Calysta Energy buys BioProtein, expands to livestock markets

Calysta Energy, a company specializing in Biological Gas-to-Liquids and Biological Gas-to-Chemicals technologies using methane, has acquired BioProtein, a Stavanger, Norway-based developer of natural gas conversion technology.

Through this acquisition, Calysta is entering the rapidly growing $370 billion nutritional market for fish and livestock feed and feed additives.

The BioProtein technology is the only commercial scale process available to directly convert natural gas into biological products, the company said. BioProtein, the protein feed produced using BioProtein’s technology, is approved for sale and has been commercially marketed in the European Union.

Combining its proprietary BioGPS technology platform with technology from BioProtein, Calysta intends to produce proteins and other key ingredients of high nutritional value through the fermentation of methane, the primary component of natural gas.

These nutrients can be used to improve the quality and sustainability of commercial fish and animal feed. In particular, the high-quality protein generated by Calysta’s process can serve as a direct replacement for fish meal, a major component of many commercial livestock feeds.

“With this acquisition, Calysta intends to expand our methane conversion portfolio into a new high growth market, significantly accelerating market introduction of products based on our combined technology,” said Alan Shaw, Ph.D., chairman, president and CEO.

According to Shaw, demand is strong in the commercial fish and agriculture market for new sustainable protein sources. “BioProtein’s expertise in process technology and nutrition metabolism in animal health complements Calysta’s broad capabilities in synthetic biology and biocatalysis for development of methane as a new biological feedstock.”

Torkell Gjerstad, managing director at IRIS R&D Invest, BioProtein’s major shareholder, said that BioProtein’s fermentor technology has been proven in full scale commercial operations, and its extension into the chemicals market will further strengthen the leading position of a sound, commercially attractive business case in a broad set of industry applications.

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