Yield10 Bioscience, Mitsubishi to evaluate camelina-oil partnership for SAF feedstock

Yield10 Bioscience Inc. announced Jan. 11 that it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Mitsubishi Corp. to evaluate the establishment of a partnership to supply, offtake and market camelina as a low-carbon feedstock oil for biofuels.

Last year, Mitsubishi announced its aim to mass-produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) to decarbonize commercial aviation.

Under the MOU, the companies plan to jointly undertake a feasibility study for the supply and offtake of camelina oil from camelina grain grown under contract using Yield10’s proprietary seed genetics, to supply oil for the SAF market.

In addition, the companies also plan to jointly study the development and future offtake and marketing of PHA bioplastic produced from camelina by Yield10 as an added-value coproduct with oil for biofuels.

The MOU is nonbinding and expires at the end of 2023.

“Yield10 and Mitsubishi are aligned on the sustainability benefits that the camelina crop could bring to the transportation-fuels market,” said Oliver Peoples, president and CEO of Yield10 Bioscience. “Over the next several months, we look forward to working with the Mitsubishi team to develop a framework for a collaboration to jointly develop and build our camelina business in the U.S. and other important geographies.”

Yield10 Bioscience is an agricultural bioscience company that is using its differentiated-trait gene-discovery platform, the “Trait Factory,” to develop improved camelina varieties for the production of proprietary seed products, and to discover high-value genetic traits for the agriculture and food industries.

Its goals are to efficiently establish a high-value seed-products business based on developing superior varieties of camelina to produce biofuel-feedstock oils, PHA bioplastics and omega-3 (EPA, DHA) oils and to license its yield traits to major seed companies for commercialization in major row crops, including corn, soybean and canola.

Yield10 is headquartered in Woburn, Massachusetts, and has an Oilseeds Center of Excellence in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.