Announcements

Second year ranking improves in hotly contested field of over 1400 companies

Los Angeles, CA December 03, 2009 – OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL), the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum, has been selected for the second year as one of the “Hottest 50 Bioenergy Companies” by Biofuels Digest, the publisher of the most widely-read biofuels daily newsletter in the world.

OriginOil’s position advanced in rank from 45 to 42 in a hotly contested field of over 1400 companies worldwide working in algae, ethanol, renewable diesel and biobutanol. The ‘Hottest 50’ list and the expanded ‘Hot 100’ were chosen by an international panel of invited Selectors, and subscribers to the publication’s daily newsletter. The Selectors ranked OriginOil #38.

"Thirteen of the top 50 companies are working on micro-crops and algae-based biofuels, including three of the top five,” said Jim Lane, the publication’s editor. “With companies such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP investing in algae-based fuels, there couldn't be clearer signs that algae is now viewed as the most promising of all the emerging biofuel platforms."

“We salute our fellow algae companies on the Hottest 50, some of whom have joined us for the first time,” said Riggs Eckelberry, OriginOil’s President and CEO. “We look forward to complete domination of the list by algae producers and refiners worldwide, all supported by advanced technology firms like OriginOil.”

Eckelberry spoke recently at the Next Generation Biofuels Feedstocks USA conference on the vital importance of rapidly solving the world’s need for renewable energy by using distributed bio-energy networks. On the eve of the Conference of Parties in Copenhagen (COP-15), he encouraged the adoption of biofuels to meet the renewable energy challenge posthaste.