First crude palm oil tanker arrives at Loders Croklaan’s new palm oil refinery

13/09/05 Last Sunday the first crude palm oil tanker arrived at Europe’s largest refinery on the Maasvlakte in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The tanker, from Malaysia, delivered the first 10,000 tonnes of crude palm oil to Loders Croklaan’s new refinery. The delivery marked the commissioning of the first section of the refinery, the tank park and the associated sub-systems. In achieving this milestone the construction of Europe’s largest refinery is proceeding in full accordance with the schedule. Loders Croklaan intends to make the first commercial delivery in October of this year.

The tanker unloaded its cargo of 10,000 tonnes of crude palm oil at the refinery’s deep-sea jetty. The delivery filled 20% of the refinery’s total storage capacity of 50,000 tonnes. Further deliveries of palm oil scheduled until the beginning of November will bring the stocks to 100%.

The arrival of the first palm oil marked the commissioning of the tank park and the start-up of part of the refinery, as a result of which all associated systems such as the heating, nitrogen and power-supply systems are now operational. In addition, the necessary process and quality assurance procedures have been commissioned.

The refinery will deliver three palm oil products, namely refined palm oil, palm oleine, and palm stearine.

Loders Croklaan, in combination with its parent company, IOI Corporation Berhad, now has full control over the entire production chain. This control ensures for crude palm oil and refined finished products of a consistent high quality, complete supervision of the entire production chain, and the ability to trace all product – all of which places the concern in an extremely strong position.

Loders Croklaan is active internationally as a producer of oils and fats for the food industry, particularly the chocolate industry. In addition to its head office in Wormerveer, the company has three smaller production plants in the United States, Malaysia and Egypt, plus another eight sales offices worldwide. Since December 2002 the company is fully owned by palm oil conglomerate IOI Corporation Berhad, which is listed on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.