Local palm growers to fire up biodiesel production
Local palm growers to fire up biodiesel production
Lao Agro-Tech Co. Ltd will start using home-grown palm oil within the next four months to supply its Vientiane processing factory in a move to further develop the local biodiesel industry.
“Now we are getting ready to buy palm fruit from the growers at a cost of 800 kip per kilogram,” the company Director, Mr Oudom Keothavong said yesterday.
The palm squeeze mill needed to process the raw ingredient is almost finished in Naxaithong district of Vientiane as “construction is about 70 percent complete now,” Mr Oudom said.
He said the company expects to produce biodiesel from local material instead of currently importing the raw palm oil from Thailand.
Since last year, the company has produced biodiesel from imported raw palm oil for local consumption.
“By September the palm squeeze mill will be complete and we'll begin squeezing the raw palm oil to supply the local biodiesel factory,” he said.
The palm squeeze mill will have the production capacity to squeeze 25 tonnes of palm fruit per day.
“With each tonne of palm fruit we get around 17 percent of raw oil and with each 100kg of raw oil we are able to produce about 95kg of biodiesel,” he said.
The company's factory is currently able to process around 20,000 litres of B100 palm oil and 400,000 litres of B5 biodiesel a day.
Currently the company has its own 15 hectares of palm trees in Naxaithong district, which is starting to bear fruit for harvest in September and is working with a local company to grow palms in Xanakham district, Vientiane province.
The company is also promoting the planting of palm oil trees to farmers on about 200 hectares in the provinces of Xayaboury and Vientiane and they will be able to start harvesting the palm fruit next year.
“We expect to have palm oil farms of about 2,000 hectares by 2020,” he said and added that the company is now preparing about 100,000 palm saplings on a farm in Xanakham to supply the farmers along with offering technical assistance.
To fulfil the development strategy for the palm oil industry, the company is aiming to expand its production area. It plans to focus on community-based seed and sapling cultivation to ensure the palms will yield oil in the local climate to compliment the milling and processing facilities necessary to produce biodiesel.
The project is one of the provincial priority projects in promoting commercial products and green areas.
The company was established in 2008 and currently has helped people to grow more hectares of palm trees in Vientiane and some other provinces.
vientiane times
