FBA Issue 31: March / April 2010

 

 

 

 

Sumitomo Chemical recalls 2005 as a significant time for its Animal Nutrition Division, as it was during that year when it embarked on major expansion on its methionine production. It specifically entered into the liquid methionine analog market, making it to the top four of world methionine producers in the world.

 

Kiyoharu Enoki, general manager of Sumitomo Chemical's Animal Nutrition Division, points out that the company has been very much responsive to the spiraling needs of the market and in fact, its expansion projects have mainly been based on this encouraging growth in demand.  He says that "there has been a big increase of methionine consumption – and there were reasons for such an increase. One important thing to note is that people started to eat more poultry meat and there was growth of economy in developing countries and huge demand in the market of developed countries. I think consumption of Methionine has been growing by 4-5% on an annual basis."

 

Interestingly, even with fast-paced expansion projects in the pipeline, Enoki thinks that "even though we establish such plant (in Ehime Works, Japan), if you think about the total requirement of methionine, that's not enough to fulfill all the requirements in the world.  Therefore, there should be an increasing capacity; otherwise there will be shortage of methionine for the feed industry."

 

Currently, the company is producing around 100,000 tonnes of both dl-methionine and liquid methionine analog. With the new plant in Ehime Works to be completed this spring, another 40,000 tonnes will be added to its present capacity.

 

Yet, the expansion efforts certainly would not stop here for Sumitomo. Enoki elaborates that "if it is really needed, we would be considering another one (methionine plant). There's no limitation on our side to produce more; it would depend upon the market and the customers. If necessary, we are going to move quickly to meet such a growing demand.  We have a good potential to become a larger-scale feed additive company mainly targeting on methionine."