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ublicly-listed palm-oil company PT BW Plantation (BWPT) is seeking an additional 40,000 to 50,000 hectares of land to support its plan to have a total land bank of 150,000 hectares.

 “The land is located in areas we are currently developing, perhaps in Kalimantan,” BWPT president director Abdul Halim Ashari said on Wednesday.

“We remain in the study phase, including assessment with local communities and local administrations.”

The company expects that it will obtain approval to acquire the land in the second half of the year,
corporate secretary Kelik Irwantono said.

BWPT has allocated Rp 265 billion (US$28.88 million), from its total capital expenditure of Rp 1.1 trillion, to support its acquisition programs.

The company recently used Rp 174.9 billion to acquire a 99.99 percent stake in PT Prima Cipta Selaras, which has a permit to utilize 11,203 hectares of land located in East Kalimantan.

Prima Cipta’s current planted area reaches 2,059 hectares.

Abdul said that BWPT would use the remaining funds, amounting to around Rp 90 billion, for the next acquisitions.

“The size of the land will depend on how much we will get with that amount of money,” Abdul said.

BWPT currently has 105,000 hectares of land, of which 62,699 already has plantings. As many as 27,627 hectares are already in production.

The company is targeting to reach 42,000 hectares of productive land next year and 52,000 hectares in 2014.

BWPT reaped Rp 267 billion in revenue in the first quarter of the year, surging 55 percent from
Rp 172 billion from the same period last year.

 Abdul said that the growth was supported by new land where production has just started.

The company’s net profits stood at Rp 82 billion in the first three months of the year, increasing 52 percent from Rp 54 billion recorded in the same period last year.

A rise in production, despite lower crude palm-oil (CPO) prices, supported BWPT’s performance.

BWPT’s fresh fruit production increased by 5 percent to 116,247 tons in the first quarter of the year, compared with the 110,748 tons recorded in the same period last year.

CPO production reached 27,426 tons in the January to March period, increasing 8 percent from the 25,347 tons in the same period last year.

Meanwhile, production of palm kernels reached 4,689 tons in the first quarter of the year, a 11 percent increase from 4,218 tons in the same period last year.

“We have seen higher CPO in the second quarter,” Kelik said, adding that the company’s CPO price reached Rp 9.3 million per ton.

The company’s average selling price stood at Rp 7.83 million in the first quarter of the year.

The company is targeting a 15 to 20 percent increase in production this year.

BWPT also reported a 21 percent increase in crude palm-oil production to 110,771 tons in 2011.

The company’s total production reached 458,217 tons last year.