27/06/2012 (Jakarta Post) - Publicly listed palm oil company PT BW Plantation (BWPT) would open next month its third palm oil mill in Central Kalimantan with a refining capacity of 35 tons an hour and has allocated Rp 90 billion (US$9.4 million) for new land acquisition for plantation expansion.

“At present, our two plants have a combined capacity of 105 tons of palm oil per hour, but the new refinery will increase the total capacity to 140 tons per hour,” said BW Plantation corporate secretary Kelik Irwantono after the company’s annual stakeholders meeting here on Tuesday.

Irwantono added BW Plantation also had set aside Rp 120 billion for the construction later this year of a new palm oil refinery with a capacity of 60 tons per hour in East Kalimantan where the company owns 31,203 hectares of oil palm estate, of which 8,000 hectares will start producing next year.

“So, there is an urgency to build plants with a capacity of 60 tons per hour,” he said.

“The plant [in East Kalimantan] will be located on our largest land. Soon it would be our most important land.”

BW Plantation president director Abdul Halim Ashari said his company now had a total of 62,700 hectares of oil palm plantations in Central, West and East Kalimantan, of which 27,627 hectares have been producing with a total output of 110,771 tons of crude palm oil last year, or up 21.4 percent from last year.

The company has allocated Rp 265 billion to support its acquisition program. The company recently disbursed Rp 174.9 billion to acquire PT Prima Cipta Selaras, which has a permit to utilize 11,203 hectares of land in East Kalimantan.

“We would acquire more land in Kalimantan priced between Rp 2.5 million and Rp 3 million per hectare,” said Abdul.

With Rp 90 billion left for land expansion, the company could procure up to 36,000 hectares of land.

BW Plantation currently has 105,000 hectares of land, of which 62,699 has already been planted. As many as 27,627 hectares are already in production.

The firm produced 110,771 tons of CPO last year, up 21.4 percent from 91,255 tons in 2010, reaping Rp 888.3 billion in revenues, a 24.7 percent increase from Rp 712.2 billion in the previous year.

“This year we targeted 15 to 20 percent growth,” Ashari said.

As of April, BW Plantation has disbursed Rp 465 billion in capital expenditure from Rp 1.1 trillion of this year’s budget to support its expansion plans.

In the annual meeting, BWPT’s shareholders agreed to pay out Rp 48.06 billion in dividends, or 15 percent of last year’s net profits of Rp 320.4 billion. The dividends, valued at Rp 12 per share, will be paid in August. (yps)