RM27m plant: Will be operational by year-end

SADC to push for completion of foreign -mill in Palembang
New Straits Times, January 20, 2004

By Jaspal Singh

THE Perak State Agriculture Development Corp (SADC) will take advantage of current high prices of crude palm oil (CPO) to push for the completion of its first foreign oil mill in Palem­bang, Indonesia.

Its chairman Datuk Seri Tajol Rosh Ghazali said the RM27 million mill, which will process the entire fresh fruit bunches (FFB) produced by SADC's palm oil plantation in Palembang , will be operational by year-end.

SADC, an agency of the Per­ak State Government, owns 15,000hain Indonesia , of which 8,000ha is planted with oil palm.

"Taking advantage of the cur­rent high CPO prices, SADC will focus on completing sev­eral of its short-term tasks, es­pecially the completion of the oil mill," he said after chairing the SADC board meeting in Ipoh yesterday.

The construction of the oil mill started in 2003 and is ex­pected to be completed by June this year.

It will conduct several trial runs for two to three months before becoming fully opera­tional by November or Decem­ber.

The Palembang oil mill has the capacity to process between 45 and 90 tonnes of FFB per hour.

The 8,000ha of oil palm plan­tation is a joint venture be­tween SADC's Ladang Lekir Sdn Blid and P7"Primitra Sum­her Buana, a subsidiary of PT Pinang Witmas Sejati.

Ladang Lekir holds a ma­jority stake of 60 per cent while PT Trimitra owns the rest.

According to Tajol Rosli, who is also Perak Menteri Besar, the Indonesian Government has agreed to allow 60 per cent of the processed oil at the mill to be exported while the rest will be for domestic (Indonesian) usage.

SADC has two other milling centers. The first in Beruas has processing capacity of 20 tonnes FFB per Hour and the second in Kampung Gajah can process between 30 -and 60 tonnes FFB per hour.

SADC's land bank of 3,000ha in Perak is mostly planted with oil palm. Current­ly, the cultivated area is 12,000ha.

Meanwhile, for the financial year ended December 312003, SADC achieved a pre-tax profit of RM10.5 million on a turnover of RM81 million compared with a pre-tax profit of RM9.6 mil­lion in 2002.

The directors have agreed to pay an extra month's salary to its 297 workers, including 30 management staff on top of the one month bonus given last year.

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