05/03/2010 (Flex News), Jakarta - Singapore-listed Indofood Agri Resources Ltd (IndoAgri) expects to more than double its new oil palm plantings in 2010, as part of $200 million of capital spending slated for this year, its chief executive said on Friday.

A number of palm oil plantation firms have been increasing plantings to take advantage of a rebound in palm oil prices since late last year.

"Our target new plantings for 2010 is 25,000 hectares (61,780 acres) for oil palm and 6,000 hectares for sugar," IndoAgri CEO Mark Wakeford said in email reply sent to Reuters.

"Our base capital expenditure is $200 million most of which is for expansion," he said.

IndoAgri is a unit of Indonesia's top instant noodle maker PT Indofood Sukses Makmur Tbk.

The firm's new oil palm planting in 2009 was 11,773 hectares, while its sugar cane plantations increased 4,499 hectares.

IndoAgri had a total land bank of 549,287 hectares at the end of 2009, out of which 321,566 hectares were unplanted. Its planted oil palm area was 193,613 hectares, including 61,053 hectares which are not yet productive.

New sugar planting was expected to push IndoAgri's total area of sugar plantations to 14,672 hectares this year. IndoAgri also manages rubber and cocoa plantations.

Wakeford said apart from expanding plantations, the firm was also in the process of building a new 420,000-tonne palm oil refinery in Jakarta and a sugar refinery in South Sumatra, both of which would be completed in the second half of this year.

The firm was expecting its crude palm oil (CPO) production to grow 5-10 percent this year, after growing 7 percent to 763,000 tonnes in 2009, he said.

Palm oil producers were under pressures in 2009 from faltering CPO prices, but the prospect of robust demand this year was expected to support prices, Wakeford said.

IndoAgri's revenue dropped 23.6 percent to 9.04 trillion rupiah in 2009, although adjusted atributable net profit was down just 1.3 percent at 1.22 trillion rupiah, thanks to lower operating costs and foreign curency gains.