South Africa is set to s set to complete the upgrade of edible-oil supplier CEOCO’s Boksburg plant, in Gauteng, by September.
Civil and structural engineering firm ADA Consulting MD Paul Maitre, confirmed the reports and said the upgrade valued at US $9m included roads, concrete work, civils services, structural steelworks and warehouses, connectivity to the local grid, buildings and construction of the silos for storage of raw materials, as well as the end-products.
A total of 31 silos and tanks have been procured for the project, and will be used to store the raw ingredients, as well as end- and by-products on site. The plant, which is wholly owned by CEOCO, hopes to be 100% self-reliant on completion of the upgrade.
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Udible-oil plant
The plant upon the upgrade completion, will be one of the first in the area to run its own boilers using the by-products or husks from the sunflower seeds. Mr. Maitre added that the main contractor has also managed to adhere to agreements made with local communities, a prerequisite of which was to employ adequately skilled people from the local workforce.
ADA Consulting was contracted at the inception of the project in September 2017 to do the civil works. Eventually, the company became involved in all aspects of the upgrade, which included designing the conveyor gantries servicing the storage silos used for soya beans and sunflower seeds storage. It will also be involved in the installation of the plant and boiler next month.
The boilers, which are used to provide steam for the processing plant as needed, will boast a surplus of steam, which could be sold to the neighboring plant that has an older, multi-fuel boiler system.
