Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Sapphire Energy In Major Commercialization Deal With Phillips 66

San Diego-based biofuels developer Sapphire Energy is in a big commercialization deal this morning with Phillips 66, the two announced this morning. According to the two, they are in a strategic, joint development which will go towards commercializing algae-based crude oil. The companies said they will collect and analyze data from co-processing of algae and conventional crude oil into fuels, as part of a move to move algae crude oil into production and wide scale oil refining. Financial details of the deal were not announced. The companies aid that the efforts are expected to lead towards EPA certification of a new fuel product. Sapphire Energy is backed by Arrowpoint Partners, Monsanto, ARCH Venture Partners, Wellcome Trust, Venrock, and Cascade Investment, among others, and develops technology to convert biomass into crude oil.