Alternative Energy

Becoming a leading biotech player and jointly developing biomass-based transportation fuels and chemicals

 

The AMYRIS Project, on the cutting Edge
of Biotechnology (June 2010)

The partnership with Amyris is central to our development strategy for alternative energies.

Total is an oil major with a significant chemicals business. Our core business is developing and producing petroleum products and chemicals. The partnership with Amyris will allow us to add biomass-derived products to our conventional products.

This partnership is consistent with our strategy of expanding into alternative energies. As for the other alternative energies that we are exploring, such as solar energy and nuclear power, in biomass we are looking for the most differentiating technologies, to enable us to build a lasting competitive advantage.

Research & Development, the foundation of the Total/Amyris partnership

 The cooperation between a start-up like Amyris and a leading producer like Total is a first in the biotechnology sector.

The commercial partnership with Amyris comprises two parts:

A cutting-edge technology to produce yeast strains for renewable transportation fuels and chemicals

Amyris has laboratories and a pilot unit in California and a pilot plant and demonstration facility in Brazil.

Amyris is a start-up created in 2003 in Silicon Valley, California, with laboratories and a pilot plant in California and a pilot plant and demonstration facility in Brazil.

It has developed a unique technological platform for high-throughput transformation and selection of yeast strains. These strains are used to ferment surgarcane juice and produce biodiesel, biolubricants and chemical intermediates.

Amyris is a rising star in the global biotech industry.