Cellena and Neste Oil Colloborate to Commercialise Algae Biofuels
Cellena, previously known as HR BioPetroleoum has announced that it has struck a deal with Neste Oil, Finaland in which Neste Oil has agreed to purchase large volumes of Cellana’s algae-based crude oil. Sources reveal that Cellena plans to sell $75-$100 million worth of crude oil to Neste Oil for refining.
For Cellana, the deal represents a vote of confidence in its technology, and a lever that it hopes to use to bring in other partners and investors. Cellana has a demonstration facility on the Big Island of Hawaii, where it cultivates algae with an eye toward harvesting three kinds of products—high-priced nutritional supplements like Omega-3 fatty acids, animal feeds, and biofuels.
The vision is to build a network of commercial partners who market each type of algae-based product, so that Cellana can have a diversified set of revenue streams of different products that aren’t all low-margin/high-volume products like fuel. Cellana is looking to raise about $10 million to help it scale up to fulfill the Neste agreement, and find more partners willing to buy the other products that come from its algae business. Cellana currently has about 30 people working for it, most of whom are in Hawaii, Kamdar said.
The deal also represents a potential comeback for the company, which struck a collaboration with Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell Group in 2007. Shell pulled out of that deal a couple years ago, as it walked away from a number of other biofuel collaborations
More – http://www.xconomy.com/san-diego/2013/06/06/cellana-cuts-algae-biofuel-deal-with-finland-oil-giant/
