Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

OriginOil and Department of Energy to Develop Direct Conversion of Algae into Renewable Crude Oil for Existing Oil Refineries

The Wall Street Journal's MarketWatch
press release
Jan. 13, 2012, 3:01 a.m. EST

Company partners with Idaho National Laboratory to enable algae growers to enter the global crude oil market

LOS ANGELES, Jan 13, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- OriginOil, Inc. (otc/bb:OOIL), the developer of a breakthrough technology to extract oil from algae and an emerging leader in the global algae oil services industry, today announced its plans to co-develop an integrated system with the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory (INL) for direct conversion of raw algae into a renewable crude oil that can be used by existing petroleum refineries.

"We believe this is a major breakthrough for OriginOil and a major step forward for the algae industry," said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil CEO. "We already lead the industry with our chemical-free, low-energy, continuous high-flow harvesting system.

"From there it's a natural step to helping algae growers make a direct crude oil replacement right on site, giving them direct access to the existing world market for transportation fuels, including jet fuel. That's an instant upgrade from what is now a niche market, to the immediate 86 million barrel per day global crude oil market."

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