Chesapeake Energy Company Purchases 50% Stake in Sundrop Fuels
 Print this article | Send to Colleague
Sundrop Fuels Inc., Louisville, Colo., USA, a gasification-based drop-in biofuels company, and Chesapeake NG Ventures Corp. (CNGV), a wholly owned subsidiary of Chesapeake Energy Corp., this week announced that they have closed a transaction in which CNGV will invest $155 million, enabling Sundrop Fuels to expand operations and begin construction of a commercial demonstration facility to produce biobased "green gasoline" made from cellulosic material. Additionally, Sundrop Fuels announced that Oak Investment Partners, a current investor, has committed to invest $20 million pro rata with CNGV. The deal closed on July 11.
Sundrop Fuels uses an ultrahigh-temperature heat transfer process to gasify virtually any cellulosic feedstock into synthesis gas, which is then converted into clean, affordable biobased "green gasoline" and other drop-in transportation biofuels for use in today's automobiles, diesel engines, and aircraft via the nation's existing fuels distribution infrastructure. At the core of Sundrop Fuels' intellectual property is its RP Reactor, a high-efficiency radiant particle technology that is more than 20 times faster than conventional convection gasification methods.
In addition, Sundrop Fuels is able to maximize its synthesis gas production by integrating clean, abundant natural gas with biomass feedstock, facilitating the most efficient utilization of hydrogen from both the biomass and natural gas to produce higher yields than any other biomass process. The combination of Sundrop Fuels technology with the efficient reactor-heating and hydrogen-enrichment properties of natural gas will provide the foundation for massive-scale biorefineries that will dramatically reduce both the nation's dependence on foreign oil and the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.
Sundrop Fuels plans to break ground in 2012 on its first commercial-scale integrated biorefinery, which will produce more than 40 million gal of transportation fuel annually, demonstrating its RP Reactor technology with ExxonMobil's Methanol-to-Gasoline (MTG) process. The company expects to launch production at its first large-scale, 200-million gal per year biorefinery in 2016.
|
|
