Last day in Hot 50 voting, Solazyme leads in subscriber poll, LS9 in invited selector poll

Solazyme has retained its lead in subscriber voting as the 8-hour mark approaches until the end of voting for the 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy. But with early international selector ballots now coming, in, LS9, Solazyme and Amyris are tightly bunched at the top of the international selector table.

Solazyme, Amyris, DDCE, Gevo, POET, Novozymes, Genencor, LS9, Sapphire Energy, and BP Biofuels formed the top 10 with one day to go in subscriber balloting, but DDCE is inching up on Amyris.  Cargill, OriginOil, Shell, Petrobras, Codexis, Coskata, Abengoa Bioenergy, Algenol, PetroAlgae, and Cobalt Technologies formed the second 10 for subscribers. Among those just outside the top 20: Mascoma, Verenium, Chevron, Ceres and ExxonMobil round out the top 25.

Among the invited international selectors, LS9 continues to hold a tiny lead over Solazyme, with POET moving into third place, Amyris, Coskata, Virent, DDCE, Gevo, UOP, and Codexis make up the balance of the top 10. Mascoma, Novozymes, Enerkem, Ceres, Sapphire Energy, Joule, Bluefire Renewables, Petrobras, Rentech and Qteros make up the second ten, while Abengoa, Cobalt, PetroAlgae, Algenol and Shell round out the top 25 in the balloting.

“As often happens, the last days can get strange. We’ve been inundated with more than 1,000 ballots over the past couple of days from some undocumented source – maybe a “web share,” said Biofuels Digest editor and publisher Jim Lane. “But also, a lot of subscriber ballots are pouring in now, as we get down to the end of voting at 5pm. With companies like POET and Enerkem pulling strong support from invited selectors ballots received to date, it’ll be an exciting finish. Just eight hours of voting to go – we expect a photo-finish.”

Balloting will be open to the registered subscribers of the Biofuels Digest, Geothermal Digest and Renewable Chemicals Digest e-newsletters, through today (Tuesday, November 30th) at 5pm EST, as well as a panel of invited international selectors.

Ballots from the invited international selectors and subscribers will each make up 50 percent of the overall scoring. The invited selectors ballots generally feature a broader range of companies in terms of geographies and processing technologies.

All selectors and subscribers are able to take advantage of what has been described as the “most comprehensive, free data resource in bioenergy,” the 380-page “Selectors Data Book” which includes company profiles, surveys and industry data. This is the third year that the Digest has published its annual 50 Hottest Companies in Bioenergy rankings.