ASIA – GEA Group, leading supplier of technology for the food processing industry has secured a contract deal with the National Agricultural Development Company (NADEC) to build and supply the industrial equipment for a large olive oil mill in Saudi Arabia.
GEA said the contract, valued at more than US$3.41 million (3 million euros) follows on from the successful completion of the first phase, as well as a collaboration with NADEC in the dairy products sector.
The project is expected to enlarge the existing olive oil plant, built in 2016 and located in the region of Al-Jouf.
The development builds on the partnership between GEA and NADEC in food processing, and more particularly in the dairy products sector, having worked together in the first phase of the project.
The second phase will involve civil engineering, automation engineering, processes and all the necessary industrial equipment to manage the olive oil plant.
The project is expected to encompass 5 million olive trees from a single farm of 3,000 hectares.
The companies argue that that the facility which in the end will be configured as an integrated “turnkey” Olive Oil mill, will be largest and most modern olive oil mill in Asia once completed.
“The cooperative relationship between NADEC and GEA’s Olive Oil Center of Excellence began in 2014.
This project is a very good example of GEA’s ability to deliver large projects anywhere in the world and provide high added value to customers since not only the equipment but also the knowledge of the process is key,” said Alvaro Martinez Regional Head Western Europe, Middle East and Africa at GEA.
Rafael Cárdenas, Head of the Center of Excellence for Olive Oil of GEA in Úbeda (Spain) said: “We were able to offer NADEC a differentiated and integrated solution from the hands of a single supplier.”
In February, GEA which is headquartered in Germany secured the deal to build a new infant formula plant in China for Junlebao Dairy.
The facility is said to be the largest infant formula plant in the country with planned production capacity of 6 tons/hour.
In July 2018, it partnered dairy company Almarai to build what the companies describe as Saudi Arabia’s “largest and most modern dairy processing facility”.
Located in Al Kharj, the new plant includes multiple production lines for a range of milk and yogurt products and has the capacity to process 2 million litres of milk a day.
