June 2020
Company Spotlight
Locus Bio-Energy Solutions
For this Company Spotlight, we interviewed Locus Bio-Energy CEO, Jonathan Rogers, about how their biosurfactant technology provides better performance and less environmental risk than conventional surfactants utilized in the energy industry. Locus Bio-Energy offers patent-pending, award-winning biosurfactant treatment programs that are cost-competitive, biodegradable, and safer than current chemical and traditional treatments. For more information on Locus Bio-Energy, please visit https://locusbioenergy.com/.
Background: In 2014, Locus Fermentation Solutions (“LFS”) began R&D on innovative fermentation technologies to produce biosurfactants at an exponentially lower cost than conventional methods. Since then, LFS has filed for over 630 patents (over 100 specific to energy applications), as it developed technologies that brought the cost down to as low as 5% of traditional biosurfactant-producing technologies. With the enhanced oil recovery (“EOR”) and oil production chemical market being a prime candidate for these cost-competitive biosurfactants, Locus Bio-Energy was formed and commercialized a product for the energy industry in 2017.
Value Proposition: The EOR and oil production chemical market is currently dominated by synthetic surfactants. Locus Bio-Energy’s novel advances in manufacturing biosurfactants enable it to offer its customers the following benefits:
Better Performance: Compared to synthetic surfactants, biosurfactants contain a much more complex chemical structure, which is similar to the complexity of pharmaceutical grade chemicals. This natural complexity enables biosurfactants to outperform synthetic surfactants by breaking the adhesion between the reservoir rock and the oil more effectively (average sustained production increases of >45% per well). Further, Locus Bio-Energy’s biosurfactant has been proven to mobilize more oil because it can penetrate areas of tight shale reservoirs that were previously unreachable by synthetic surfactants due to its extremely small “Micelle” size (the size of aggregated molecules in water) that is 1/100th the size of traditional surfactants.
Lower Dosage Rate and Cost: Not only are biosurfactants more effective, they also require a much smaller dosage (approximately 1/50th of the volume required from traditional surfactants). The substantial decrease in dosing requirements coupled with Locus Bio-Energy’s unique ability to produce biosurfactants at a drastically lower cost enables it to offer its customers a price point that is competitive with synthetic surfactants while also providing better performance.
Environmentally Friendly: In addition to its superior performance and cost profile versus synthetic surfactants, biosurfactants are non-toxic, biodegradable, and sustainable. This provides Locus Bio-Energy’s customers with better ESG scores and risk management KPIs.
Tax Credits: The Texas Railroad Commission has approved Locus Bio-Energy’s product offering for a tax break on oil production. Therefore, its customers receive a 50% tax break on all oil produced (not just incremental production) for 10 years while using its product. This only further improves its customers’ profitability.
Closing Thoughts: With over 20 customers utilizing its products across over 300 wells and led by energy chemical industry veteran Jon Rogers, Locus Bio-Energy has introduced a unique product to a sector that has seen little innovation. We are excited to follow Locus Bio-Energy, as it continues to apply its technology to other applications and drive enhanced efficiencies to the energy industry.