MiniSmart™ - 10mt/hr Mini Palm Oil Mill – Applications

As a Useful Tool in Small Oil Palm Developments

MiniSmart^TM mini palm oil mill is most useful for small-scale oil palm developments located in isolated regions that are more than 100km from the nearest operating palm oil mill and where very bad public road infrastructures are resulting in extremely high FFB transport-to-mill costs.

In recent years, many small farmers in developing countries in South East Asia and West Africa have switched to oil palm planting on their small plots of agricultural land (where they used to practice subsistence farming), through government aid or subsidy schemes.  Many of these new plantings have ended up as isolated pockets (a couple of thousand hectares) of oil palm plantings without the service of a nearby palm oil mill to process their crops.  

These small farmers would suffer big economic losses in terms of exorbitant transport-to-mill costs and unfavorable selling prices offered at the mercy of far-a-way palm oil mills built by large private corporations mainly to process their own FFB crops.  It is in these situations that a
MiniSmart^TM mini palm oil mill built near their lands will be a big boon to these small farmers and a great stimulator to the local economy.

MiniSmart^TM mini palm oil mill could process up to 5,000mt of FFB/month or 60,000mt FFB/ year.  This would cover for about 3,000 hectares of small-farmer oil palm plantings which are producing on average 1.5-1.7mt FFB per hectare per month.

The investment in a MiniSmart^TM   mini palm oil mill should be done by the private sector or government-private joint ventures.  The local and central governments could play an active role in enticing both local and foreign investors with generous tax and other investment incentives to invest in MiniSmart^TM mini palm oil mill for the small oil palm farmers.     

 

As a "Stop-Gap" Mill in Big Oil Palm Developments 

In the past decade, many foreign investment groups have invested in scores of large oil palm plantations above 10,000 hectares in tropical countries with abundant lands suitable for oil palm cultivation such as Indonesia, West Africa, Papua New Guinea, Cambodia and Myanmar.  As most of these investments involved green fields, so it would take more than 5 years to complete their planting programs.

Crop production of a 10,000-hectare new plantation may start with 5,000 to 10,000mt FFB in the first year harvesting and will steadily rise to the 50,000mt FFB/year level over the next 3 to 4 years.  Full-maturity crop production of 200,000mt FFB/year may come in another 5-6 years’ time.  This rather long climb to full crop production level often poses a dilemma to the management in the planning of FFB milling or processing capacity.  

A crop production of 200,000mt FFB/year will require a palm oil mill of 45mt/hour milling capacity.  The tricky question is when should this mill be built and come on line.  If, for example, there is a neighboring palm oil mill with extra capacity of 50,000mt FFB/year to spare, then the obvious answer for the management would be to put up a 45mt/hour mill nearer to the time when its own FFB crop production is expected to rise to above the 50,000mt/year level.  

If there is no nearby mill, then the management will have to build a mill much earlier.  A cash-rich group may decide to build a 45mt/hour mill to process its first year’s crop.   A more cash-conscious group may decide to build a 30mt/hour mill (the smallest among the normal-size mill) first and plan to expand it later.

The end results of both scenarios will be surplus milling capacity for the next 5-7 years.  If there are no outsider FFB crops around, then the 30mt/hour or 45mt/hour mill will end up operating only one 8-hours shift a day, 1 to 3 days in a week for the first 3-4 years.   This is undeniably very unproductive in operation as well as capital management.

The handy solution to this dilemma is to opt for MiniSmart^TM mini palm oil  mill as a so-called “stop-gap” mill which can process FFB crop up to 60,000mt/year.  This would help the management to buy time and put the “saved” capital into something more productive during the 3-4 years period.

The management can have the option of adding a 30mt/hour mill later to be run alongside the 10mt/hour MiniSmart^TM mini mill, or build a 45mt/hour mill and dispose the MiniSmart^TM mini palm oil mill to another new plantation owner with relative ease.       



      
For further enquiries, please contact:

CIMG Resources Sdn Bhd
Malaysia
Email:  cimgrs@yahoo.com