West Africa is the home of the oil palm, and doesn't need to go full Borneo to produce adequate amounts of fat for saponification.
Re:The afterlife of used hotel soap
by Scoundreller on Sunday April 24, 2022 @11:14PM
(#31150440)
Maybe the home, but that doesn't mean productive. They're not producing enough to export, and seem to even be net importing it:
https://oec.world/en/profile/hs92/palm-oil
But maybe not being well represented here indicates a healthy domestic market.
(and this data can be suspect: Netherlands aren't growing any, but might do some processing of some kind or re-export)
https://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?commodity=palm-oil shows 84% of production being from Indonesia and Malaysia.
Why would you consider exports a useful metric here? Soap can be manufactured with oil for domestic consumption.
And one could argue that plant ash isn't the most sustainable source of base in making soap.