DEDICATION
This work is dedicated to God Almighty for His unflinching support, guidance and grace through
the course of this project
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We want to use this medium to express our utmost gratitude to God Almighty whose ever-
enduring mercies have been our strength.
We also wish to express our profound gratitude to our project supervisor. Mr. C. A Okwara, who
guided, encouraged and advised us throughout the period of our design work, and also for his
firm commitment to the realization of this work.
We also acknowledge and appreciate all our lecturers for their commitment towards inculcating
valuable knowledge in us all through these years. We will forever remain grateful to you all.
Our parents are not left out together with our sponsors and well-wishers for their unalloyed
support in this period of higher education and in the course of this project work.
Finally, thanks to every member of the group whose active cooperation enabled this project to
see the light of the day and come to fruition.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Crude Palm-Oil contains both desirable and undesirable compounds and impurities which can
negatively influence the taste and smell of the oil, as well as its appearance and shelf-life. Thus,
reducing consumer acceptance and marketability. Vegetable Oil being a major cooking oil in the
preparation of most dishes, coupled with the imposed ban placed on the importation of Refined
Bleached and Deodorised Vegetable Oil into the country inorder to encourage local mass
production, investor and manufacturers, and the recent increase in demand of healthy refined
Vegetable Oil necessitate the design of this project.
Thus, this report contains the design of a modern and economic Vegetable Oil Production Plant,
to be sited at Uyo, Akwa-Ibom State, due to the availability of raw-materials and maximum net
advantage it has over others, with a capacity of 100,000 tonnes per annum from Crude Palm-Oil
feedstock of 131,176.5679 tonnes per annum. The Plant is designed assuming a 10 years plant
life and 7,638 hours effective operational time per annum.
The selected process route for the production of Vegetable oil is Physical Refining Process as it
is more environmentally friendly, economically efficient and produces less carcinogenic product
than chemical refining process. The Refined Bleached Deodorised Vegetable Oil Production
Process developed based on practical industrial standards involves three basic operations and
sections; the Degumming section, the Bleaching section and the Deodorizing section.
The Material and Energy balance calculations have been executed for the process alongside the
design, selection and specification of the process equipment. In material balance, arithmetic
method was used to obtain the various flowrate across each stream as the individual constituent
of the process fluid was meticulously accounted for across each stream. The reference for the
energy balance calculation is 20°C as the boilers supplies heating steam across Heat Exchangers
at 127°C at a vary pressure approximately atmospheric Pressure except the deodorizer which
operates at 1.5mbar.
The Plant Layout was planned considering; the economic and Process requirement, convenience
of maintenance and operations, future expansion of the plant and also the health and safety of the
workers, process equipment and environs, so that the plant will be Ergonomically certified.
The process equipment design was highlighted, as basic design information and specification
sheet was provided and specified. The optimum diameter for each process stream was also
ascertain given the streams flow rates and density of the process fluid.
Furthermore, information on Plant Safety, Hazard loss prevention and Pollution Control was also
presented to ensure safe working environment.
Finally, from the economic analysis of the project the total capital investment, total annual
revenue and annual net profit are $47,789,081.38, $50,000,000.00 and $20,434,224.71
respectively. The predicted Rate of Return on Investment is 29.79% with a corresponding
payback period of 3.36years with a Break-even quantity of 336,000 tonnes and a vegetable oil
price of $500/tonne.
