What is the commercial oil refinery machine price in India? Answering this question is not easy – not because of a lack of knowledge of the price of different pieces of equipment, but because no two oil refinery plants in India look the same. While one may process crude sunflower oil, another may be involved in rice bran oil refining. One may process quantities of about 5 tonnes per day, while another player in the industry could potentially be dealing with 60 or 80 tonnes daily. One company’s oil refining machine price may be defined by its location in the United States, whereas its Indian counterpart may end up shelling out much less – even within India, there are differences if you’re located in a special economic zone or another area that offers unique incentives.
Production scale, product choice, location, equipment quality, maintenance costs, raw material costs… the list of factors affecting oil refining machine prices are unending. So you can see why it is difficult to answer questions about commercial oil refinery machine prices in India with a definite number. Further, you may be wondering why factors like maintenance cost or raw material cost would affect the cost of refining equipment – the answer to that lies in the fact that all parts of the oil refining process are interconnected. Your equipment – be it a bleacher, deodorizer, steam generator, degummer, or bleaching earth tank – may be relatively inexpensive, but that low cost may have to be balanced by investments in higher quality raw materials or high maintenance costs to achieve good quality refined oil.
In this article, we’re going to explore all the interconnections that may directly and indirectly affect the cost of setup and operations in your edible oil refinery plant. So that the next time you’re investing in an oil refinery plant, you know better than to consider only the actual equipment cost – so that you know exactly what elements affect the oil refinery machine price in India.
Oil refinery machine price in India: What you need to know before you invest
Before you make any investments, it is important to outline a plan for your refinery. This includes not only the type of crude oil you want to work with or how you intend to source it but also the scale and location of your plant, as well as the annual costs of operating the facility. Here’s a guide that will help you not only craft such a plan but also help you find the true cost of your refining equipment.
The scale of the operation
The scale of your refining operation will determine not only the size and capacity of your equipment but also the type of equipment. This is because different processes are ideal for small and large-scale refining. Generally, the higher the processing capacity, the greater the investment cost.
You may start at a small scale, say at a capacity that is less than 20 tonnes per day (TPD). For such small-scale refining, batch-type processing is the way to go. The commercial oil refinery machine price in India for batch refining varies based on specific processing capacity, material of construction, and other factors, but on the whole, its cost will likely be less than the cost of continuous refining equipment.
When should you go for continuous refining? When your daily crude oil processing capacity crosses the 50 TPD mark, it is most definitely time to upgrade your process – this will also most likely involve an increase in oil refining machine prices in India and elsewhere. Making the switch to continuous refining will help you save on energy consumption, improve production efficiency, and produce edible oil of superior quality. Changes will also be needed to your plant in terms of disc centrifuges and heat exchangers, but all these modifications will help you gain on energy efficiency and processing time, especially during degumming and deacidification.
But what do you do if you’re somewhere between 20 and 50 TPD? Well, there are also semi-continuous oil refining plants.
Oil refinery machine price in India
The commercial oil refinery machine price in India is determined by the types of machines you need, the total number of pieces of equipment, its material of construction, space requirements, utility consumption, energy efficiency, process automation levels, and overall quality.
Let’s take the material of construction, to begin with. Let’s say that, as per your plan, your facility will be involved in batch refining of an oil. This would require at least four separate tanks for the processes of degumming, decolorization, deacidification, and deodourisation. Stainless steel would be the ideal material for constructing these tanks, especially so for deodorization. The other three could potentially also be made of carbon steel. Stainless steel will offer massive benefits in terms of product quality and equipment durability, but it will also cost more.
Next, space consumption. As we’ll be discussing soon, land is an important and expensive resource, especially in a country like India – how you use it ultimately affects the oil refinery machine price in India. It may be worth it to spend a little more on equipment with a special space-saving design, like Kumar’s Ecopure Bleacher, to save on limited space.
Maintenance costs are also a crucial part of the oil refining machine price. A low initial cost for a machine may prove to be a bad decision in the long run as you shell out a lot more than you initially saved on repairs, maintenance, spare parts, and lost productive time. So first, it is always important to make a choice based on quality more than price. Second, investing in an annual maintenance contract is one of the smartest decisions you can make to save yourself unnecessary emergency expenses in the long run.
Raw materials
Your total costs may differ significantly based on not only which oil you manufacture but also whether the crude oil you refine is extracted in-house or sourced from another oils and fats industry player. When you extract the crude oil yourself, you may save on things like transport and logistics. You may be able to share equipment and utility costs across both operations and most importantly, you will be able to fully control the quality of your product – the additional earnings from this can be used to offset the higher cost of quality equipment.
Location and space
Ultimately, a lot of your budget will have to be determined by where you are based. The commercial oil refinery machine price in India will be very different from the price in a European country. Your location will not only affect the cost of inputs like equipment, human resources, and raw materials but also the space that you occupy. Your cost investment will also vary depending on if you’re leasing or purchasing the space. Either way, space is an important resource: as an edible oil refiner, you need adequate space to place all your pieces of equipment and store your raw materials and finished products. This is a significant additional cost that you must account for.
Operating costs to tie it all together: Process costing
If you’re still wondering how all of these factors come together, this is a good time for us to bring up the concept of process costing. Process costing is an accounting method used by companies that produce large quantities, with each unit of output nearly identical. Tracking down the costs for making each unit would be tedious and sometimes even impossible. So in this process, companies instead track the cost of each stage in the production process. Then, they divide the total cost by the number of units produced to get the cost per unit. Both direct costs and indirect costs are added.
In the oil refining industry, direct costs would involve the cost of crude oil, other raw materials, machine operators’ wages, and more. Rent for the space, equipment maintenance costs, administrative staff payments, and other overheads would count as indirect costs.
This is only an initial foray into the world of oil refining machine price, but it’s as good a place to start as any. When it comes to your plant, you will need contextual research and an expert team by your side, like the ones at Kumar. But until then, if anyone asks you about the commercial oil refinery machine price in India, you know better than to give them a number – the best way to start will usually be, “Well, it depends…”
Source: Online/GFMM
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