Description

An essential oil is a concentrated hydrophobic liquid containing volatile (defined as “the tendency of a substance to vaporize”) aroma compounds from plants.

Essential oils are also known as volatile oils, ethereal oils, aetherolea, or simply as the oil of the plant from which they were extracted, such as oil of clove. An oil is “essential” in the sense that it contains the “essence of” the plant’s fragrance—the characteristic fragrance of the plant from which it is derived.

Essential oils are obtained from blossoms, seeds, fruits, fruit peels, leaves, stems, barks, wood, roots, and plant secretions.

Essential oils are found in hundreds of products but are generally used as odorants, flavorants, and pharmaceutical ingredients.

As odorants, they are used in perfumes, lotions and other cosmetics, soaps, detergents, and other products ranging from animal feed to insecticides. As flavorants, they are present in a wide variety of foods, including soft drinks, baked products, ice creams, candy, confections, etc. As pharmaceutical ingredients, essential oils are used in dental products such as toothpaste, aromatherapy and phytotherapy products, and a large number of medicines.
Essential oil are widely used in the cosmetics, pharmaceuticals confectionery, and beverage industries. Currently industrial demand for essential oil is met through import.

The demand for the various types of essential oils is increasing with the expansion and establishment of the food, soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industry and various chemical industries.
This report examines the financial viability of establishing an essential oil (Eucalyptus Oil) processing plant in Nigeria.

The production capacity of the proposed plant is fifty (50) Litres per day and would operate a double shift of eight (8) hours each at 80% of installed capacity for three hundred (300) working day producing about twelve thousand (12,000) litre of Eucalyptus Oil annually.