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Glob­al Bioen­er­gies final­izes acquis­i­tion of Syngip

06.02.2017
Glob­al Bioen­er­gies (IBB net­work mem­ber) has final­ized the acquis­i­tion of Syn­gip B.V. at the close of its extraordin­ary share­hold­ers’ meet­ing on 2nd Feb­ru­ary. Syn­gip B.V. is a start-up based in the Neth­er­lands that spe­cial­izes in con­vert­ing third-gen­er­a­tion resources into fuels and mater­i­als. The Syn­gip acquis­i­tion is cent­ral to Glob­al Bioen­er­gies’ strategy of diver­si­fy­ing the feed­stocks suit­able for use in its isob­utene process: 
  • Since incep­tion in 2008, Glob­al Bioen­er­gies has been devel­op­ing a pro­cess to con­vert first-gen­er­a­tion sug­ars (sug­ar beet and sug­ar cane molasses, cer­eals, etc.) into isob­utene. This molecule is asso­ci­ated to a vast mar­ket in fuels and in mater­i­als (plastics, rub­ber and cos­met­ics…). The pro­cess has matured to the demo plant stage (100t annu­al nom­in­al capacity).
  • Second-gen­er­a­tion resources (sug­ars from straw or wood chips) were also selec­ted for the pro­cess as they cost less and have an even smal­ler envir­on­ment­al foot­print. The con­ver­sion of these second-gen­er­a­tion resources has been suc­cess­ful in the lab, before pro­gress­ing to pilot scale.
  • Access to third-gen­er­a­tion resources has been part of Glob­al Bioen­er­gies’ strategy since 2011 and com­pletes the Company’s strategy of feed­stock diver­si­fic­a­tion. It will enable a dra­mat­ic reduc­tion of the pro­duc­tion cost for renew­able isob­utene and will improve the envir­on­ment­al foot­print of the pro­cess even further.
Estab­lished in the Neth­er­lands since 2014, Syn­gip devel­ops a pro­cess to con­vert gaseous car­bon sources into light olefins. Its pro­cess is based on a pro­pri­et­ary micro-organ­ism cap­able of meta­bol­ising car­bon diox­ide (CO2) and car­bon monox­ide (CO) found in a wide range of low-cost and abund­ant streams, such as the indus­tri­al waste emis­sions of steel mills. Syngip’s tech­no­logy is now mature enough to allow the imple­ment­a­tion of meta­bol­ic path­ways lead­ing to light olefins, and in a first instance to isob­utene. Now part of the Glob­al Bioen­er­gies group, the entire Syn­gip team will be assigned to devel­op­ing the third-gen­er­a­tion Isob­utene pro­cess. Frédéric Pâques, Chief Oper­a­tions Officer of Glob­al Bioen­er­gies says: ​“There are obvi­ous syn­er­gies between these tech­no­lo­gies. The col­lab­or­a­tion between Syngip’s teams, focused on meta­bol­iz­ing indus­tri­al gases, and the teams at Glob­al Bioen­er­gies engaged since the early days in the pro­duc­tion of fer­ment­at­ive isob­utene will be most nat­ur­al.” This pro­cess would be com­pet­it­ive start­ing at an oil price of $45 per bar­rel. Tak­ing tax incent­ives asso­ci­ated to renew­able fuels into account, the break-even point should occur at even lower oil prices. Moreover, green­house gas sav­ings should top 80%, com­pared to the cur­rent pet­ro­chem­ic­al industry. Bern­ard Chaud, Dir­ect­or of Indus­tri­al Strategy at Glob­al Bioen­er­gies, adds: ​“By devel­op­ing this third-gen­er­a­tion isob­utene pro­cess, Glob­al Bioen­er­gies will be posi­tioned to form part­ner­ships with indus­tri­al­ists from sev­er­al domains, where com­pan­ies are act­ively seek­ing bet­ter solu­tions to value and take care of their efflu­ents.” Marc Del­court, CEO of Glob­al Bioen­er­gies, explains: ​“Our strategy to diver­si­fy the feed­stocks usable in our pro­cess is now well in place: 
  • Our demo plant cur­rently oper­ates with first-gen­er­a­tion sug­ars, and we are pur­su­ing our aim of build­ing the first full-scale plant in France using these resources togeth­er with Cristal Union.
  • In light of recent suc­cesses with second-gen­er­a­tion feed­stocks (bio­mass from agri­cul­tur­al and forestry waste), we work at put­ting in place a major pro­ject in this area with sev­er­al large indus­tri­al groups.
  • The Syn­gip acquis­i­tion will take our devel­op­ment efforts based on third-gen­er­a­tion resources to the next level. We are cur­rently at an early stage of devel­op­ment, but a pro­cess using these resources will bene­fit from the low­est oper­at­ing costs and the best envir­on­ment­al bene­fits.”
In exchange for the con­tri­bu­tion of all the shares of Syn­gip B.V., Glob­al Bioen­er­gies will issue 37,240 new ordin­ary shares for Syn­gip B.V.’s cur­rent share­hold­ers, and 69,161 share alloc­a­tion war­rants (“BAA”) gran­ted free of charge with each allow­ing access to the alloc­a­tion of one new share, sub­ject to the achieve­ment of a tech­nic­al mile­stone in the devel­op­ment of a pro­cess to con­vert gaseous car­bon resources into isob­utene. This mile­stone must be reached at the latest by 2 Feb­ru­ary 2019, oth­er­wise the BAA become void. The 37,240 new ordin­ary shares are val­ued at approx­im­ately €875,000, estab­lished based on a share price of €23.4956. They rep­res­ent a dilu­tion of approx­im­ately 1.1% for exist­ing share­hold­ers. The BAA will grant 69,161 new ordin­ary shares, val­ued at approx­im­ately €1,625,000 at the ref­er­ence price of €23.4956, i.e. an addi­tion­al dilu­tion of approx­im­ately 2%. The 37,240 new ordin­ary shares will be sub­ject to a lock-up peri­od, which will end either when the mile­stone referred to above is reached or, at the latest, on 2 Feb­ru­ary 2019. Glob­al Bioen­er­gies also com­mits to reim­burs­ing the cur­rent shareholder’s accounts in Syn­gip B.V. a total of €150,000, with all debt held by share­hold­ers in excess of this amount being can­celled.

About GLOB­AL BIOENERGIES

Glob­al Bioen­er­gies is one of the few com­pan­ies world­wide, and the only one in Europe, that is devel­op­ing a pro­cess to con­vert renew­able resources into hydro­car­bons through fer­ment­a­tion. The Com­pany ini­tially focused its efforts on the pro­duc­tion of isob­utene, one of the most import­ant pet­ro­chem­ic­al build­ing blocks that can be con­ver­ted into fuels, plastics, organ­ic glass and elast­omers. Glob­al Bioen­er­gies con­tin­ues to improve the per­form­ance of its pro­cess, oper­ates an indus­tri­al pilot, has star­ted oper­a­tions at its demo plant in Ger­many, and is pre­par­ing its first full-scale plant through a joint ven­ture with Cristal Uni­on, named IBN-One. The com­pany also rep­lic­ated its achieve­ment to pro­pyl­ene and butadiene, two mem­bers of the gaseous olefins fam­ily, key molecules at the heart of pet­ro­chem­ic­al industry. Glob­al Bioen­er­gies is lis­ted on Altern­ext, Euronext Par­is (FR0011052257 – ALGBE). Web­site: www​.glob​al​-bioen​er​gies​.com

About SYN­GIP

The Syn­gip BV com­pany was foun­ded in 2014 and is per­form­ing next level research related to gas fer­ment­a­tion and bio com­mod­it­ies. Loc­ated in the Chemelot indus­tri­al park, Syn­gip BV tries to push back the bound­ar­ies of what is pos­sible in the field of car­bon cap­ture using bio­lo­gic­al means. Web­site: www​.syn​gip​.com Source: Glob­al Bioen­er­gies SA
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