October 8, 2026 | by Frank, SunAura Machinery Project Engineering
QINGDAO, China — SunAura Machinery has completed factory acceptance testing (FAT) for a fully automatic palm oil filling, capping and labeling line destined for a producer in Lagos, Nigeria. The line, scheduled for shipment later this month, is SunAura’s first complete liquid packaging project in the West African market and is configured specifically for the region’s palm oil and vegetable oil bottling requirements.
Why the Project Matters
Nigeria is Africa’s largest palm oil consumer, with domestic production of roughly 1.3 million tonnes annually. Local processors have historically bottled palm oil on semi-automatic equipment imported second-hand from Europe — but as Nigerian food safety regulations tighten and export demand from the ECOWAS region grows, producers are investing in new, fully automatic lines that meet NAFDAC bottling standards.
The Lagos customer — a mid-size processor with an existing palm oil refinery — approached us after comparing quotes from Turkish, Italian and Indian equipment suppliers. The deciding factors were total cost of ownership, our experience with hot-fill applications (palm oil is bottled at 55–65°C), and our willingness to provide a local agent for installation support in Lagos.
Line Configuration
| Station | Equipment | Specifications |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4-head servo piston filler | Up to 2,000 bottles/hour (1L); handles 55°C palm oil |
| 2 | Automatic screw capper | For 28mm tamper-evident caps; torque adjustable |
| 3 | Round-bottle self-adhesive labeler | Up to 3,000 bottles/hour; date coder integrated |
| 4 | PET bottle air conveyor | 6 meters; connects filler to labeler |
| 5 | End-of-line shrink wrapper | For 6-bottle and 12-bottle shrink packs |
West Africa: A Growing Market for SunAura
West Africa has been a quiet growth market for SunAura over the past two years. We’ve shipped individual filling machines to customers in Ghana, Ivory Coast and Senegal, but the Lagos project is our first complete turnkey liquid filling line in the region. Nigerian buyers, like many of our customers, initially price-compare against Indian and Turkish suppliers — but they consistently choose SunAura after comparing the specification detail, the after-sales warranty terms, and the responsiveness of our engineering team.
We’re now working with a Lagos-based installation partner who will receive the equipment, supervise the installation, and train the customer’s operators on-site. This local support model is increasingly important for West African buyers, who rightly worry about long wait times for spare parts and technical support.
What’s Next for West Africa
The Lagos palm oil line is the first of three West African projects scheduled for Q4 2026. We’re currently building a cashew packaging line for a customer in Benin and a sachet water filling line for a producer in Togo. The common thread across these projects is that buyers are replacing aging European used equipment with new Chinese-built machinery that offers comparable performance at roughly half the cost — and, crucially, comes with a full warranty and local support.
Based in West Africa and evaluating filling or packaging equipment? Send your product type, bottle size, and target throughput through the contact page. We’ll provide a quotation tailored to West African power standards (380V/50Hz), include NAFDAC-relevant documentation, and connect you with our Lagos installation partner. Browse our liquid filling machines and integrated lines for more on-line configurations.
More West African project updates — including the Benin cashew line and Togo sachet water project — will be posted to the news section as they ship.