There have been lower sales of the amino acid over the past few months due to reduced animal inventories, lower feed consumption and a soft soy meal market. Chinese producers have been either halting production through maintenance programs or cutting back on output in an effort to support prices.
Xuejian Shi, a senior researcher in CCM's food and ingredients team, told FeedNavigator that, in general, the price of lysine had been falling for the three months prior to November, owing to market oversupply and sluggish demand. However, the situation has changed in the past two weeks, with many manufacturers having raised their quoted prices for the feed additive.
“The market price has started to rebound,” he said. “Manufacturers have low lysine inventories due to the low operating rates in recent months. And downstream companies have been expecting lysine prices to continue decreasing, and therefore haven’t been purchasing lysine at a high volume. As a result, their stock levels are also low.”
Lysine prices for August to October 2015, from CCM’s price monitoring data, were as follows:
Aug 2015 70% Lysine USD$882.80/t 98.5% Lysine USD$1,373.24/t
Sept 2015 70% Lysine USD$815.66/t 98.5% Lysine USD$1,286.23/t
Oct 2015 70% Lysine USD$787.34/t 98.5% Lysine USD$1,244.00/t
Production plant status
Looking at the status of Chinese producers’ operations during October and November, Shi reported that Global BioChem Technology Group, one of the biggest lysine manufacturers globally with production capacity of 480,000 tons per annum (t/a), resumed production in early November after purchasing corn raw material at a good price. It is currently manufacturing around 200 tons of lysine per day, said the analyst.
Production at CJ Group’s Shenyang facility, which has 100,000 t/a, has been suspended for nearly a month. Its Liaocheng facility, which has 150,000 t/a output, has also halted production for maintenance for two weeks, he continued.
The Ningxia Eppen Biotech company’s Ningxia factory, at 210,000 t/a, and its Chifeng plant, with 200,000 t/a, are both only operating at 50% of their total capacity, said the researcher.
He said COFCO Biochemical (Anhui) Limited, with 90,000 t/a, has currently suspended production, as has the Shanghai East Hope Group.
Zhucheng Dongxiao Biotechnology Co Ltd, with capacity of 40,000 t/a, resumed production at the end of October at a high operating rate, said the CCM analyst.
Shandong Shouguang Juneng Golden Corn Co Ltd, said the analyst, just completed relocation of its factory in October and then resumed production this month at a relatively high operating rate. That plant has a tonnage output of 40,000 per year.
Heilongjiang Chengfu Group Co Ltd’s plant, with 70,000 tons per year capacity, is also currently up and running, but at a low operating rate, added Shi.
Export volumes up
Data from China Customs shows China’s lysine export volume during January to September 2015 totaled 202,984 tons, up by 10.35% YoY.
Global demand for lysine is around 1.85 million tons per year, while demand in China is around 0.68 million tons annually, according to data from the China Fermentation Industry Association.
Its data puts global lysine capacity at 3.54 million t/a, with Chinese production covering around 2.13 million t/a of that.
In China, most of the lysine is domestically produced, while the country's export volume of the amino acid accounts for about 30% of its output.