Oleon decides to build new fatty acid plant in Ertvelde
Meanwhile the Board of Directors also has finished its homework and has studied the different alternatives, going from rebuilding the old installation, moving to Asia to building a new installation in Ertvelde.
Finally Oleon has decided to choose for a new plant in Ertvelde. This new plant consists of three major parts: a new splitting tower of 400 tons/day, a new distillation tower of 350 tons/day and a new hydrogenation unit with a capacity of 180 tons/day. The building of these 3 units, together with a number of necessary adjustments and demolition works, represents an investment of more than 30 million ¤. Herewith the production capacity increases with 25 % and the environment and energy effects improve.
Chris Depreeuw, Managing Director: “The strength of Oleon Ertvelde is the economies of scale. Through the loss of the distillation tower these economies of scale were broken but by rebuilding a bit bigger than before, we will have transformed this calamity into an opportunity.”
The Oleon Group closed the fiscal year 2006 with a net profit of 12.6 million ¤ compared to 10.4 million ¤ in 2005. End of January 2007 the new biodiesel plant started up smoothly, which enables us to deliver lots of biodiesel to the Belgian and French market.