Asian techniques and the latest seed genetics may enable Africa to become a key player in the world palm oil market again.