Kurnia Setia hit by floods

Kurnia Setia hit by floods
By FINTAN NG


fintan@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: Kurnia Setia Bhd, whose 10,000ha of oil palm plantations are mainly in Pahang, has revised down its 2007 growth target for fresh fruit bunches (FFB) harvest to 8.5% from 10% due to the floods that have inundated the company's plantations.

A company official said the new target was 178,000 tonnes, against 182,000 before. Last year, Kurnia Setia harvested 164,000 tonnes. ?On average, the annual growth industry-wide is between 5% and 8%,? he told StarBiz.

?This year's floods have hit us very badly. Two of our plantations are flooded, which makes it hard to harvest the fruits and transport them out,? he said.

?Most of the plantations in the state have been affected,? he added.

Due to the difficulty of transporting the FFBs, the company had decided to harvest only after the floods recede, he said.

?We've instructed the workers not to harvest because once it?s (the fruit) harvested and placed on the platform it rots faster. If left on the trees, it's slower to rot. So if the opportunity comes and the floods recede, then we can harvest and quickly move it out,? he said.

The official said that one bright spot was the late arrival of the monsoon rains.

?Normally, the trend is that after October, the yields would come down sharply but, due to the later monsoon season, we managed to get two tonnes per hectare for November, which was higher than October's while the first week of December was good too,? he said.

He added that for this month the yield should be about one tonne per hectare.

Due to this, the average harvest for the past two months of the year would be 1.5 tonnes per hectare compared with the usual one tonne per hectare, he said.

The company's latest crop figures released to Bursa Malaysia showed it harvested 19,863 tonnes of FFBs in November this year compared with 14,205 tonnes a year earlier.

The average yield per hectare between November and February was one tonne, which was normal, he added.

He said the first two months of next year would be quite wet too, which might dampen palm oil supply.

?We usually see production picking up in the second half of February but, if the weather is bad, I foresee less supply,? he added.

The official said production in the state was slow in the first half and only picked up from July.