Roschem’s Donbiotech facility plans to establish production of 55,000 tons of feed amino acids annually by 2029, with vitamin production to follow at a later stage, Roschem CEO Eduard Davydov said in a statement on the company’s social media channels.
The planned output will be divided between threonine, tryptophan and valine, Davydov said, without providing further details.
Separately, lysine production at Donbiotech is expected to begin in 2028, with the goal of fully replacing imported Chinese lysine in the Russian market, he added.
Replacing Chinese imports would require Donbiotech to produce around 15,000–20,000 tons of lysine, according to Sergey Mikhnuyk, executive director of the Russian National Feed Union.
“If this is the targeted production volume, the question is what the production cost will be,” Mikhnuyk said.
Based on current domestic demand, he estimates the plant could produce around 45,000 tons of threonine, 5,000 tons of tryptophan and 5,000 tons of valine annually - volumes that would be sufficient to fully meet the needs of Russia’s livestock and poultry sectors.
However, industry analysts have repeatedly warned that vitamin and amino acid projects face structural challenges due to weak economies of scale, as the domestic market alone may be too small to justify large-scale standalone production.
Mikhnuyk agreed these concerns are valid, but said they represent only part of the overall risk profile.
“The second risk to a successful launch, regardless of the stated timeline, is the availability of a reliable technological partner who can provide both the technology and recommend trustworthy process equipment that has been proven effective in practice,” he said.
At the same time, recent turbulence in global energy markets linked to the conflict in the Middle East could strengthen the economic rationale for building feed additive capacity in hydrocarbon-rich Russia.
“The historical developments in the energy supply market that we are currently witnessing may mark the beginning of a transfer of large-scale feed additive production (primarily amino acids and vitamins) to Russian territory,” Mikhnuyk said.