Edeniq heads down Success-at-Scale Avenue, in China

The Virtuosos of Visalia land a major contract with China giant Global Bio-chem — a 50KT cellulosic sugars plant is underway in Jilin province.

In California, Edeniq announced a Joint Development Agreement with Global Bio-chem Technology Group Limited, to integrate their technologies in a commercial demonstration plant at Global Bio-chem’s facility in the Jilin Province of China. Construction has been initiated on the plant, with a target to produce 50,000 metric tons per year of sugars from corn stover.

The two companies not only intend to supply the cellulosic sugars to Global Bio-chem for utilization in its existing sugar-based chemical production facilities, but also plan to develop partnerships with other companies to enable the production of a broad array of biochemicals and biofuels from its sugars.

The announcement follows on from a letter of intent signed in July.

Timing for construction of the China plant

Global Biochem has started construction of a Commercial Demonstration Plant with a capacity of 50,000 mt/yr cellulosic sugars from corn stover, which is scheduled to be completed in 2015.

Reaction from the partners

Ms. Xu Ziyi, Executive Director of Global Bio-chem, said, “China has a large and growing demand for bio-based products. This partnership will allow us to further develop and commercialize our technology platform utilizing the millions of metric tons per year of corn stover available in the Jilin Province, while significantly reducing the production costs of corn stover-based sugar.”

“Edeniq is known for our capital efficient solutions, and this relationship with Global Bio-chem will allow us to quickly expand into the growing markets in China,” said Brian Thome, President and CEO of Edeniq. “Through this partnership, we are further demonstrating our commitment to developing next generation cellulosic technologies and the lowest cost route to efficient biofuel and biochemical production.”

About Edeniq technology and its development

Edeniq’s Cellunator enables ethanol plants to mill corn and other plant materials into a well-mixed slurry of small, uniformly-sized feedstock that can be more easily converted into sugars needed to produce biofuels and other biomaterials.

In May 2013, Edeniq announced that the company’s first demonstration plant, located at its Visalia headquarters, has completed a successful “performance test” that exceeded the benchmark of 1,000 hours of continuous operation. The Corn-to-Cellulosic Migration plant utilizes Edeniq’s proprietary technology to process over one metric ton of cellulosic feedstock per day to cellulosic ethanol, exceeding the plant’s initial target.

More about Global Bio-chem

Global Bio-chem is the largest vertically integrated corn-based biochemical product manufacturer in Asia and is one of the leading lysine players in the fermentation industry worldwide. The Group is one of the pioneers in applying corn starch as raw material for the commercial production of polyol chemicals. Global Bio-chem is also the parent company of Global Sweeteners Holdings Limited, one of the largest corn sweeteners producers in the PRC.

Installations elsewhere

In California, Edeniq announced that Flint Hills Resources Renewables has confirmed that the Cellunators have achieved the desired increase in ethanol production at its Fairbank, Iowa facility and the company will install Cellunators at two additional locations. Flint Hills has been an investor in Edeniq since April 2012 and a customer since July 2011.

The technologies were also installed in a larger demonstration plant in São Paulo State, Brazil, co-constructed by Edeniq and partner, Usina Vale, a Brazilian sugar and ethanol producer, producing cellulosic sugars from sugarcane bagasse, the fibrous by-product of sugarcane juice extraction.

Edeniq’s 20 mt/day sugarcane bagasse to cellulosic sugar and ethanol demonstration plant is under construction.  Some sections of the plant have been completed and started up.  Usina Vale is responsible for the construction and will complete the remainder of the facility in the second quarter of 2015.

In January 2013, Edeniq announced a pact with Pacific Ethanol to install Edeniq’s proprietary Cellunators to boost ethanol yields, and will also deploy Edeniq’s patented OilPlus corn oil extraction process to increase corn oil recovery, at the Pacific Ethanol plant in Stockton.

Edeniq’s Cellunator technology mills corn and other plant materials into ‘right-sized’ particles of feedstock that can be more efficiently converted into the plant sugars needed to produce biofuels. OilPlus combines thermal, mechanical, and chemical treatments to improve the recovery of corn oil, a valuable co-product that can be used for feed and other bio-industrial products. Edeniq’s technology was expected to increase the facility’s ethanol yields by 2-4%.

This followed on from news in November 2012 of a similar agreement with Aemetis, to conduct large-scale commercial testing of Edeniq’s cellulosic ethanol Pathway platform. Edeniq’s Cellunator technology produces sugars by milling corn and other plant materials into “right-sized” particles of feedstock that can be more easily converted. Edeniq installed Cellunators at Aemetis’ Keyes, California facility, which currently produces 60 million gallons of ethanol annually.

The Bottom Line

From a company POV, a huge step forward for Global Bio-Chem to diversify its sugar sources, and for Edeniq to expand to commercial-scale with a 50KT facility. Seen from a business trend POV, more evidence mounting that the center of activity right now is in EU and especially Asian companies partnering to access US-based technology, as cellulosic deployment heads around the globe.