State plantation firm to build CPO factories in Kalimantan

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 02/01/2011

A state plantation company says it has allocated Rp 120 billion (US$ 12.9 billion) to build two factories to process crude palm oil (CPO) in Modang and Petangis districts, East Kalimantan.

The construction of the two factories will start this year and next year, and is expected to be complete within two or three years, Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) XIII general manager Anang Chaerul said Tuesday as reported by tempointeraktif.com.

PTPN XIII currently owns seven CPO processing plants in Kalimantan. Three of them are located in palm plantation areas in Paser and have a capacity to produce up to 1,000 tons of CPO a day.

“There is a huge potential for the expansion of palm plantations here. Every day there around 10 hectares of land is converted for palm plantation use,” he said.

The company currently manages 41,770 hectares of palm plantations in East, South, West and Central Kalimantan. A total of 39 percent of these areas are core plantations and the rest belong to plasma farmers.

Last year, the company’s CPO production reached 142,317 tons, increasing from 108,996 tons in 2008 and 135,321 tons in 2009.

Anang has targeted for all of the plasma farmers’ 25,194 hectares of land to be managed by the company so it can double its CPO production.

“That’s why we need new factories,” he said.