<p></p><p>A factory to extract oil from cashew nutshells will begin operating in the city of Nacala-Porto in Nampula province in 2017, said the provincial delegate of the Cashew Promotion Institute (Incaju), Jaime Chissico. The project counts financing from the central government and cooperation partners and the respective plans are in a very advanced phase, said Chissico, cited by the Maputo daily Notícias. <br></p> <p>During a visit by provincial governor Victor Borges, Chissico explained that oil extracted from cashew shells is “considered vital in various industrial sectors,” among them civil aviation, and that there was no lack of raw material in Nampula, Mozambique’s leading producer of cashews. <br></p> <p>The project’s feasibility studies are not yet finished and neither the minimum required investment, nor the capacity of the future factory, are known. However, Chissico guaranteed that those details would be available by the end of this year.Mozambique was at one time before independence in 1975 the world’s leading producer of cashew nuts, with annual commercialised production of 216,000 tons.<br></p><p></p>