Carotech Expects Higher Biodiesel Production

Carotech Managing Director, David Ho.

The company's operations has received a much-needed boost, given that CPO prices have tapered off since hitting a record RM4,486 a tonne in early March.

"We expect our production to pick up further following rising capacity and lower CPO prices," managing director David Ho said.

Carotech's core business is the extraction of phytonutrients – vitamin E and carotene from CPO, with methyl ester (or biodiesel) and glycerine as co-products.

CPO, which is the main raw material, makes up about 70 per cent of the company’s total production cost.

Lower CPO prices are good for Carotech as it will reduce its working capital requirements and make its products more competitive, the company said.

"However, as a conventional biodiesel plant, we depend much on the correlation of CPO prices with the prices of fossil diesel," Mr Ho said.

Carotech has just commissioned another 50,000 tonnes of CPO processing capacity, which brought the company's annual capacity to 90,000 tonnes.

And the company expects to be commissioning another 30,000 tonnes by the end of this year, bringing the annual capacity to 120,000 tonnes.

Carotech currently has two plants in Lumut and Ipoh.

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