September 21, 2005

Degussa starts up new threonine plant early
 

Degussa's Feed Additives Business Unit has announced the early start up of the "first module" of its new threonine plant at Kaba, in eastern Hungary.  The module would have a capacity of 10,000 tonnes a year.

The start up of the first module was the first step of Degussa's earlier project to convert the previous lysine plant at Kaba, into a world-scale plant for threonine with a total capacity of 30,000 tonnes a year.

Degussa said it had moved forward the project's schedule and started production for part of the plant's capacity in response to fast growing global demand for threonine. The company would also stop producing and selling lysine from the Kaba plant during this year's fourth quarter.

Earlier this year, Degussa had upgraded its threonine production capacity at Fermas spol. s.r.o., Slovakia, a fully affiliated company of Degussa. The plant's total capacity was raised to 20,000 tonnes a year.

Both expansions raised Degussa's total threonine capacity currently to 30,000 tonnes a year.