The Digest’s 2023 Multi-Slide Guide to Origin Materials

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) Origin is the world’s leading carbon negative materials company. The Origin platform turns the carbon found in biomass into useful materials, while eliminating the need for fossil resources and capturing carbon in the process. Origin Co-CEO John Bissell took us through the hard data and company horizons with these slides presented at ABLC Next 2023. READ MORE

Excerpt from Biofuels Digest: Origin Materials announced 30 percent reduction in force earlier today (November 20, 2023). For several months, since the disclosure of long timelines for Origin’s first commercial OM2 project amidst soaring costs for debt and equity, observers had already surmised that Origin was going to be unable to realize its ambitions without a leaner organization, and a re-think of the company’s near-term plan.

The question for this billion dollar SPAC darling was — how viable would the plan be?

The backstory

The Origin delay originated in two events — the supply-chain crisis and inflation spike which has substantially increased the cost of components and construction materials arounds the world, and the resulting inflation fight that central banks have been waging via interest rate hikes that have been strangling the development and deployment of projects.

The strategy forward

The focus is shifting from products from longer-range, larger-capex projects to products that can be produced fast and light to generate cash — that, combined with the savings from reduction in force, gets the company to viability in, ahem, The New Reality.

It’s a common story in the bioeconomy — the pivot from bigger projects to smaller. Mascoma went from big cellulosic ethanol ambitions to a stupendous advanced yeast technology. Amyris pivoted from larger ambitions in fuels and chemicals to a series of lighter product lines in the personal care space. Solazyme pivoted to small nutrition from its ambitions in fuels and chemicals. Plenty of other examples.

What’s different

First of all, we think that Origin has, through luck or ingenuity, reached the pivot point faster and healthier than we’ve seen other companies get to this decision point before.

The second difference is more philosophical. The industry perhaps need to look back over the past 30 years and see a litany of pure-play companies with large-scale capex projects based on a single, transformative molecule — Solazyme’s algae oil, Amyris’ biofene, Origin’s CMF, Mascoma’s ethanol, Joule’s hydrocarbon — and wonder if the story of chemical and fuels companies was ever written that way in days gone by. READ MORE

Excerpt from Biomass Magazine/Origin Materials: Origin Materials, the world’s leading carbon negative materials company with a mission to enable the world’s transition to sustainable materials, on April 3 announced the successful conversion of wood residue feedstock into sustainable intermediates at Origin 1, its first commercial-scale plant.

“This week we brought sustainable wood residue feedstock online for our biomass conversion technology at Origin 1,” said John Bissell, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Origin Materials. “This marks an evolution from the corn starch-based production we have employed since commencement of plant operations in October of last year. We are using locally sourced, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) controlled wood residues produced by a sawmill as a byproduct of lumber and wood flooring production. From that mill’s wood chips, shavings, and sawdust we produced our sustainable intermediates, which can be used to make a wide variety of products that normally would be made from petroleum. Products like apparel and textiles, plastics, tires and automotive components, fuels, and high-performance polymers, can all be produced from intermediates made from sawdust using our technology.”

Converting the first batch of wood residues into sustainable intermediates demonstrated several milestones for the scale-up of Origin’s biomass conversion technology. The commercial-production scale wood mill and wood handling system performed to specification, mechanically conveying wood residues from feed inventory into the reaction system. The reaction system performed well, producing Origin’s intermediates CMF, HTC, and oils and extractives. Reactor effluent transferred smoothly to downstream unit operations. Yields and process insights generated during this run will inform planned process improvements and future production campaigns. This run will also provide proof points to demonstrate the relationship between feed types and HTC product morphology.

“Our customers are engaged and excited about the ability of our technology to create a variety of sustainable and in many cases performance-advantaged products using a range of feedstocks,” continued Bissell. “We have proven the versatility of our technology to accept various feedstocks at lab scale. Now we have proven it at our commercial-scale plant, Origin 1, with respect to woody biomass. We look forward to continued progress in scaling our biomass conversion technology in support of our mission to enable the world’s transition to sustainable materials.”

The Origin 1 plant, located in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada, is an asset used to support Origin market development, including customer materials testing and formulation in preparation for future technology scale-up. With the plant’s wood handling system activated and the successful conversion of wood residues into intermediates, including CMF, HTC, and oils and extractives, the company’s biomass conversion technology continues to perform as expected and support market development activities. For sample inquiries, please contact commercialorders@originmaterials.com. READ MORE