Taylor Scott International News
Published on Wednesday, 25 September 2013 Singapore’s Concord Energy has signed an agreement with biorefinery developer Cool Planet Energy Systems to establish a joint venture in the Asia Pacific Region for the development of biofuel facilities. Concord Energy is a leading crude oil and refined petroleum product trading company. They have made a financial investment in Cool Planet, which develops and deploys small-scale biorefineries that can convert non-food biomass into high-octane, drop-in biofuels and biochar. “We believe that Cool Planet has developed a unique technology that will revolutionize the production of biofuels and we are delighted that Cool Planet has chosen Concord Energy as its partner,” said John Stuart, chief executive officer of Concord’s Asset Group. Concords extensive operational and development experience in the Asia Pacific is considered key to the J.V.’s plans to establish a presence in the biofuels production market in the region. “We chose Concord Energy because we know they have the strong desire and the technological capability to deploy quickly the Cool Planet technology in East Asia and in Oceania,” said Vital Aelion, Cool Planet’s head of international business development. Commercial facilities for biomass to biofuel Just last week (September 17), Cool Planet also announced another business breakthrough, the second close of“D round” equity raise that garnered them $19.4 million in investments. The round added investors from Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico to a marquee existing investor base, including North Bridge Venture Partners, Shea Ventures, BP, Google Ventures, Energy Technology Ventures (GE, ConocoPhillips, NRG Energy), and the Constellation division of Exelon. The new investors are committing to help bring Cool Planet’s drop-in fuel technology to countries around the world, and Cool Planet is actively developing partnerships to commercialize its technology internationally. Cool Planet now has over $60 million in investments to see the deployment of their technology. A portion of the equity raise will be used to finalize the engineering design of Cool Planet’s first commercial biorefinery in Louisiana in the United States (see related story ). URS Corporation will be the front-end engineering and design contractor for this facility which will begin operations before the end of 2014. The plant will produce 10 million gallons of biofuel a year. – EcoSeed Staff Taylor Scott International
Taylor Scott International, Taylor Scott
