Currently, Egypt consumes about 2.5 million tons of edible oils annually. Only, about 48.5 thousand tons of this quantity is produced by oilseed extraction in local extraction plants. About half of this quantity is produced mainly from cottonseed produced as a byproduct of cotton ginning industry.
What crops are grown in Egypt?
Most vital oil crops in Egypt are cotton, sunflower, and soybean despite the fact that olives, sesame, canola, peanuts, and safflower are also wellsprings of vegetable oils. Egypt does not rely on upon them for oil production. Cotton crop that is one of the dual-purpose crops is generally grown for textile industry.
Which oil is imported by Egypt?
It is clear that palm oil is the major oil imported by Egypt whereby it represents about 60% of total imported oils in 2018 while the quantity imported from corn oil is the least being about 3% in the same year. Palm oil is imported from Indonesia and Malaysia after being refined, bleached and deodorized (RBD).
What are the processing steps in edible oil industry?
As pre-mentioned, in case of edible oil industry, these processing steps include the steps of crude oil extraction from oilseed, removal of free acids by chemical and physical methods, de-colorization of neutralized oil using bleaching earth and the step of deodorizing the bleached oil.
How has the production of cottonseed oil changed in Egypt?
According to that Figure, it is quite clear that the production of cottonseed oil in Egypt has been decreased greatly over the years from 1969 whereby it was 125 thousand tons oil in 1969 to 10 thousand tons only in 2019. 2.
Do cotton seeds contribute to Egypt’s production of vegetable oils?
Cotton seeds contribute to Egypt’s production of vegetable oils by about 90% (Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, 2007 ). The area cultivated by cotton was 993 thousand feddans in 1990, but it declined to 471 thousand feddans in 2007.