Degussa to take up work on the largest methionine plant worldwide in Antwerp

10-Sep-2003
Degussa AG of Dusseldorf will now be building a further facility at its location in Antwerp, Belgium, for the production of the essential amino acid DL-methionine for use in animal feed. Approval for this step was provided yesterday by the Supervisory Board. The methionine production facility will be costing about EUR350 million altogether, making it the 'new' Degussa's largest investment to date. The new plant will have a capacity of 150,000 tonnes a year and is to be completed by 2005. The additional production facility is to enable Degussa to meet the growing global demand for this indispensable animal feed protein over the long term. To guarantee maximum production efficiency and supply security, all the preliminary stages involved in the production of methionine are also to be expanded in line with the capacity of the new installation. The decision in favor of Antwerp as the location for the new methionine production facility is largely due to the city's excellent infrastructure as well as its logistic advantages as a sea port. Degussa Management Board Chairman Prof. Utz-Hellmuth Felcht emphasizes the strategic significance of the investment decision: "Expanding this attractive core business field takes our efforts to focus on specialty chemicals a consistent step forward. We are a customer-oriented supplier of innovative system solutions also with regard to methionine and with its help make an important contribution towards environmentally-compatible animal feed." "The new production facility will enable us to further expand our position as world market leader in methionine and as a leading supplier of feed additives. It sets new standards in terms of installation size and degree of vertical integration," states Dr. Hubert Wennemer, Head of the Feed Additives Business Unit. Degussa's Feed Additives Business Unit is the only manufacturer in the world to produce all three of the important animal feed amino acids DL-methionine, L-lysine (Biolys) and L-threonine, which it makes at five locations in four countries. The business unit, which sells its products in over 100 countries of the world, generated sales of EUR568 million in fiscal 2002.

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