InfoSAWIT, PADANG — Apical, a vegetable oil company did the first ground breaking in the facility of PT Padang Raya Cakrawala (PRC) on Thursday (4/7/2024). The ceremony started reconstructing new refinery and fractionation plant in Teluk Bayur, City of Padang, West Sumatera Province. The new industry was designed to increase production capacity of Apical to fulfill domestic and international scale demands that keep developing.

Refinery and fractionation plant would be finished in 2025 and inaugurated by Governor of West Sumatera, Mahyeldi Ansharullah. It would be attended by Gunawan Sumargo, Director of Social, Security, and License (SSL) Apical. The additional refinery capacity would be significant for Apical and around Padang. It is planned to produce capacity up to 3.500 metric tons (MT) of crude palm oil (CPO) per day, while the fractionation plant of palm cooking oil would be producing up to 3.000 MT per day.

“We do appreciate Apical for its investment in City of Padang. We hope this would deliver and provide employment for the peop;le and would guarantee palm cooking oil stability namely in West Sumatera Province,” Mahyeldi said, as in the official statement to InfoSAWIT, Friday (5/7/2024).

Meanwhile, Director of Social, Security, and License (SSL) Apical, Gunawan Sumargo said that the new construction of the refinery would be the third phase of the new expansion that has been starting since 2019.

“By escalating the capacity, the combination of refinery at PT PRC would be reaching 7.000 MT per day while the capacity of fractionation plant of cooking palm oil would be escalating to be 5.900 MT per day,” Gunawan said.

This emphasized that Apical is committed to develop downstream business as same as what the Government of Indonesia wanted to encourage palm oil downstream industries. The initiative also reinforced the position of Apical as one main actor to support the government’s focus in palm oil industry.

PT PRC, which is the biggest refinery in City of Padang, now produces kinds of products, such as, palm olein, stearin, biodiesel, and fatty acid. With the capacity up to 1,2 million MT per year, the capacity could be increasing twice to be 2,4 million MT per year after completing the new one. It would be strategic and could be expanded to fulfill the domestic needs, and traded to Middle East, Africa, and sub-continent in India. (T2)