19/05/2011 (Bernama) - The rising demand for oil palm fibres from China should spur Sabah palm oil millers to look at turning their mill wastes to wealth, said state Minister of Industrial Development Datuk Raymond Tan.

"The market is there. The prices are good and the technology is not expensive," he told a media briefing on his recent visit to Global Green Synergy Sdn Bhd (GSS) oil palm mill in Bidor, Perak recently.

He said the mill exported fibres from empty fruit bunches (EFBs) to mattress factories in China or turned them into briquette.

Tan, who is also chairman of state-owned POIC Sabah Sdn Bhd, which is developing the Lahad Datu palm oil industrial cluster (POIC Lahad Datu), said the company was in talks with GSS to develop the proposed biomass cluster at POIC Lahad Datu.

"The discussions also involved encouraging the 120 oil palm mills in the state to adopt the waste-to-wealth principle in utilising industry residue," he said.

GGS is Malaysia's major exporter of oil palm fibres.

Its facilities in Bidor had a composting plant, a plant to generate electricity from trapping POME (palm oil mill affluent) methane gas and a plant to make bio-briquette.

He said the take-off of biomass processing industries in Sabah has been hampered by supply and price uncertainly of raw materials such as EFBs.

"The oil palm plantations in Sabah produce over five million tonnes of EFB per year but investors faced difficulties in securing long-term supply," he said.

POIC Sabah initiated a programme in 2010 to acquire EFBs from selected oil mills and making them available to investors in the biomass industry, he said.