About Palm Oil

Our Palm Oil Plantation

Allan and Gerardine Lear, owner of Oz Future Fuels based at Landsborough are focused on fuel technologies for future generations. They recognised that fossil fuels can’t be relied upon indefinitely. With this in mind they have developed many waste oil reprocessing and bio fuel projects through state and federal support. Trucking companies and many councils have embraced their technology in the area of oil reprocessing and blending technology.

In addition to current waste oil and vegetable oil reprocessing and blending they are looking to future fuel stock supplies.

Allan and Gerardine have planted a fully sustainable, environmentally sound Palm Oil crop for their own oil feed stock supply. Unlike many environmentally unsound Asian plantations they are only planting on previously cleared land, not existing bushland. In addition this will be a long term crop, supplying oil for more than twenty years.

The crop will be grown on the corner of Mooloolah Connection Road and Steve Irwin Way. The crop will provide education and agricultural opportunities for cane farmers to explore an alternate crop.

Peak oil is accelerating the need for more bio fuel self sufficiency and Australian crops are essential for increasing future independence.

	LAND PREPARATION
	PALM OIL PLANTS READY TO REPLANT
	PLANTED PALMS
	Ariel View of Plantation
	Seed Processing Area
	Nursery
	Steve Irwin Way Frontage

Oil Palm

The fruit takes five to six months to mature from pollination to maturity; it comprises an oily, fleshy outer layer (the pericarp), with a single seed (kernel), also rich in oil. Unlike other relatives, the oil palm does not produce offshoots; propagation is by sowing the seeds.

Oil palms are grown for their clusters of fruit, which can weigh 40-50 kg. Upon harvest, the drupe, pericarp and seeds are used for production of soap and edible vegetable oil; different grades of oil quality are obtained from the pericarp and the kernel, with the pericarp oil used mainly for cooking oil, and the kernel oil used in processed foods. For each hectare of oil palm, which is harvested year-round, the annual production averages 10 tonnes of fruit, which yields 3,000 kg of pericarp oil, and 750 kg of seed kernels, which yield 250 kg of high quality palm kernel oil as well as 500 kg of kernel meal. The meal is used to feed livestock. Some varieties have even higher productivities which has led to their consideration for producing the vegetable oil needed for biodiesel.

African Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis) Scientific classification Kingdom: Plantae Division: Magnoliophyta Class: Liliopsida Order: Arecales Family: Arecaceae Genue: Elaeis Jacq Species

Cultivation

The fruit is reddish about the size of a large plum and grows in large bunches. A bunch of fruits can weigh between 10 to 40 kilograms each. Each fruit contains a single seed (the palm kernel) surrounded by a soft oily pulp. Oil is extracted from both the pulp of the fruit (palm oil, an edible oil) and the kernel (palm kernel oil, used mainly for soap manufacture).

For every 100 kilograms of fruit bunches, typically 22 kilograms of palm oil and 1.6 kilograms of palm kernel oil can be extracted. The high productivity of the oil palm at producing oil (as high as 7,250 wow litres per hectare per year) has made it the prime source of vegetable oil for many tropical countries. It is also likely to be used for producing the necessary vegetable oil for biodiesel. A refinery in Darwin, Australia imports the palm oil from Indonesia and Malaysia.

The world's largest producer and exporter of palm oil today is Malaysia, producing about 47% of the world's supply of palm oil. Indonesia is the second largest world producer of palm oil producing approximately 36% of world palm oil volume. Both nations are expanding their palm oil production capacity and the market continues to grow. Worldwide palm oil production during the 2005-2006 growing season was 39.8 million metric tons, of which 4.3 million tons was in the form of palm kernel oil. It is thus by far the most widely-produced tropical oil, and constitutes thirty-four percent of total edible oil production worldwide.