Equatorial Palm Oil expects first palm oil shipment in late 2018

Palm oil development and production company Equatorial Palm Oil (EPO) projected on Tuesday that its first shipment of crude palm oil would take place in Q4 2018.

The company’s Palm Oil Mill (POM) is currently under construction at the Palm Bay Estate in Liberia, with good progress reported on the first module of the project.

The finished mill will include a kernel crushing plant and a biogas plant to capture methane from the palm oil mill effluent, with a bulking station being built by EPO just 24km away and scheduled for completion at the same time as the mill.

Geoffrey Brown, executive director of Equatorial Palm Oil, said: "The commissioning of the new POM in Q3 2018 will be a significant milestone for EPO and for the re-development of the palm oil industry in Liberia."

Several Liberian employees from the Palm Bay Estate project are travelling to existing POMs in Malaysia for additional training.

7,900 hectares have been planted at the Palm Bay and Butaw estates since 2011 and the company is awaiting assessments and consents to move forward with further land development under the highest standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil’s guidelines.

"Working with the newly elected government of President George Manneh Weah and key stakeholders, we shall look to progress a sustainable palm oil operation in Liberia as the region represents a major opportunity to create a key, new global supply hub for seaborne export to international markets," said Brown.

EPO has been granted a commission approval for tariff free trade with net importers of crude palm oil such as Nigeria and Ghana from the Liberian government.

As of 1513 GMT, Equatorial Palm Oil’s shares were unchanged at 2.45p.