Transform methane into low-cost plastics, chemicals, fuels? Yep, there’s an app for that too.

The five-year goal?

To produce in a new facility, everything the same, save the feedstock. Presumably such a facility would be located where methane can be most affordably sourced, or economically piped.

What Alan Shaw learned from the Codexis-Shell relationship

Codexis, the company that Shaw led for more than 10 years and successfully took public in 2010, found its stock price in freefall after its major partner, Shell, changed directions on its strategy for how it would enter the renewable fuels business, after concluding that it would rather outsource for enzymes than developing its own in collaboration with Codexis.

So, what was learned there to structure a better deal for Calysta?

“The business model is different,” said Shaw. “This has exclusivity for NatureWorks based on polylactic acid, instead of an entire platform such as fuels. We could do a deal with any number of companies on other molecules and metabolic pathways.”

Would you do another deal with an oil major, we asked Shaw.

“I would look forward to working with the oil majors. They have the capabilities and experience, and the infrastructure in place.”

The bottom line

NatureWorks may have to restyle some of its branding material — but not its essential claims of price, performance and as an alternative to oil

Methanotrophs are revolutionary if they reach scale — and there, Calysta is building the team, is well financed, and has first mover advantage. Using biology to play cheap natural gas is a oft-discussed strategy where the interested parties have vastly outnumbered the credible technologies.

For now — it’s a signature partnership that puts Calysta into an advantaged seat at the table. Execution will determine whether it stays there.

But we wouldn’t be surprised if companies with very robust metabolic pathways developed from bacteria or yeast, that currently use sugars for their carbon source — beat a path to Calysta’s door.

Stymied between high first-gen sugar prices and slow development of cellulosic sugars, they’d be eager to test Calysta’s contention that it its methanotroph can help them make the same product, via the same pathway, only accessing methane as its carbon source.