Norwegian firm BioProtein Engineering AS plans to invest US$200mil (RM600mil) over three years to set up a plant in Malaysia producing high-protein feed for the aquaculture industry.
Managing director Arild Johannessen said it was currently evaluating whether to set up the plant in Bintulu, Malacca or the eastern part of the peninsula.
“We need close access to natural gas for the fermentation process. The initial production capacity is expected to be 40,000 tonnes a year, which requires 50 million cu m of gas,” he told Malaysian reporters at the BIO International Convention (BIO Washington DC) here on Tuesday.
“Fishmeal was becoming an increasingly scarce resource and its price had skyrocketed in the last two years. Our high-protein product, when mixed with (conventional) feedmeal, can make fish grow very fast,” Johannessen said.
Dr Bard Johansen, who is the consultant hired to help commercialise BioProtein’s product, said the plant could be ready by 2014 if the decision to invest was made this year.
BioProtein signed a memorandum of collaboration (MoC) with Pristine Oil (M) Sdn Bhd at BIO Washington DC whereby the latter would ensure supply of the gas.
The MoC was one of four collaborations announced by Malaysian Bio-XCell Sdn Bhd and its parent company, Malaysian Biotechnology Corp Sdn Bhd, on Tuesday.
Another was a build-and-lease agreement between Bio-XCell and Agila Specialties Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of India-listed Strides Arcolab Ltd.
Agila plans to invest US$40mil to US$60mil in two plants on eight acres in Bio-XCell’s biotechnology park in Johor to manufacture biopharmaceuticals and sterile injectibles.
Bio-XCell, the commercial arm of BiotechCorp, planned to start constructing the facility for Agila by the end of the year, Bio-XCell chief executive officer Raja Ridzwa Raja Abdul Aziz told reporters.
“We expect the plants to be ready by 2013,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin opened the BIO International exhibition on Tuesday, becoming the first foreign dignitary to be given that honour at the annual event.
He then proceeded to open Bio-XCell’s booth.
Meanwhile, Glycos Biotech-nologies Inc chairman and chief executive officer Richard C. Cilento Jr, who attended the convention, said the Texas-based company’s industrial biochemical plant in Bio-XCell park would likely be completed by the fourth quarter of 2012 and commercial and testing operations would start in January 2013.
It would invest RM100mil to RM120mil in the first three years, and its plant would become the world’s first facility to commercially produce isoprene, an elastomer to make synthetic rubber flexible and stretchable, using renewable feedstock readily available in Malaysia’s palm oil industry.
GlycosBio exchanged the definitive agreements with Bio-XCell to set up the plant and research and development facility last year at BioMalaysia 2010 exhibition and conference late last year.
