First Resources

First Resources is one of the largest private sector producers of crude palm oil in Indonesia. Its primary business activities are cultivating oil palms, harvesting the fresh fruit bunches from those trees and processing crude palm oil and palm kernel, which it sells in Indonesia and internationall. All of its operations and assets, consisting of 13 oil palm plantations and six palm oil mills, are located in Riau province, Sumatra, Indonesia.

Its palm oil plantations have grown significantly since it started operations in 1992. As of June 30, 2007, the 10 operating companies in the group controlled 13 oil palm plantations that covered 134,760 hectares. In July 2007, it acquired 3 additional plantations with an aggregate landbank of approximately 45,000 hectares. In addition, it acquired approximately 4,520 hectares of Hak Guna Usaha land from PT Sarpindo Graha in July 2007. It has approximately 80,526 hectares of land under cultivation as of June 30, 2007. First Resources planted substantially all of its oil palm trees between 1993 and 1998, and the percentage of mature oil palm trees under cultivation was 72.2% as of 30 June 2007, at which date it had 58,148 hectares of mature and 22,378 hectares of immature oil palm trees under cultivation.

Oil palm trees require approximately three years to mature and do not reach peak production of fresh fruit bunches until 8 years after planting. Their peak production years range from their 8th year until their 17th year, after which production of fruit gradually declines. As of June 30, 2007, the weighted average age of its plantations was about 7.8 years, and the substantial majority of palm trees are entering into prime production age. Production of fruit bunches increased from 440,550 tons in 2001 to 1,120,765 tons in 2006, an average yield of about 20 tons per hectare.

First Resources built its first palm oil mill in 1998 as its trees began to mature. It built the next 3 mills between 2001 and 2004, and its last 2 mills in 2005. In addition, between 2003 and 2005, it increased milling capacity of the first 3 mills. The 6 palm oil mills have a total annual processing capacity of 2.1 million tons of fresh fruit bunches (equivalent to 400,000 tons of crude palm oil and 90,000 tons of palm kernel per year). Its crude palm oil production increased from 83,888 tons in 2001 to 227,286 tons in 2006, with an average oil extraction rate of 21.9%.

http://www.wallstraits.com/IntelliSort/stockreport.php?code=EB5