30 T/H Fish Feed & 4 T/H Shrimp Feed Mill In Ecuador

This is a 4t/h shrimp feed mill expansion project. The customer of this aqua feed company project is from Ecuador, and its main business scope is the production and sales of feed and feed additives.

This customer purchased a shrimp feed production line (4 T/H) with an annual output of 20,000 tons from us in 2020. In the following years, as the export volume of Ecuadorian vannamei shrimp increased rapidly, the client company's annual income also increased by leaps and bounds.

In order to further improve the company's product quality, increase the categories of aquatic feed products, increase market share, improve the company's operating efficiency, and drive the sustainable development of the company. The client company decided to add new product solutions, and the specific expansion content is as follows:

The customer's aqua shrimp feed factory currently produces mainly shrimp feed, fish feed, livestock and poultry feed, with an annual output of 20,000 tons of shrimp feed（4t/h）, 100,000 tons of fish feed, and 60,000 tons of livestock and poultry feed.

Due to changes in market demand, the company decided to cancel the livestock and poultry feed production, purchase advanced equipment, improve product quality, refine product categories, and increase the production of freshwater fish feed and seawater fish feed.

The fish shrimp feed mill in Ecuador project covers a land area of 4166m2 and a total construction area of 3290.94m2. It mainly consists of one office building, two workshops and related supporting buildings.

After the expansion, the project construction location remains unchanged. The customer purchased RICHI's advanced aquatic feed equipment, and RICHI engineers re-customized and improved the aquatic feed production process; improved product quality, refined product categories, and added freshwater fish feed and seawater fish feed production.

In the production workshop, a preliminary cleaning screening area, a batching workshop, a screening workshop, an ultrafine grinding workshop, and a fuel injection workshop were added. The number of employees on the auqa fish shrimp feed mill in Ecuador project remains unchanged. The working year of the project is 300 days, two shifts, 16 hours.

The changes in product plans and production scale before and after the auqa fish shrimp feed mill in Ecuador project reconstruction and expansion are detailed in the table below:

There are no new raw and auxiliary materials in the auqa fish shrimp feed mill in Ecuador project reconstruction and expansion project. The changes in the main raw and auxiliary materials of the project after the reconstruction and expansion are detailed in the table below:

The changes in the main production equipment before and after the auqa fish shrimp feed mill plant in Ecuador project expansion are detailed in the table below.

This auqa fish shrimp feed mill in Ecuador expansion project is mainly to purchase advanced equipment, improve the production process, and improve product quality.

Compared with the existing engineering production process, the project product production line is divided into two production lines, one is the pellet production line (after compaction granulated products), and the other is the puffing material production line (products that need to be puffed).

1. Infeed:
   Put soybean meal, 200-type rapeseed meal, high-gluten flour, and imported super steam fish meal into the primary cleaning sieve.
2. Preliminary cleaning:
   Use the preliminary cleaning screen to screen to remove small stones, plastics and other debris.
3. Ingredients:
   According to the formula, use an ingredient scale to accurately weigh soybean meal, 200-type rapeseed meal, high-gluten flour, and imported super steam fish meal, prepare fish feed, and shrimp feed, and put them into the mixer.
4. Mixing:
   Use a mixer to fully mix the prepared raw materials evenly, then put them into the crusher after mixing.
5. Coarse powder:
   Use a coarse powder machine to crush the mixed raw materials for the first time to obtain feed with larger particle size.
6. Ultra-fine grinding:
   Use a micronizer to grind feed with larger particles again.
7. Screening:
   Use a fool's sieve to screen out the feed that is still larger in size after ultrafine grinding, and crush it again.
8. Mixing:
   Use a mixer to mix the ultrafinely pulverized feed, and stir evenly again. Then, according to different products, we produce pellet products and puffed material products;
9. Pelleting:
   Use a fish shrimp feed pellet machine to granulate the uniformly mixed feed to obtain pellets of different sizes to prepare pellet products;
10. Merification:
    Use the steam from the biomass-fired boiler to be directed to the shrimp fish feed pellet machine to steam and sterilize the pellet feed at high temperature (90℃, 20min).
11. Drying:
    After adjusting the dryer to 80℃~90℃, dry the mature feed for 30 minutes to reduce the moisture content of the feed.
12. Cooling:
    Cool the dried feed through natural ventilation.
13. Grading/packing:
    Screen the granular materials of different sizes again, and pack them separately according to the different sizes of the granular materials to obtain the finished product.
14. Extrusion:
    Use the steam from the biomass-fired boiler to the aqua feed extruder to directly expand the mixed raw materials (100°C, 5 minutes); the feed is in the expansion chamber, and the rotation of the screw generates mechanical energy.
    Through continuous shearing, kneading, extrusion, Friction causes the material in the cavity to be in an environment of high temperature, high pressure, and high moisture. After the material is heated, pressurized, and matured, it is extruded out of the die hole and suddenly decompressed to form expanded feed to produce puffed material products;
15. Spraying Machine:
    Use a spraying machine to spray edible oil at normal temperature onto the uncooled/cooled puffed material. The spraying process is closed, and almost no oil smoke or exhaust gas is generated. The project pellets do not need to be sprayed;
16. Packing：
    Finished aqua feed pellets are bagged in bags for sale.

01

Wastewater:

Part of the boiler condensate water flows back to the boiler through the pipeline for reheating and recycling, and part of it is directly discharged into the local rainwater pipe network.

The backwash water generated by the soft water preparation system is discharged into the local area together with the boiler condensate water after neutralization and precipitation; boiler dust removal wastewater generated by the wet dust removal system is recycled and used after neutralization and precipitation, and is not discharged.

Production dust spray wastewater is recycled and used after integrated wastewater treatment facilities, and is not discharged outside.

02

Exhaust gas:

The dust generated during the auqa fish shrimp feed mill in Ecuador project's feeding, crushing, mixing, granulating, preliminary cleaning, batching, screening, and ultra-fine grinding processes is treated by a bag dust collector and passes through eight 40m-high exhaust pipes.

Combined into one exhaust pipe for emission (1#); the boiler flue gas in this project is collected centrally and led to a 30m high chimney for emission (2#).

The odor generated by the three-layer maturation, puffing and drying is sucked in a sealed manner. Through a new set of pulse dust collector + heat exchanger + ozone oxidation, the air is returned to the vertical dryer without emission.

The odor generated by the five-layer cooling fan is airtightly suctioned and passed through the new set of pulse dust collector +Heat exchanger+After ozone oxidation, the air is returned to the cooler without emission.

03

Solid waste:

The raw material scraps generated by the auqa fish shrimp feed mill in Ecuador project and the dust collected by the bag dust collector are collected and reused in production.

General industrial solid waste such as waste packaging materials (waste plastics, waste cartons, etc.) are properly collected and sold to other companies. Recycling is carried out; after the employees’ domestic waste is collected, it is entrusted to the environmental sanitation department for unified removal and disposal.

A country far away in South America, which is not very large, but sells the most shrimps to the world. In the wealth-making story of Ecuadorian white shrimp being put on tables around the world, global consumers in China and other countries have witnessed the strength of Ecuadorian shrimp farming.

In October 2023, Ecuador's global shrimp exports increased by 5% year-on-year to 216.3 million pounds. The country’s total white shrimp exports in the first 10 months of 2023 so far are only slightly below the annual record of 2.34 billion pounds set in all of 2022. Currently, Ecuador has become the first country to export more than 1 million tons of shrimp annually.

Aquaculture in Ecuador has started to undergo diversification; shrimp being the main produce, but not anymore the sole product.

More than 95 percent of Ecuadorian aquaculture corresponds to marine shrimp (Litopenaeus spp.), followed by tilapia, whose culture has had a noticeable growth over the last five years; other species, such as freshwater fish and crustaceans, are also cultured in small scale.

Freshwater aquaculture has developed mostly in the inter-Andean region, basically with the development of rainbow trout farms. Culture of the channel catfish has made some progress in the coastal region.

Almost the entirety of the national aquaculture production is exported; local markets being seldom supplied by the aquaculture sector. Contribution of aquaculture to alleviation of poverty within the country is essentially related with the generation of employment, having a major impact on the lower income strata of the rural population.