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Amyris Signs Letters of Intent Agreements with Bunge, Cosan and Guarani

EMERYVILLE, CA and CAMPINAS, Brasil (December 8, 2009) – Amyris Brasil, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amyris Biotechnologies, Inc. today announced that it has entered into letter of intent agreements with three sugar and ethanol producers in Brasil, Bunge Limited (NYSE: BG), Cosan (SA: CSAN3) and Açúcar Guarani (SA: ACGU3), with the purpose of partnering for the production of high value renewable specialty chemicals and fuels. These products will be distributed by Amyris.

On December 3, 2009, Amyris announced that it had entered into an agreement with the São Martinho Group (SA: SMTO3) to acquire a 40% stake in the Boa Vista mill and that together the parties would convert this mill to achieve the first production of Amyris products.  

"Cosan is always looking to support the development of new products derived from sucrose and this work in partnership with Amyris is part of this strategic context," said Marcos Lutz, CEO of Cosan.

“We are excited to be collaborating with the sector’s foremost producers to deliver the world’s leading production of alternatives to petroleum-based products,” said John Melo, CEO of Amyris. “These agreements are key steps toward building-out a fully integrated renewable products company – a company that encompasses the technology, industrial-scale manufacturing and product distribution capabilities needed to have a material impact on the global carbon footprint, and to deliver higher quality, renewable products with lower capital intensity than petroleum-based products.”

Under the agreement with Guarani, a subsidiary of the French sugar group Tereos, the parties will investigate the feasibility of developing an optimal economical model using Amyris technology to produce cane-derived diesel fuel from molasses rather than from traditional sugarcane juice. This agreement is part of Tereos’s regular partnerships to develop new technologies in its field.

Amyris intends to bring its renewable fuels and chemicals to market starting in 2011 through production at the Boa Vista mill. Starting between the 2012 and 2013 crushing season, Amyris intends to build production through “capital-light” agreements in which Amyris provides technology and plant design and mill owners contribute capital to convert their mills to produce Amyris renewable products. The letter of intent agreements with Bunge, Cosan and Guarani should cover Amyris’s planned production through 2013-2014. Combined with the Boa Vista mill, this results in a combined crushing capacity of over 12 million tons.

Amyris applies synthetic biology to alter the metabolic pathways of microorganisms to engineer “living factories” that transform sugar into any one of 50,000 different molecules used in a wide variety of energy, pharmaceutical and chemical applications. Amyris has proven this technology through the delivery of its first successful commercial scale technologies to global pharmaceutical company, sanofi-aventis, for the production of artemisinin, a low cost anti-malarial drug.

Amyris’s initial products include a renewable diesel fuel with performance properties that equal or exceed those of petroleum-sourced fuels and currently available biofuels. A key attribute of the fuel is that it is a hydrocarbon – the same component found in today’s petroleum fuels – enabling it to be used in any kind of diesel engine and withstand extremely low temperatures without the need to alter engines. It can also be easily distributed within the existing fuels infrastructure. In addition to diesel, Amyris expects to produce renewable chemicals for a variety of consumer products and industrial applications currently dependent on petrochemical components.

About Amyris

Amyris is an integrated, renewable products company striving to help the world reduce its carbon footprint through the production and use of renewable chemicals and transportation fuels.  Amyris’s strategy is to combine technology, production and distribution with the goal of commercializing and scaling products effectively while participating across the supply chain. Amyris applies synthetic biology to produce a broad range of products, and combines this technology with growing scale up and production capabilities through its subsidiary, Amyris Brasil. Amyris is also building distribution capabilities, including through its U.S. subsidiary Amyris Fuels, LLC. More information about Amyris and its subsidiaries is available at www.amyris.com or www.amyrisbrasil.com .

About Cosan

The Cosan Group is the only fully integrated player in the renewable energy sector being present in all links of the value chain of sugar and ethanol sector. It has 23 production units: 21 in São Paulo and two under construction (one in the city of Jataí (Goias State) and another in Caarapó (Mato Grosso do Sul State), four refineries, two port terminals, besides working in retail branded Da Barra in segment fuel distribution through Esso, and the production and distribution of automotive and industrial lubricants to Mobil. With current crushing capacity of about 60 million tons per year, Cosan is the largest company in the Brasilian sugar and ethanol market, and one of the largest manufacturers, retailers and exporters of sugar and ethanol in the world.

About Guarani

Açúcar Guarani's core activity is transforming sugarcane into sugar, ethanol and energy. Açúcar Guarani is the third-largest sugarcane processor and sugar producer in Brasil, and is one of the companies that recorded the strongest growth in ethanol production in the past two crops, processing 14.4 million tons of sugarcane in the 2008-2009 crop. Guarani has six plants, of which five are located in Brasil in the northwest region of São Paulo state and one in Mozambique, Africa, as well as a greenfield project in the municipality of Pedranópolis, São Paulo state. Tereos, the controlling shareholder of Guarani, is an agribusiness cooperative producing sugar and alcohol-ethanol from sugar beet, sugarcane and cereals in France and worldwide. Tereos is the world's fourth-largest producer of sugar, alcohol-ethanol and starch products. Guarani firmly believes in the importance of positive actions in the social and environmental areas.