BAGHDAD: Iraq is constructing the world’s largest cooking oil plant with a production capacity of nearly 3,200 tonnes a day, an Iraqi newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The project in the Central Babil governorate for the production of palm, soya, sunflower and corn oil will be completed in November 2016, the Arabic language daily Al-Mada said, quoting Haidar Al-Nomani, manager of the Babil-based Etihad Food Industries Co, a private venture which owns the plant. “This is the largest cooking oil plant in the world….the second largest plant is in the Netherland, with an output capacity of 2,000 tonnes a day…this project will be officially inaugurated in March 2017,” he said.
The project is located Southwest of the governorate’s capital Hillah and that nearly 45% of construction and engineering work has been completed, he added. Al-Mada did not mention the project’s costs but said the Company, which was created in 2010, owns a 250-million-dollar sugar plant launched in November 2015 with a capacity of 1.1 million tonnes a year. It said the company laid the foundation stone for the cooking oil project on the same day when the sugar mill was opened.
