Palm oil investment increases in Congo Republic

Multinational biofuel companies have expressed big interest in palm oil plantations in the Congo.

Spain's Biocongo Global Trading is set to invest 150 million euros developing 60,000 hectares of palm oil plantations, as well as two processing plant in the African nation over the next five years.

A recent company statement outlined plans to use one plant for cooking oil and the other to manufacture biofuel.  Biocongo president Eugene-Hubert Obba signed a memorandum of understanding today with Congo minister of industrial development and private sector promotion Rodolphe Adada.

Elsewhere, Wah Seong purchase of 51 per cent shares in Atama Resources could give the company access to a concession for an oil palm plantation in Congo. Atama has a 30-year concession from the Congo government to develop an oil palm plantation and industrial complexes on 470,000ha of federal land, which could have been a key incentive of the deal.

Wah Seong commented in Biz.thestar.com that planning and feasibility studies had identified that 180,000ha of the land was suitable to be used for growing palm oil crops.

“Based on this acreage, it is envisaged that the complete development will take a period of 15 years in ten phases, with planting to commence towards the second quarter of 2013."

Posted by Joseph Hutton