Ayade happy with work progress at Bekwarra vegetable oil factory

Cross River Governor, Ben Ayade has expressed happiness with the progress of work at the groundnut oil processing factory in Nyanya, Bekwarra Local Government Area.

The 12,000 litres per hour groundnut oil processing mill is part of Ayade’s one industry per local government policy.

Speaking after inspecting ongoing work at the factory, the governor disclosed his reason for the siting the mill in Bekwarra. “This local government is known to be the largest producer of groundnuts and indeed the best quality in Nigeria. A lot of people from northern Nigeria call and ask me to send Bekwarra groundnut, so I started wondering what was so special about Bekwarra ground nut. So as part of my industrialisation policy of one industry to a local government, we took advantage of the raw material in Bekwarra. So being the largest producer of groundnut in the whole of Nigeria, I decided to set up a vegetable oil plant.”

The governor said the vegetable oil plant is projected to mill 12,000 litres per hour on completion,  producing natural vegetable oil from groundnut.

“So we have a system where the groundnut comes fresh from the farm, goes through a drying and de-shelling process and further down to a granulation and frying from where it goes through a pressing session to a refinery and finally it goes through the bottling line.