KARACHI (January 11 2005): An edible oil refinery with 300,000 tonnescapacity will be set up at Port Qasim under a joint venture betweenPakistan and Singapore, and the ground breaking of the project will beperformed shortly. A spokesman of the joint venture company, Waheed WilmarHoldings Private Limited told Business Recorder on Monday that the totalcost of the project was Rs 565.184 million, which would be shared 45percent by the Pakistani investor and 55 percent by the Singapore firmWilmar.

Fourteen acres of land in oil installation area of Port Qasim had beenpurchased from Port Qasim Authority (PQA) for the refinery, which would becompleted in one-and-a-half years.

The refinery would import edible crude from Indonesia and Malaysia andproduce RBD palm oil, which is consumed by the ghee manufacturers in thecountry, saving a large amount of foreign exchange spent on the import ofRBD palm oil.

The refinery would include a ghee-manufacturing factory, which wouldconsume the refined palm oil. The refined product would also be suppliedto other cooking oil and ghee-manufacturing factories in the country.

The Pakistani investor has already storage terminals in the oilinstallation area. The imported edible crude oil would be directlytransferred through pipeline to the oil terminals and would be supplied,after the customs clearance, to the refinery for processing.

The availability of the locally refined RBD palm oil would reduce the costof the product of cooking oil and ghee in the country as the edible crudehas Rs 1,800 per tonne less customs duty as compared to the importedfinished product.

The Wilmar of Singapore, which has set up similar refineries in India,would supply modern plant for the refinery.

The project would generate employment for the local people, apart fromboosting industrialisation and attracting foreign investment.