India & United States : Praj Industries Limited, a global leader in the development of innovative technology and engineering solutions for the production of biofuels and biochemicals and Qteros, Inc., the developer of a unique and highly efficient Consolidated Bioprocessing (CBP) platform for the lowest cost production of cellulosic ethanol, today announced a strategic partnership to accelerate commercialization efforts for industrial-scale cellulosic ethanol production. The agreement leverages both Qteros’ broadly patent protected and highly flexible CBP platform with Praj’s research capabilities and its technology, process design, engineering and construction expertise to deliver fully integrated engineering design packages for the lowest cost production of ethanol from a broad variety of non-food based feedstocks.

“An optimized and streamlined consolidated bioprocessing platform offers the potential to provide important production cost efficiencies and economic returns to global ethanol producers,” stated Pramod Chaudhari, Founder and Executive Chairman, Praj Industries Ltd., and Chairman, Praj Group. “Praj has achieved significant milestones in second generation, cellulosic ethanol technology development. We have also evaluated the complete market landscape for cellulosic ethanol conversion technologies and we believe Qteros’ CBP platform potentially offers the most advanced technology solution to enable the lowest cost production of cellulosic ethanol across a broad array of important non-food based feedstocks. We believe this partnership will enhance the results of the developmental breakthroughs achieved by Praj Matrix, the Research and Development (R&D) division of Praj, which has worked with virtually all types of cellulosic biomass at its pilot plant. Building on its experience of installing ethanol plants in over 50 countries, Praj will bring an integrated approach to the partnership in the second generation bioethanol space.”

“Our partnership with Praj represents a transformational initiative for Qteros,” stated John A. McCarthy, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer of Qteros. “We and Praj share close strategic and philosophical alignment about the worldwide opportunities for large-scale cellulosic ethanol production and believe that commercial success can only be achieved with low-cost, highly scalable solutions made possible through creative and best-in-class partnerships such as that crafted between our two companies. Praj and Qteros bring together highly complementary skill sets and core competencies which we expect will catalyze our ability to develop the industry’s low cost solution – both from an operating and capital perspective – for large-scale cellulosic ethanol production. Achieving our combined objective will then provide the industry with a much-needed accelerant for worldwide growth and will also enable our two companies to establish leadership roles in this rapidly evolving global market. We look forward to making our shared vision with Praj a commercial reality within the next 18-24 months.”