The export of vegetable oil in our region is increasing annually. The Tambov product is of special interest in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Serbia and Belarus. Since 2017, the Tambov Region has been taking the 4th place in the Central Federal District for the vegetable oil production. If in 2019, it was 140 thousand tons, then in 2020, it is already 200 thousand. The manufacture of this product in our region is 7 times higher than its consumption.
Lydia Bakumenko, the Head of the Department of Agriculture of the Tambov Region: “Since we provide domestic consumption ourselves, we still have a large volume for export outside our region. Within the implementation of the regional project "Export of Agro-Industrial Complex Products" over the past three years, the export of products of the fat and oil industry increased by 80 percent and amounted to more than 20 million US dollars at the end of 2020.“
One of the largest oil exporters is the plant in Bolshaya Lipovitsa. Up to 750 tons of this product are manufactured here daily. The process is provided by an automatic line, which is serviced just by 4 shift workers. Here, the seeds are cleaned of impurities and sorted by size. After that, the sunflower seeds are “scoured”, i.e. kernels are separated from the husk. The oil-rich kernels are crushed by roller mills. The next stage is a heater, where the bulk is warmed up with hot air steam. Finally, the sunflower is processed in a mill (twice). The oil remaining in the cake at the exit amounts just to 5-6 percent. The oil is filtered and directed to the oil storage for the further shipment.
Sergey Maksimov, the General Director of Ecooil JSC: “Today we ship 40 percent of the total volume of oil manufactured for export. When considering e.g. in monetary terms, the amount of our export shipment in 2020 was 3.5 billion rubles."
The main customers of the company abroad are the Baltic States, Belarus and Poland. Currently, oil is being shipped under a long-term agreement to partners in the Republic of Iran.
The oil plant is planning a large-scale modernization and an increase in the manufacturing capacity by almost two times. We are talking about both the renovation of the existing lines and the construction of a new plant for the cake extraction. This will make it possible to improve the quality of sunflower oil, as well as to start the manufacture of sunflower meal.
Source: tvtambov.ru