Royal Dutch Shell is working on a process to turn sugars into a synthetic petrol, rather than ethanol, with the aim of moving to a commercial demonstration plant in two years’ time.

Shell’s biofuels deals

● Iogen In 2002, Shell linked up with Iogen, a Canadian biotechnology company, to develop a process for making cellulosic ethanol – a ‘second generation’ biofuel – from straw, using enzymes. In April 2004, Iogen said it was ‘in the final phase prior to full-scale commercialisation of cellulose ethanol’. Four years later, Iogen and its partners are still assessing the feasibility of a full-scale commercial plant

● Choren In 2005, Shell joined Choren, a German company now also backed by Volkswagen and Daimler, to produce biodiesel from wood chips. A commercial demonstration plant is due to open this year

● Codexis Shell began working with Codexis, a US biotech company, in 2006, also on enzymes for biofuel production. In November 2007, Shell announced that the collaboration had been successful enough for it to take a stake in Codexis and commit to a further five years of research

● HR Biopetroleum In December 2007, Shell
set up a new majority- owned joint venture, called Cellana, with HR Biopetroleum, a Hawaii-based company, to build a pilot plant to grow algae producing oil that
can be turned into biodiesel

● Virent Shell began working with Virent, a US biotech company specialising in producing fuel from sugar, in 2007. The two companies said on Wednesday they had exceeded milestones for yield and cost and were now working on scaling up technology for commercial production

Europe’s biggest oil company on Wednesday announced a joint venture with Virent, a US biotech business based in Wisconsin, saying that results from early research over the past year had been better than expected in terms of costs and yields.