Segilola gold miner gives Osun host communities 10 cassava, palm processing plants
- Thor Explorations, through Segilola Resources Operating Limited, is providing ten mini cassava and oil palm processing plants to three host communities.
- Beneficiaries pay half the equipment cost under a subsidy, with the rest on hire purchase.
- The company says the machines will cut manual labour and help local processors earn more.
Thor Explorations Ltd, through its Nigerian subsidiary Segilola Resources Operating Limited (SROL), is giving ten mini cassava and oil palm processing plants to the communities hosting its Segilola Gold Mine in Osun State.
The equipment goes to Imogbara, Odo-Ijesha and Iperindo. Six of the plants are for oil palm and four for cassava, shared among selected beneficiaries in the three communities.
Under the arrangement, the company covers 50 percent of the equipment cost as a subsidy. The balance is paid through a hire purchase agreement, which the firm says is meant to encourage ownership, accountability and long-term maintenance of the machines.
What each beneficiary gets
Each oil palm plant comes with a vertical palm fruit debuncher and a diesel-powered automatic presser. The debunchers can handle 800 to 1,000 kilogrammes of fruit per hour, cutting the manual work of separating palm fruits from their bunches.
Each cassava plant has a grater, a manual presser fitted with a 32-tonne jack, and a fryer for making garri. The graters process 500 kilogrammes of cassava per hour, while the pressers squeeze out excess water before the next stage.
Iperindo gets two oil palm plants and two cassava plants. Imogbara and Odo-Ijesha each get two oil palm plants and one cassava plant.
The company said local processors have relied on labour-intensive methods, which limit how much they can produce, slow down processing and hold back their earnings.
Why it matters
Cassava and oil palm are staple sources of income in these communities, and better equipment could mean more garri and palm oil at lower cost and in less time for the people who make them.
Thor said the project should also boost transport, trading and distribution around the communities, and create demand for related local services as output and quality improve.
The plants are part of SROL's wider community investment, which the company says also covers women's enterprise, education and livelihood restoration programmes.
The company did not say how much the equipment costs, how many people applied, or when the machines would be handed over.
