Palm Nuts!
09/05/2016
BLOG TEAM PALM NUTS (Al, Kev and Paul)
What a top first day! We were up early and after an English breakfast and braced for traffic from hell (Bennie’s warning!) were driven without a hitch to Salim Invomas Pratama (SIMP) – a full one hour early.
SIMP Headquaters in Jakarta:
SIMP is the largest palm oil producer in Indonesia with 14% percent market share and 246,359ha under Palm at the end of 2015 – That is larger than England! 70% of this land is owned by SIMP. The balance is made up of 40,000 growers!
Bimoli Product range (SIMP premium)
“Fun fact” – Palm oil solid extracts are mainly used instead of dairy products in Indonesia. The high melting point of palm oil solids is approximately 50 degrees – only just enough to not require refrigeration!
Scale Model
The Site manager explaining the refinery and refraction process plant at their scale model.
Per capita consumption of oil in Indonesia is approximately 10 litres per annum!!! Almost a litre per month – no wonder they don’t need to export to Europe!
Refinery towers
45m in height – these imposing towers were immaculately clean! Highly automated, the plant requires minimal staff to operate.
Tug and Barge
Tugs shunt 3,000 MT barges from plantations to the Tangjung Priok refinery. Total refining capacity at this plant is 420,000 MT of crude palm oil (CPO) per annum. Low cost (and low carbon) haulage is a key competitive advantage and typical of their sustainable approach to palm oil production. SIMP are leaders in the voluntary sustainable palm oil farming organisation (RSPO). Among other strategic goals, they intend to have complete tractability of their products back to the plantations by 2020.
Group Photo at SIMP
Many thanks to the management at SIMP who took the time to show us around and share their experience with us.
Cue more traffic (For Bennie!)
Lunch!
Courtesy of Graha Grekso – Thank you!!
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