ENUGU, Nigeria – Enugu United Palm Products Limited (UPPL), a joint public-private partnership between the Enugu State Government and Pragmatic Palms Limited, has formally commenced full commercial production of natural palm oil for domestic distribution across Nigerian consumer markets, company executives confirmed at Government House, Enugu, on Monday, September 7, 2026.
The operational milestone marks the tangible turnaround of one of Eastern Nigeria’s most storied agricultural legacies, two years after the administration of Governor Peter Mbah structured a ₦100 billion concession agreement to transfer and resuscitate the long-abandoned state-owned enterprise.
Okay News reports that the progress update was presented during an executive briefing led by the Managing Director of UPPL, Professor George Nwangwu, who accompanied the company’s board of directors to review the enterprise’s operational trajectory and expansion blueprint with Governor Mbah.
Professor Nwangwu revealed that the agribusiness venture has successfully reclaimed and restored expansive plantation estates across Ibite-Olo in Ezeagu Local Government Area, Umulokpa in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area, and Ugwu-Oba in Oji River Local Government Area, turning tracts of overgrown, dormant bushland back into commercial cultivation.
He explained that the company has already replanted more than 1,000 hectares with high-yielding palm varieties to replace moribund trees that had surpassed 50 years of age since their original cultivation under the regional administration of the late Premier of Eastern Nigeria, Dr. Michael Okpara.
“When we took over, the place was thick forest and nothing but a dead place. We came in and turned the place from being a forest into a plantation,” Professor Nwangwu said. “We have cleared the whole place, pruned the trees that were there and started replanting. The trees we met were very old, over 50 years old, and so they needed to be replaced. Gradually, we are replacing them. So far, we’ve planted over 1,000 hectares. The idea is to keep planting until we replant the entire plantation and renew all the trees that are there.”
Beyond agricultural replanting, the UPPL managing director disclosed that the company has committed an additional $2.2 million in capital expenditure to establish an advanced downstream refining plant and consolidated industrial processing complex.
“We also understand that this is a business and not just planting. Agriculture has moved beyond planting alone. We need to process because value addition is important,” Nwangwu stated. “So, we’re milling our oil now. We’ve improved the quality and quantity of the oil that we’re producing. We have installed mills and also invested heavily in refining the products further down the line. We’re investing about $2.2 million to install a refinery. The refinery will not only refine our Crude Palm Oil (CPO) into olein and stearin, it will also refine our palm kernel oil.”
The managing director announced that the company’s commercial cooking oil brand, marketed as EVOP, has officially debuted across open retail markets and supermarkets nationwide, with affordable sachet packaging scheduled to reach consumer outlets within two weeks.
Explaining the cultural and industrial symbolism behind the label, Nwangwu noted that the brand name EVOP was selected to maintain continuity with the state’s agro-industrial history, evoking the legacy of the former Anambra Vegetable Oils Products (AVOP) plant that operated in Nachi, Udi Local Government Area.
“We chose the name EVOP to make sure that we keep in touch with our historical foundation. Some of us who are old enough would remember AVOP vegetable oil being bottled in Nachi, Udi. We feel that this is the product of our people and we had to connect with our historical beginnings. That’s why we called it EVOP, to connect with and remind people of our historical AVOP,” he explained.
Commending the management team for translating policy vision into commercial productivity, Governor Mbah affirmed his administration’s dedication to supporting private capital in revamping dormant public assets to achieve the state’s target of growing the regional economy from $4.4 billion to $30 billion through aggressive agro-industrialization.
