Ironically, several companies have been phasing out their amino acid operations. Dow Chemical, for example, has stopped making glycine and methionine, although it still produces the hydroxy analog. BASF also has gotten out of the glycine business. International Minerals & Chemical, Hercules, Merck, and Pfizer have discontinued glutamic acid production. And DSM in the Netherlands shelved a lysine-fromcaprolactam project. Economic considerations figure prominently in the thinking that led to these decisions, notes Albert Hahn, who heads the multiclient studies group at BEICIP. He points out that world capacity for methionine this year is about 92,000 metric tons, but demand is probably no greater than 70,000 metric tons. Similarly, global capacity of glycine, at 12,800 metric tons, is about twice current consumption. A host of technical factors tend to discourage companies from producing amino acids. Chemical pathways to the acids, even when they are commercially viable and provide relatively high yields, present the disadvantage of producing racemic mixtures. And since only the L-form of amino acids can be metabolized (except in the case of methionine, which is biologically acceptable in the DL-form), costly resolution of a racemic mixture into the active product becomes necessary. Biosynthetic routes such as fermentation, on the other hand, although starting from relatively inexpensive materials and resulting in the biologically active L-form of the amino acids, call for delicate process control and exceptionally clean environments. Moreover, they employ principles of biochemical engineering that aren't always readily controllable and may result in low yields. However, recent upward shifts in protein prices are making the economic picture of amino acid production look more favorable. The decision earlier this year to restrict exports of soy cake from the U.S., because of temporary supply shortages at the time, led to a sharp price rise of animal feeds as well as of individual amino acids in Europe and elsewhere. In France, the BEICIP study notes, methionine, which had cost about $1.60 per kg. last January, more than doubled in price to about $4.20 by midyear. L-Lysine's price quadrupled from $2.30 to $9.30 per kg. Foodstuffs vary quite widely in their amino acid composition. Soy cake protein, for example, contains 1.4% by weight of methionine; corn, 2.2%; and polished rice, 3.1%. Lysine varies from 2.9% by weight in corn protein to 6.5% in soy cake and 10% in beef. Similarly, the tryptophan content of corn protein is only 0.6%, but in polished rice it is 2.0%. One way of overcoming this problem in feed formulations is by adding individual amino acids to compensate for their original deficiency. This approach, according to BEICIP,
often is cheaper than combining differ- hancement and seasoning for processed ent foodstuffs whose amino acid con- foods. Synthetic DL-methionine, produced tent is complementary. L-Glutamic acid, produced by fer- from acrolein, methyl mercaptan, and mentation (although a synthetic route hydrocyanic acid, is the next largest starting from acrylonitrile exists), is by tonnage amino acid used. A remarkfar the most important amino acid able 29% average annual growth rate in from the standpoint of tonnage. World consumption during the past 10 years consumption, the study notes, tripled raised demand to 65,000 to 70,000 metduring the past 10 years to 200,000 ric tons last year. Although growth in demand for memetric tons in 1972. BEICIP foresees growth in demand for the acid continu- thionine has been high, L-lysine has far ing at an annual rate of 6 to 8% in the outpaced it. Between 1967 and 1972, foreseeable future so that by 1980 an- L-lysine consumption increased on avnual consumption may be 280,000 to erage 43% a year from about 2000 metric tons in 1967 to 15,000 metric tons 310,000 metric tons. However, even this estimate may last year. Currently made from ferprove conservative if a potential indus- mentation, its fortunes will reflect any trial outlet now under development in shortfall in soy cake availability. BEIJapan emerges. There, Ajinomoto Co. CIP forecasts a market potential for Land Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., both lysine of 25,000 to 30,000 metric tons producers of glutamic acid, are devel- next year. From then on, growth in deoping a leather substitute made of a mand will follow that of animal feed in fiber base to which is applied a general, which has been gaining 7 to polyamino acid coating whose essential 8% each year, so that by 1980 the ingredient is glutamic acid. Both com- world market for L-lysine should be panies are doubling output of these 40,000 to 45,000 metric tons. But even that estimate may prove resins, Ajinomoto to about 1500 metric tons per year and Kyowa Hakko Kogyo too low if, as seems possible, L-lysine is to 1000 metric tons per year. Such res- used as an enrichment for cereals for ins eventually could represent an addi- human consumption. When L-lysine is tional annual demand of 10,000 to added to cereals at 2 kg. per ton, it raises the protein efficiency ratio—the 20,000 metric tons of glutamic acid. The bulk of glutamic acid output ratio of weight increase of a guinea pig (140,000 metric tons last year) is cen- to protein intake—by 30% at a cost intered in Japan. U.S. production is crease of only 4%. Cereal enrichment about 20,000 metric tons annually. Its by 1980 could constitute a market for use (as the monosodium salt) is split an additional 10,000 to 20,000 metric about evenly between food taste en- tons of the acid yearly.
Hong Kong attracts chemical investment Dow Chemical's project for a 150 million pound-a-year polystyrene plant in Hong Kong (C&EN, Dec. 17, page 4) is not only the first plastics resin plant in the British colony. The plan also marks a shift in the colonial government's policy on land use in its crowded, 400-square-mile jurisdiction. The change could mean new interest in Hong Kong as a site for chemical production in Asia. As a free port centrally located in east Asia, Hong Kong's attractions are obvious. Goods, capital, and people can move freely in and out. And local demand for resins and fibers is one of the largest in Asia. One snag has been
the high cost of suitable land in the crown colony. Dow expects to break ground next month for its plant on Tsing Yi, one of the larger of the 230-odd islands that, along with a slice of the mainland, make up Hong Kong. The 10-acre site is being acquired by private treaty lease from the Hong Kong government —its first such transfer of land for industrial or commercial use. All land in Hong Kong is held by the British Crown and is available for private use only by long-term lease. Normally leases are sold to the highest bidder at public auction. The high prices resulting from this
New land policy could make Britain's crown colony a chemical center
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practice have retarded establishment of capital-intensive, heavy industry in Hong Kong, encouraging instead densely packed high-rise factories housing labor-intensive operations such as weaving and plastics fabrication. The new policy of leasing industrial sites—for specifically defined uses—by direct negotiation with the government will mean more attractive land costs for industries such as petrochemicals that can't go high-rise. (Just how much more attractive remains to be seen; the price of Dow's lease is still being nego tiated.) Where needed, acquisition of l large tracts will also be easier through negotiated industrial land leases. Land transferred at public auction, points out the lands and survey branch of Hong Kong's public works department, is usually in rather small parcels. The new land policy, in short, is an incentive plan for heavy industries. But it also gives the government a lever in choosing the industries it wish es to cultivate and in keeping their plants within designated zones—gener ally as far as possible from the densely populated districts around the central harbor. Dow's plant site on Tsing Yi Island, for example, is some 5 miles from the central district, though close to the mainland. Peninsula Electric Power Co. already operates a 600-Mw. station on Tsing Yi, and other parts of it are allotted for heavy industry. A consortium of Hong Kong cotton spin ners is now talking with the govern ment about a similar lease on a main land site still farther from the central districts. Their object: a polyester fiber spinning plant. Both sites are within the new terri tories, land which is itself on lease to Hong Kong from the People's Republic of China until 1997. Further industrial expansion, the Hong Kong government confirms, must take place within the new territories. Though comprising more than 90% of Hong Kong's total land area, the new territories include many rocky islets and underdeveloped hilly land at a distance from the har bor. Perhaps the most sensitive to land availability among major industrial proposals now pending are rival plans to build an oil refinery on Lamma Island, part of the new territories lying just south of Hong Kong itself. Royal Dutch/Shell would build a refinery of 100 to 200 barrel-per-day size, to be en larged later to 400,000 barrels. The Shell proposal requires a 420-acre site. Textile Alliance, Ltd., a Hong Kong firm, together with Japan's Toa Oil later proposed a 200,000 barrel-a-day refinery and petrochemical operation. A government-sponsored engineering study of the Shell plan recently re leased gave it good marks in general, though both plans have been contested by environmentalist groups in Hong Kong and by some Lamma Island resi dents on grounds of pollution risk and inefficient use of scarce land.
