Waste Management closes investment in Fulcrum

Waste Management of Texas, US has closed an equity investment in Fulcrum BioEnergy.

Additionally, Waste Management has agreed to a secured loan facility that provides for Waste Management's funding of up to $70 million (€51.8 million) for Fulcrum's proposed Sierra BioFuels plant upon the satisfaction of certain conditions.

The parties also entered into a master project development agreement to collaborate on the joint development of Fulcrum projects in various locations throughout the US using MSW supplied by subsidiaries of Waste Management under long-term feedstock agreements.

'Fulcrum is deploying an innovative proprietary system to convert post-recycled municipal solid waste into advanced biofuels. Beginning with a thermochemical gasification system that converts the MSW into a syngas, Fulcrum has developed a proprietary alcohol synthesis process that efficiently and economically converts the syngas into advanced biofuels,' says James Macias, president and CEO of Fulcrum BioEnergy.

'We look forward to the development of Fulcrum's commercial-scale plant that is designed to convert over one hundred thousand tonnes of waste a year into clean, renewable transportation fuel,' says Joe Vaillancourt, MD for Waste Management's Organic Growth Group. 'The loan facility provides us with additional value as a back-up source of debt capital in the event we are not able to finalise a federal loan guarantee that we are pursuing,' says Eric Pryor, vice president and CFO of Fulcrum BioEnergy.

'This investment provides us the financial resources to move forward with the construction of our Sierra BioFuels plant.' Fulcrum has broken ground on its Sierra BioFuels plant, located in Storey County near to Reno, Nevada. When the plant begins commercial operations in the second half of 2013, it will handle 147,000 tonnes of waste annually for the production of 10 million gallons of ethanol.