World’s Largest DL-Methionine Plant Launched by Degussa

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). Increasing world demand and long-term growth prospects in the market for DL-methionine have seen Degussa (Dusseldorf, Germany) expanding production of DL-m with developing markets in Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe as major target markets. DL-m is an essential amino acid used to ensure healthy and environmentally compatible nutrition for livestock, particularly poultry and pigs.

At the end of October the company officially inaugurated the world's largest DL-m 120,000 tpa (tons per annum) facility at its site in Antwerp, Belgium. New standards regarding the size and the degree of vertical integration in the production facilities have been implemented. All the important intermediate feeds are obtained from on-site raw material production. The facilities required for producing the raw materials, acrolein and methyl mercaptane, and for expanding the existing hydrocyanic acid production, were constructed concurrently. Degussa is now implementing this concept of integrated raw materials production at its other DL-m production sites such as Mobile, Alabama.

The existing production plant at Antwerp has a production capacity of 80,000 tpa and this will be modernized and activated in stages as global demand grows. In addition to the Antwerp and Mobile production units, Degussa has an existing DL-m production plant at Wesseling, Germany. With total global production capacity of about 320,000 tpa, the company is claiming the top spot in production of the additive.

Degussa also claims to be the only manufacturer in the world to offer all four of the key amino acids for animal nutrition. These are DL-methionine, L-lysine (under the proprietary name Biolys), L-threonine, and L-tryptophan. The company’s feed additives unit provides services and products in more than 100 countries.

The takeover of Degussa by the industrial and mining company RAG Projektgesellschaft (Essen, Germany) was recently completed. Degussa is a global leader in specialty chemicals and in 2005 generated global sales of $15 billion with 44,000 employees. In 2005, the feed additives unit generated sales of $658 million. Performance of the unit in the first half of 2006 improved on the previous year benefiting from a significantly greater demand for product and price increases that offset some of the effect of the increased cost of raw materials.

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