Mission New Energy raises $12 million in private placement

In Australia, jatropha pioneer and palm oil biodiesel producer Mission New Energy announced that, subject to shareholder approval in July, Ir Lee Swee Eng will invest US$12.325 million in the company and will nominate two directors to the company’s board.

The company has completed construction on its second 75 Mgy biodiesel refinery, and is readying the plant for operations via a 2-day continuous run test with crude palm oil. The company raised $17 million in debt financing and $3 million in equity financing for funds to complete the plant, at Kuantan in Malaysia.

The company, which uses crude palm oil, plans to switch the plant to jatropha oil as soon as its Indian jatropha plantations yield sufficient oil for the switch.

In January, Mission NewEnergy (formerly Mission Biofuels) announced that it will form a joint venture with a research team in India to produce cellulosic ethanol. Mission has been a leader in development of jatropha-based biodiesel in India, with more than 360,000 acres planted, and in this venture will produce ethanol from jatropha waste. The company is one of the first to announce a cellulosic ethanol venture outside of North America.

Of all the jatropha development projects around the world. Mission’s is the first to divine a purpose for the otherwise toxic jatropha waste, which could only be converted to animal feed after a complex process to extract toxins; and no company has developed a process to do so at a commercially-viable cost.

Mission executives said that the company would own 76 percent of the new venture.

Last August, Mission New Energy announced its first annual profit of $2.3 million on total sales of $24.1 million, primarily on sales from its 180,000 acres of jatropha trees. The company said that it plans to expand plantation to 750,000 acres by June 2009. The feedstock division accounted for 54 percent of sales, with the remainder coming primarily from biodiesel refining.

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