The cooking oil sector is looking forward to push capacity utilisation to between 60% and 70% next year to start exports, Oil Expressers’ Association of Zimbabwe chairman, Busisa Moyo has said.
BY MTHANDAZO NYONI
Moyo told NewsDay in emailed responses that the industry was in dire need of exports and to achieve that, it needed to push capacity utilisation to around 70% next year.
The industry spent most of the year operating at between 40% and 50% capacity due to lack of local raw materials and shortage of foreign currency to import crude oil, a substitute for soya beans, he said.
“The sector was at 40-50% capacity for most of the year. Lack of local raw materials of soya beans and shortage of forex to import crude oil, a substitute for soya beans were a major challenge,” Moyo, who is also the United Refineries chief executive officer, said.
“We need the sector to reach 60-70% capacity as we saw last year, so we can start exporting,” he said.
He said the industry was producing between 7 200 metric tonnes (mt) to 9 000mt (40-50%) of cooking oil per month, against a requirement of 12 000mt and installed refining capacity of 18 000mt.
Crushing of soya beans was below 10% per month with an installed crushing capacity of 20 000mt per month, he said.
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Moyo said there was need to promote farmers to grow soya bean to reach at least 240 000mt, the current installed crushing capacity in the country.
This, Moyo said, would help localise the value chain “so that more people can benefit from the sector farmers, chicken outgrowers and many others”.
“We can this inclusive value chain development to benefit communities or inclusive value chain linkages. Banks should also come to the party and creatively fund production at all points along the value chain at affordable rates,” he said.
Some of the cooking oil producing firms in Zimbabwe include United Refineries, ETG Parrogate, Surface Investments, Olivine and Willowton.
