State-owned CIIF-Oil Mills Group is recommissioning starting today its P400-million copra-crushing plant in Arimbay, Legazpi City, which can immediately bring in $3.75 million in foreign-exchange earnings per month if its output is exported. Jesus Arranza, CIIF-Oil Mills president and CEO, said President Arroyo will join the local coconut farmers, community leaders, Legaspi Oil Co. chair Josefa Imperial Aquino and other officials of the Oil Mills Group in the re-opening ceremony of the facility.

Arranza said the Arimbay plant has not been in operation since 2007 after the coconut farms in the area were devastated by typhoons. “This time, the area has really recovered and it has become feasible to crush again. “To increase the earnings of the farming community in Arimbay, we are now finalizing a scheme that will make the farmers not just suppliers of copra, but also owners up to the finished product through a tolling agreement that we will be forging with them.

“Through this, the farmers will enjoy more value-added benefits,” he said in a statement. Edgardo Santos, CIIF Oil Mills Group vice president for marketing, trading and operations, said the company spent P2 million to refurbish the Arimbay plant, which has a capacity of 400 tons per day. This will increase the CIIF Group’s current operating copra-crushing capacity by 25 percent.

Santos said the plant will initially process 300 to 330 tons of copra per day until it reaches its rated capacity. “We sell some of the output in Arimbay as crude and export them, or for CME production locally, whichever has a higher price. If exported, the 330 tons per day will bring in $3.75 million in foreign-exchange earnings per month,” he said.

CIIF, he added, exports mainly to the United States and Europe. With the Arimbay facility on-stream anew, Santos said the farmers in the area will be commanding higher prices for their copra because their current buyers will now have competition.

Source: CIIF to reopen P400-million copra-crushing plant in Legazpi, by Jennifer A. Ng, BusinessMirror, August 11, 2009. Accessed August 12, 2009.