The Digest’s 2023 Multi-Slide Guide to BioVeritas

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) BioVeritas uses some of the same technology with different market goals as the famed Terrabon of days gone by — carboxylic acids made from waste biomass, with fuel precursors and a slew of interesting renewable chemical precursors among the products that the technology can produce. CEO Dave Austgen gave this overview of the company’s promise and progress, milestones achieved, and ahead, at ABLC 2023. READ MORE WATCH Presentation

ABLC is buzzing about BioVeritas, which tipped this morning that it has initiated the second phase of Front-End-Loading (FEL-2) for its first commercial production facility, which is targeted for commissioning in 2026.

If you are an engineer of the physical world, probably enough said right there. You’d already know that FEL-2 is the Rubicon, stepping beyond the world of theory and bench-top performance, a promising result from pilot scale. With FEL-2, someone is putting serious money into a process — as much as 19 percent of the total cost of a project is expended in this stage; hence, It’s the bioeconomy’s equivalent of a non-refundable deposit, and all focus from that point forward is going to be on getting to the final investment decision, the raising of the capital, and the recovery of all that moolah.

So, that’s where BioVeritas is, and that’s why ABLC is buzzing, someone has seen the hard data and has found love with this process for producing intermediate short- and medium chain fatty acids — and the good things all along the value spectrum that can be made from the.

At the completion of this step, you have defined the commercial project scope, validated the design, plugged in the cost estimates, and completed a schedule for construction.

Here’s what comes next, the Raising of the Capital, which is not exactly as hard a Raising the Titanic, but harder than raising a barn, for sure.

In the next year, expect the company to raise a total of $200 million project in debt and equity — that’s a third of the cost of the first commercial plant, and enough capital to run the company for two years. Think $100 million in equity — and, if the capital raise goeth well, think about a groundbreaking announcement early int he new year, perhaps by March, and a FEL-3 kick-off with a two year run to commissioning plant #1 in 2026.

OK, so let’s go back to Terrabon technology as a starting point — short and medium-chain fatty acids, which is a bit of bioeconomy Swiss Army Knife, you can aim for fuels, chemicals or food tech. Starting with ultra-low value waste by-products — in this iteration, plant-based food industry residues.

What’s new? First, the tech has advanced since the days of Terrabon and Earth Energy Renewables. More interestingly, BioVeritas has flipped the script of commercial targets. Not tempted by the blast-furnace of tax credits for fuels, having learned through observation that the capex generally kills companies that rush too fast for the top branch of the momney tree.

In this case, BioVeritas has flipped the script. Instead of the heart-break of fuels first, they’re aiming for food first. Makes a lot more sense. It’s scaled better to the feedstock availability, reliability and cost for plant number one. With bigger economies of scale, optimized supply chains, feedstock conditioning, and plants #2 through #15, lots of new markets become possible. Yes, chemicals. Even, perhaps, SAF. But that’s later.