Minola opens P180-M coco oil refinery

BAUAN, Batangas – Filipino owned cooking oil company Minola Refining Corp. (MRC) inaugurated Thursday its second refinery plant worth P180 million and located at the CocoChem Agro-Industrial Park (CAIP) here.

The ceremony was attended by Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA) Director-General Lilia B. De Lima; MRC president/chairman Danilo Coronacion, general manager Antonio Eleazar and Tsutomo Takanose, general manager of Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan.

MRC is a 60-40 joint venture of the Coconut Industry Investment Fund (CIIF) Group of Companies and Mitsubishi.

The P180-million facility has a tank capacity of 13,500 metric tons of vegetable oil with a daily capacity of 300 metric tons of feedstock.

"Our first refinery plant is mostly for export and this newly inaugurated plant will not only utilize for export but also for domestic market," Eleazar told The STAR.

MRC’s first refinery at CAIP started operations in 2000, and after six years, the company decided to expand due to the increasing demand for quality vegetable oil.

"With the combined tank capacity of both refinery plants, we can now produce at least 450 metric tons a day," Eleazar said.

Eleazar said the new plant will also go into blended oil or specialty oil which will be a major contribution to the food market.

MRC leases an area of 6,000 square meters within CAIP’s 42-hectare lot located eight kilometers away from the Batangas International Sea Port and 25 kilometers away from the proposed Lipa International Cargo Airport.

The company chose Batangas for its plant because it is logistically advantageous since oil shipments coming from anywhere in the country or even imported can be easily unloaded in Batangas which has its own pier.

Coronacion expressed optimism about the performance of their newly launched state-of-the-art equipment that include advance production control system, low temperature vacuum generating process, free fatty acids recovery column and a deodorizing column.

"I hope this milestone cements a very firm relationship between and among us, to carry forward not only the development of the coconut industry but also of the oils and fats industry in the Philippines," Coronacion said in his speech.

"This plant is the symbol of our commitment to carry forward the coconut and oil industry in the country," he added.

Coronacion said, despite of the political situation, the company is planning to put up two more facilities by the second semester that put tremendous pressure on the supply change in the Philippines.

Mitsubishi general manager Tsutomu Takanose said his company is very pleased with the partnership and bared plans to explore other business opportunities in the Philippines.

PEZA Director General Lilia de Lima assured the foreign investors that the business atmosphere in all of the ecozones in the country will be friendly.