PETALING JAYA: QL Resources Bhd is confident its palm pellet project, a biomass energy initiative, will materialise by 2011, says managing director Chia Song Kun. “We are on track to commercialise and build commercial plants for this project and confident that it will happen during our next financial year (ending March 2011),” he said after the company EGM on Tuesday. So far, QL is the only company with palm pelletising technology which has patented the technology. “I believe this plant will be the first of its kind in Malaysia,” Chia said but did not elaborate on the financial information of the business. Meanwhile, the company was anticipating its FY10 net profit at between RM106mil and RM110mil based on annualised estimates, he said. He also expected “normal” performance for three of its core business activities over the next few months. “The early arrival of the monsoon season has affected our East Coast fishing operations in Endau and Kota Kinabalu. While the weather has affected fishing activities and led to a shortage of fish, it also mean an increase in consumption of eggs,” he said. QL is involved in distributing animal feed raw materials and producing poultry eggs. It is also involved in livestock farming and deep-sea fishing as well as crude palm oil milling and oil palm cultivation. “We are growing our marine market through our frozen products to move into more remote areas like Bentong where the shelf live is longer. This range of products is also growing very fast overseas,” Chia said. He added that the company would allocate about RM150mil each year for its overseas and local expansion plans and the amount would be generated via internal funds and bank borrowings. “With the aggressive expansion in all our core businesses, conservatively we are looking at spending RM150mil over the next two to three years,” he said. Meanwhile, its net profit for the three months ended Sept 30 rose 3.4% to RM26.05mil while its revenue declined to RM337.17mil from RM391.62mil previously. Earnings per share improved to 7.97 sen from 7.66 sen. In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, the company said only its marine product manufacturing division managed to show improvement year-on-year. “Sales increased for the marine product division due to higher contribution from fishmeal and deep sea fishing activities,” it said, adding that its palm oil activities declined due to lower crude palm oil prices and prolonged low crop.
