LOS ANGELES, Oct 06, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL), the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum, today announced that it entered recently into a strategic partnership agreement with MBD Energy Limited, its first customer and a leading player in the fast-growing field of CO2 Bio-Capture using algae.
“We are excited to collaborate with OOIL on our joint quest to commercialise industrial-scale algae production,” said Andrew Lawson, MBD Energy’s managing director. “We look forward to working very closely on large-scale algae systems to absorb the CO2 from coal-fired power plants and other major greenhouse-gas emitters.”
MBD Energy is regarded as an international leader in the use of captured flue-gases as feedstock to produce algal biomass. One of the world’s largest mining companies, Anglo American, is a cornerstone investor. Earlier this year, MBD became OriginOil’s first customer for a research-scale system. Based on the success of this phase, MBD will purchase progressively larger systems to serve its three major power station projects in Australia.
OriginOil and MBD recently agreed on a process to manage these phases, to protect OriginOil’s Intellectual Property, and for the joint integration of multiple technologies. OriginOil will market any such jointly-developed systems worldwide.
Under the agreement, MBD will have up to two years of Australian exclusivity for any product that it purchases from OriginOil.
“With this agreement, MBD becomes our first strategic partner,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO. “They will help us improve our own products in the field while assigning all such improvements to us, and we will also develop integrated systems together.” He added, “We welcome Australia’s MBD Energy as our first geographical partner and look forward to many years of mutual growth in the fast-moving field of CO2 capture using algae.”
About OriginOil, Inc. (web address:www.originoil.com)
OriginOil, Inc. is developing a breakthrough technology that will transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum. Much of the world’s oil and gas is made up of ancient algae deposits. Today, our technology will produce “new oil” from algae, through a cost-effective, high-speed manufacturing process. This endless supply of new oil can be used for many products, such as diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, plastics and solvents, without the global warming effects of petroleum. Other oil-producing feedstock, such as corn and sugarcane, often destroy vital farmlands and rainforests, disrupt global food supplies and create new environmental problems. Our unique technology, based on algae, is targeted at fundamentally changing our source of oil without disrupting the environment or food supplies.
About MBD Energy Limited (web address:www.mbdenergy.com)
MBD is an Australian based public, unlisted technology company. One of the world’s largest mining companies, Anglo American, became a cornerstone investor in MBD in 2009 and Anglo Coal’s Global CEO, Seamus French, has recently joined as a non-executive director of MBD Energy. The MBD Energy Board is chaired by former BHP Chairman, Jerry Ellis. MBD has a joint research and development facility located at James Cook University (JCU), Townsville, Queensland. MBD Energy and its JCU team are regarded as international leaders in the use of captured flue-gases as feedstock to produce algal biomass for Bio-CCS. In addition to the project at Tarong Power Station, MBD Energy currently has two similar projects underway with Loy Yang Power in Victoria and Eraring Energy in New South Wales. MBD Energy is a founding member of the Bio CCS program. The program is made up of a number of regional projects with each targeting 50 million tonnes of greenhouse gas sequestration per year by 2020.
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