UPDATES

Good morning!

We're back, refreshed, after a wonderful Memorial Day weekend, skiing with five boys at Mammoth Mountain, where the snow continues to fall... I hope you had a great time too.

Our Presentation to the 3rd Algae World Summit

OriginOil's top technology exec, Paul Reep, delivered our latest presentation (PDF download) to last week's Algae World Summit in Del Mar, near San Diego.

Check it out for a case study of our big project Down Under. We're very happy with our progress as we scale up with our first commercial partner, MBD Energy.

Solazyme continues its run

Algae's latest Initial Public Offering (IPO) continues to impress on its second day of trading, breaking through 22 dollars this morning.

Last Thursday, Solazye repriced its IPO at $18 a share, raising close to $200 million dollars on the next day.

What's great about Solazyme?

We like Solazyme very much. It is solidly in revenue and has executed beautifully on its plan since its founding in 2003.

Among its many investors (like Chevron and Richard Branson) is Unlilever, which wants to use algae to replace palm oil, "because the harvesting of palm oil has led to deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia and has drawn the criticism of environmentalists," says Katie Fehrenbacher at Earth2Tech.

But, Katie says, "ultimately, Solazyme wants to scale up algae oil production to tackle the biofuel market. Solazyme is looking to commercialize its fuel technology in the 2013 time frame, with a production cost target of $60 to $80 per barrel.

To get there, it will have to build a commercial-scale algae plant, which can cost over $100 million (one reason it needs cash from an IPO)."

Scale — what everyone's working on

Indeed, scale is the next big challenge in algae production, and Solazyme looks to have plenty of cash to get there.

We wish them great fortune and success in the months and years ahead.

Have a great week!

Riggs and team

Riggs Eckelberry
President & CEO
OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL)

Presentation to the 3rd Algae World Summit (download)