Feed Costs

The business plan needs to provide projections of aimual production. Based on those estimates and assumed food conversion rates (food conversion is calculated by determining the amount of feed consumed by the animals for each kilogram of weight gain), an estimate of feed costs can be made. For many aquaculture ventures, between 40 and 50% of the variable costs involved in aquaculture can be attributed to feed. 

Economics. Estimates of anaboHc steroids in growing cattle indicate that savings associated with reduced feed costs are approximately 50.00 per animal. Increased value of the carcass resulting from the increased amount of saleable lean meat produced is estimated to range from 15.00 to 30.00 per animal. 

It can be assumed that P,Jp, and for the cascade have been specified, and that the cost of feed and the cost per unit of separative work, the product of separative capacity and time, are known. The basic assumption is that the unit cost of separative work remains essentially constant for small changes ia the total plant size. The cost of the operation can then be expressed as the sum of the feed cost and cost of separative work ... 

Feed cost per kg liveweight multiply food conversion efficiency by cost of feed per kg of liveweight. 

Gross margin per unit of floor space subtract the feed costs from the gross income and then divide the result by the floor area. 

Clearly much more research needs to be carried out on organic pig production to reduce feed costs. 

Although indoor systems of egg production are much cheaper to run than outdoor organic systems, due to higher egg production per hen per year and to lower feed costs, poultry longevity can be increased outdoors, which will lower the cost of replacement birds. Thompson (1978) tested his future breeding stock in an outdoor environment which had carried hens continuously for many years, with a consequent build-up of disease. Those pullets which survived became the foundation stock. 

Product value - Feed cost - Energy cost... 

Obviously, the overall feed cost depends on the price of the feed as well as its utilization efficiency. This is illustrated in Fig. 2.12. Accordingly, vegetables oils are not competitive with crude oil priced at 50 bbl 1, whereas grains and ligno-... 

The data discussed above can easily be used to develop a crude figure for the cost of biomass conversion processes. It suffices to consider the feed cost, for the appropriate feed and conversion efficiency (Fig. 2.12), the appropriate capital charge (Fig. 2.11) and add a contribution of —1/3 of the capital charge for fixed cost, to account for various additional costs such as labor, maintenance, etc. The manufacturing cost is not far from the sum of these three contributions. 

These losses require additional feed to make a given amount of product Feed costs are 80-95% of the final product cost, so yield losses significantly reduce profitability [59]. 

The efficacy of such products in poultry is amply demonstrated by data collected from many studies. In addition to the potential reduction in feeding costs, when including cheap barley supplemented with enzymes, broiler producers have also reported savings in litter costs and fewer carcass downgrades due to hock and breast bums. Similar benefits have been reported for other types of poultry, including laying hens and turkeys. 

As mentioned previously, the use of aluminum chloride alkylation has been very limited in the petroleum refining industry. The aluminum chloride catalyst, being somewhat more difficult to handle and regenerate, could not compete economically with H2S04 and HF catalysts for propylene and butylene alkylation. However, aluminum chloride will catalyze ethylene alkylation whereas H2S04 and HF will not. In the past, ethylene alkylation has not been used much because of the higher olefin feed cost (15). 

More interesting, however, is the result when premium by-product values apply. Here we see that the production cost dips through a minimum at about 25% severity. This may be explained by noting that as severity drops, by-product credits increase owing to increased olefins production so that by-products credits minus feed costs increase, even while feed requirements go up. This tends to lower production costs. On the other hand, the investment and operating costs tend to increase as severity drops—this tends to raise production costs. The net effect is a minimum in production costs at about 2.45 /lb of ethylene. 

The column description, product specifications, total plant operation time, number and size of available storage vessels, etc. are given in Table 6.8. For proprietary reasons the names of the components in the feed mixture are disguised and thermodynamic data ore omitted. Relative product values and feed costs are given in Table 6.10 (operating costs have also been scaled). 

In addition to increasing caloric density and feed palatability, and improving appearance, feed efficiency, and reducing feed costs, feeding of animal, marine and vegetable fats can ... 

The similar, older slurry process uses a less active catalyst. The monomer is dissolved in isooctane, the titanium catalyst and aluminium cocatalyst are added and this mixture is fed to the reactor which is maintained at 70°C. The inorganic corrosive (Cl) residues are removed in a washing step with alcohols. The atactic material is removed by extraction. A third process employs propene as the liquid in combination with a high activity catalyst. The Himont Spheripol process, which uses spherical catalyst particles, gives spherical polymer beads of millimetre size that need no extrusion for certain purposes. A more recent development is the gas-phase polymerization using an agitated bed. All processes are continuous processes, where the product is continuously removed from the reactor. Over the years we have seen a reduction of the number of process steps. The process costs are very low nowadays, propene feed costs amounting to more than 60% of the total cost. 

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