Sumitomo Chemical will expand capacity of feed additive methionine by adding a new production line in its Ehime Works in Niihama City, Ehime Prefecture, Japan, to meet the growing demand in the market. By this expansion, the company will increase its capacity by approximately 100,000 metric tonnes per year, bringing the total production capacity for methionine to approximately 250,000 metric tonnes per year, including existing facilities. The new facility is scheduled for completion in mid-2018.
Methionine is an essential amino acid that cannot be synthesised in an animal body. It is widely used as a feed additive in livestock industry mainly for poultry feed to increase productivity of chicken meat and eggs, as poultry feed, which is made mainly from corn, often does not contain sufficient amount of methionine. Adding methionine and producing a proper balance of amino acids in feed also helps the poultry to absorb the amino-acids efficiently, thus reducing nitrogen compounds in poultry excrement, which are a source of greenhouse gas emission.
In recent years, demand for methionine has kept increasing for a variety of reasons, such as the growth of the world population, the spread of meat-eating culture in emerging countries as their economies grow, soaring prices of fishmeal, which is a feed ingredient with relatively high methionine content, and increased methionine requirement in livestock with breed improvement. The global methionine market is estimated currently at 1.1 million tonnes. It has grown at an annual rate of about 6 percent last year and is expected to continue its growth at the similar annual rates.
