CRUDE-OIL PROTEIN

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32494, 2 January 1971, Page 14

CRUDE-OIL PROTEIN

Scottish plant commissioned The world’s largest plant for the production of protein from crude oil is being commissioned by BP at Grangemouth, Scotland, and commercial production will begin early this year. The protein will be used to enrich animal foodstuffs, principally those used for turkeys, chickens, pigs and fish farming. The first year’s production has already been taken up by leading animal-feed compounders.

The Grangemouth plant, which will be able to produce 4000 tons of protein a year, is the first of two units. The second unit, with an output of 16,000 tons a year, is nearing completion at Lavera, near Marseilles. It was at Lavera that the possibility of producing protein on an industrial scale was first recognised in 1959. The process, for which an entirely new technology has been developed, has been used at two pilot plants during the last seven years. Over the same period the product has been subjected to exhaustive tests at independent scientific institutes in the Netherlands and with animalfeed compounders in the United Kingdom and France. The protein has been successfully fed to several generations of animals. Recerftly the process was licenced in Japan and a plant to produce 1000 tons a year has been built there. There are no plans at present, however, to market the product in New Zealand.