Oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and BP see novel bioproducts not as threats but as useful tools for blending into, and possibly extending, remaining oil reserves.
The Archer Daniels Midland Company, the grain processor, posted a quarterly profit that topped analysts' estimates after demand rose in Asia and earnings improved from bioproducts like ethanol.
"A surprise for us was also the continued solid performance from the bioproducts division".
Archer Daniels does not break out its ethanol results but said its profit climbed $99 million, to $158 million, for its bioproducts division, which includes ethanol and food additives like lysine.
Last year, Solazyme, a renewable oil and bioproducts company based in San Francisco, delivered more than 80,000 liters, or more than 21,000 gallons, of algae-derived marine diesel and jet fuel to the U.S. Navy.
The fructose case was an outgrowth of the cooperation provided by Mark E. Whitacre, the former head of the Archer Daniels bioproducts division, which made lysine.
Those results offset a 48percentt drop in profit from bioproducts, which include ethanol.
They also sanctioned participants Jungbunzlauer, Bayer's Haarmann & Reimer and Cerestar Bioproducts.
On the tapes secretly recorded by Mr. Whitacre, who was head of the company's bioproducts division when he turned government informer, Michael Andreas was also heard making sexual and sexist comments about employees.
Meanwhile, the biosciences institute is involved in its own algal biofuels initiative, encompassed by the National Bioproducts Program, a joint venture with Agriculture and Agrifood Canada and Natural Resources Canada.
He has also served as an adviser for the Forest BioProducts Research Project at the University of Maine and as chairman of the finance committee for Maine's Fractionation Development Center, which researches transforming wood into energy and materials produced from crude oil.
