By Mark Francisco
MISAMIS ORIENTAL, Sept. 23 (PNA) – The opening of the world’s largest coconut-based plant here would boost the country’s sales and export standings in the international charcoal market industry, a company executive said Thursday.
Anders Skeini, chief executive of the Jacobi Carbons AB, said the new plant would produce 20,000 metric tons of granulized charcoal for export, making it the world’s largest coco-based charcoal plant.
The Japanese-owned Jacobi Carbons AB maintains other plants in Sri Lanka, China and Vietnam apart from their main headquarters in Sweden and its parent company in Japan.
Skeini said that the newly constructed plant was inaugurated Tuesday inside the sprawling Phividec Industrial Estate, an economic zone, that straddles in the coastal towns of Tagolo-an, Villanueva, and Jasaan, 40 kilometers east of downtown Cagayan De Oro City.
Touted to be the largest coconut-based carbon plant in the world, the Jacobi facility in this town of 20,000 people will also help boost employment and benefits to more than a thousand people, he said.
“The Jacobi facility, with its size and sophistication, represents the state-of-the-art in carbon activation technology, and will give us greater flexibility to assure a consistent supply of high quality activated carbons for our clients,” Skeini said.
The Jacobi facility at the Phividec includes a charcoal granulation plant and multiple activation kilns with grinding and pulverizing, capacity specializing in impregnation and water/acid washing.
According to the Philippine Economic Zone Authority (PEZA), which supervises Phividec Industrial Estate, the entry of Jacobi Carbons AB into the Philippine market will boost the overall status of economic zones in the country.
Sansaluna A. Pinagayao, Visayas-Mindanao zone administrator of PEZA, said that with the new development, the USD 563-billion exports generated from the 3,500 companies in its 366 economic zones all over the country would increase by 2016.
“It is always exciting to see an inauguration like this. This new milestone is a sign of progress,” Pinagayao said, adding that Jacobi will foster the coconut industry in Mindanao and all over the country.
Founded in 1916, the Sweden-based Jacobi Carbons Group was wholly acquired by Japan’s Osaka Gas Chemicals Co. Ltd. last year 2014.
The company produces a full range of activated carbon products based on coal, coconut shell, wood and other raw materials. (PNA)