Amyris and Cosan establishing JV for production and commercialization of renewable base oils
16 December 2010
Amyris, Inc. and Cosan SA Industria e Comércio have executed a binding agreement to establish a joint venture for the worldwide development, production and commercialization of renewable base oils. The parties announced that they had entered into a term sheet for this joint venture in June 2010. (Earlier post.)
Base oils are the building blocks of lubricant oils, currently derived from a mixture of fractions from the crude oil refining process. Manufacturers then mix additives with base oils to impart desirable properties to meet certain performance conditions, creating a range of lubricants including engine oils, gear oils, hydraulic oils and turbine oils.
By applying Amyris’s synthetic biology platform to modify yeast to produce targeted hydrocarbon molecules, the joint venture will be able to create base oils from plant sugar sources. The Cosan/Amyris joint venture plans to use sugarcane as a feedstock in a standard fermentation process in which Amyris’s modified yeast converts the cane syrup to farnesene (Biofene).
Initially, the joint venture would source farnesene from other Amyris production facilities, and the parties would share the marketing and operating costs.
Biofene is then finished chemically to create high-end base oils. These base oils are designed to reduce smoke and odor and also reduce greenhouse gas emissions by over 80% compared with petroleum-sourced base oils. In addition, they are biodegradable, perform well in cold weather and have high-performance viscosity properties.
This joint venture demonstrates our ability to reach into large, established markets with a paradigm-changing renewable product and a near-term commercialization outlook. Cosan´s experience and leadership in sugarcane, and its mission to grow value-added renewable products make them the ideal partner to establish a winner in the renewable base oils space.
—John Melo, CEO of Amyris
Amyris is building an integrated renewable products company by applying industrial synthetic biology to genetically modify microorganisms to serve as living factories. Amyris designs these microorganisms to produce defined molecules for use as renewable chemicals and transportation fuels. Amyris Brasil S.A., a subsidiary of Amyris, oversees the establishment and expansion of Amyris’s production in Brazil. In addition, Amyris is building fuels distribution capabilities in the United States through its subsidiary, Amyris Fuels LLC.
Cosan is a fully-integrated company with manufacturing and trading of sugar, ethanol and co-generation of electricity from sugarcane, as well as fuels distribution and also production and distribution of lubricants. The company has 23 producing units, with a nominal milling capacity of 62 million tons of sugarcane per year, producing varied qualities of raw and refined sugar and ethanol.
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