A location-allocation model for the Nigerian oil palm industry assuming an infinite location space

Nigeria, which has, until recently, been a major exporter of palm oil, is at present unable to meet the demand for domestic consumption. Government oil plantations have therefore been established to increase production of oil. These new plantations require processing units to be installed in order to extract the oil from the fruits that are produced.This paper describes the development and application of a model which determines the number, sizes and locations of these new processing units in order to minimise the combined costs of transportation and processing. The model assumes that processing units can be located anywhere in an infinite location space.The results of a sensitivity analysis are also presented. These indicate the relative insensitivity of the solution to possible future changes in factors affecting the location-allocation decisions.