P100-milllion oil factory to be opened in Francistown
Pini Bothoko | Monday March 9, 2015 18:00
The citizen-owned Oil Company would be manufacturing olive oil, cooking oil, margarine and mayonnaise.The Managing Director (MD) of URB Mmoloki Tibe disclosed this when addressing the Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry Sadique Kebonang and the media during a tour of the plant at Dumela on Thursday.
“Our branding will be SunGold Pure cooking oil, SunGold Olive oil, SunGold Mayonnaise and SunGold Margarine,’’ said Tibe. Tibe said that URB seeks to provide quality edible oil through the integrated use of the latest oil technology and information systems.
He revealed that Botswana cooking oil market is 1 million litres of cooking oil (sunflower), which is all imported from South Africa per month.The MD said there is a readily available export market for oil in countries north of Botswana such as Angola, Zambia, Mozambique and DRC, including Zimbabwe.
Tibe disclosed that their business stream is in two stages the first stage is the Edible Oil Refinery, which is raw sunflower imported from South Africa and refined at the edible oil plant in Francistown.
The other stage is the Edible Oil Seeds crushing Plant in which the plant will crush a total of 300 tons of sunflower seeds per day, sourced from farmers in Botswana.
“The plant will produce 70 tons/day with a total of 2, 500 – 3,000 tons per month. The oil will be sold in Botswana and the balance will be exported to countries north of Botswana where a ready export market exists,’’ he said.
Tibe explained that the second stage plant construction will commence in August 2015 and will require 108,000 tons of seeds per annum.
He said that they are in the process of organising a national campaign to encourage all Batswana to plant sunflower to feed the plant and in the process achieve self-sufficiency in edible oils and promote citizen economic empowerment.
“We will be opening the plant next month. For a start, we will import raw oil from South Africa and refine it in Francistown.Batswana farmers should prepare themselves for next season,’’ said Tibe.
He said that they have approached Tonota and Masunga farmer’s associations to grow and supply them with sunflower.
“We will continue to sensitise farmers to grow enough sunflower because the plant will crush a lot of sunflower per day,” said Tibe. He emphasised that it is a big plant and that it will take from four to five years for local farmers to meet the demand of the plant, especially that Batswana are not used to growing sunflower.
He said that the business would directly employ 500 permanent staff and create indirect employment of labourers in the fields who will assist with the planting of sunflower seeds.
Tibe said the business will ensure citizen economic empowerment because every Motswana with a piece of land can grow sunflower and be paid adequately.
He said that they have reserved the remaining 144 hectares of land for a Golf Estate business. “We have designed the business master plan and construction will commence in the near future,” he said.
Tibe revealed that URB has acquired 500 hectares of land at Pandamatenga, which they intend to grow sugar cane.
“There is no sugar business in Botswana. South African companies dominate the sugar business here. We have started doing soil tests at Pandamatenga even though it takes five years for sugar cane to mature,” said Tibe.
The Assistant Minister Kebonang advised URB to produce quality products because they will be competing with multinational companies who produce well-known products.