Personnel moves

Veteran legal advisor joins new firm

Mona Dajani, a veteran legal advisor heavily involved in hydrogen dealmaking, has left Pillsbury Winthrop for a new role.

February 13, 2023

Mona Dajani, a prominent legal advisor in infrastructure, mobility, renewables and water, has left Pillsbury Winthrop to become global head of renewables, hydrogen and ammonia at Shearman & Sterling, according to a post on LinkedIn.

She will take a dual title as global co-head of energy and infrastructure at the firm as well.

Her post mentions Jorge Medina, partner and head of renewables at Shearman, who is also leaving Pillsbury for a new role.

In numerous public appearances Dajani has been bullish on the proliferation of blue hydrogen as a transition fuel and the use of renewable natural gas. Her clients have included major multinationals and US energy producers.

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Personnel moves

8 Rivers appoints new CEO

8 Rivers Capital appoints Christopher Richardson to CEO position from law firm White & Case.

8 Rivers Capital, LLC, a decarbonization technology developer, has appointed Christopher F. Richardson as the firm’s new Chief Executive Officer, according to a news release.

He succeeds Dharmesh Patel, who has served for six months as interim CEO and previously served as Vice President and Financial Controller. Patel will ascend to the new position of Senior Vice President of Finance, effective immediately.

Richardson joins 8 Rivers with over 20 years of experience in energy and infrastructure transactions and projects and previously served as the head of the Americas energy and infrastructure projects section at the global law firm White & Case. He was based in the firm’s Houston office, which he established in 2018 as a founding partner.

In this role, Richardson led and managed a team of over 100 lawyers across eight offices in the Americas. Richardson’s expertise on developing, financing, and executing large-scale energy and infrastructure projects and related transactions spans the U.S. and more than 50 countries worldwide.

March 19, 2024

Innovation, Raising capital

Decarbonization start-up raises $7.5m seed capital

The start-up is seeking to commercialize a technology that eliminates carbon from natural gas to produce clean hydrogen and solid carbon.

ETCH, INC. (ETCH), a decarbonization company that eliminates carbon from natural gas to produce both clean hydrogen and solid carbon, has secured $7.5m in seed-stage funding from Emerald Development Managers LP, according to a news release.

ETCH will use these funds to take the technology to market and begin commercialization. ETCH anticipates that it will be field testing commercial units later this year.

Formulated in the labs of Johns Hopkins University by Prof. Jonah Erlebacher, Ph.D., The ETCH Process^TM uses a novel closed-loop chemical reaction cycle that leads to highly efficient thermal and materials management in reactor systems. ETCH’s revolutionary decarbonization technology delivers unrivaled environmental impact, economic value, and versatility that will accelerate the clean energy transition. In 2018, the project team secured a competitive multi-year grant from the Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E), which provided critical research funding.

The ETCH Process^TM is a clear differentiator among other hydrogen technologies for its:

Efficiency: The ETCH Process^TM can convert nearly 100% of natural gas input into hydrogen, regardless of scale, and it requires minimal maintenance through its modular design.
Affordability: ETCH’s low-cost solution is on track to beat the DOE Hydrogen Shot cost target of less than $1/kg.
Sustainability: ETCH requires less energy and no water thereby providing the most versatility to operate across geographies.
Security: ETCH uses earth-abundant materials that can be sourced domestically and will not be subject to supply chain disruptions and thereby enhance energy security.

“We cannot solve our climate and emissions challenge without cleaning up natural gas,” said Dr. Jonah Erlebacher, ETCH Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer. “The ETCH Process^TM is a holistic solution that will allow decarbonized natural gas to be a part of our global energy system. This significant seed-stage funding demonstrates confidence in our technology and business plan as we work toward a clean energy future.”

“ETCH has developed an amazing new technology. It is practical, has dramatically lower operating and capital costs compared to any existing or proposed decarbonization approach, and is easily deployable at any scale” said Neil Cohen, Founder and Chairman of Emerald Development Managers. “The ETCH Process^TM can be easily implemented in-line at millions of facilities, delivering clean hydrogen and significant solid carbon that can be used in a multitude of ways.”

“The ETCH Process^TM is an intelligent steward of our natural resources – at scale – for an energy secure and sustainable future,” said Ed Schlesinger, Dean of Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering. “We are proud to support ETCH as it moves forward on its journey.”

July 26, 2023

M&A, Raising capital

Talos Energy divests carbon management business

Talos Energy has sold its carbon management business to TotalEnergies for $148m.

Talos Energy Inc. has entered into an agreement for the sale of its wholly owned subsidiary, Talos Low Carbon Solutions LLC, to TotalEnergies E&P USA, Inc. for a purchase price of $125m plus customary reimbursements, adjustments and retention of cash, combined totaling approximately $148m, according to a news release.

The transaction was based on an effective date of January 1, 2024. Talos intends to use the proceeds from the sale to immediately repay borrowings under its credit facility and for general corporate purposes.

The sale includes Talos’s entire carbon capture and sequestration business, including its three projects along the U.S. Gulf Coast: Bayou Bend CCS LLC, Harvest Bend CCS LLC and Coastal Bend CCS LLC.

Talos may realize additional future cash payments upon achievement of certain milestones at the Harvest Bend or Coastal Bend projects or upon a subsequent sale of these projects by TotalEnergies. Robin Fielder, Talos Executive Vice President, Low Carbon Strategy and Chief Sustainability Officer, will continue to serve in her role for a transition period before leaving Talos to pursue other opportunities.

Talos President and Chief Executive Officer Timothy S. Duncan stated: “Since TLCS’s inception, we have successfully applied our energy expertise as an early mover aimed at developing decarbonization solutions along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Strong market interest during our capital raise provided the strategic option to fully monetize the business to TotalEnergies, an established global leader in CCS development. Robin and our entire CCS team did an outstanding job crystallizing value for Talos shareholders for a strong financial return. The transaction will further enable Talos to prioritize cash flow generation and optimal capital allocation in our core Upstream business. We are also continuing to explore business development and strategic M&A opportunities.”

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC served as financial advisor to Talos and Latham & Watkins LLP served as legal advisor to Talos.

March 19, 2024

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Innovation, Project news, Raising capital

Pharma and fuels tech provider could be ready for public listing

International biotechnology firm Insilico Medicine is applying the algorithms that produce novel drugs to synthesizing more sustainable petrochemical fuels and materials.

Insilico Medicine, a global biotechnology firm serving the pharmaceutical and carbon-based energy industries, could be ready for a public listing in the next phase of its corporate evolution.

Insilico, founded in Baltimore and now based in Hong Kong, has raised about $400m in private capital to date and is in the position of a company that would be exploring a public listing in the US and Hong Kong, CEO Alex Zhavoronkov said in an interview. He declined to say if he has hired a financial advisor to run such a process but said a similar company in his position would have.

The generative AI platform that the company uses to produce novel drugs can be applied to produce more sustainable carbon-based fuels, Zhavoronkov said. The objective is to maximize btu and minimize CO2, making the fuels burn longer and cleaner.

Saudi Arabia’s state oil company Aramco is a user of the technology and participated in Insilico’s $95m Series D (oversubscribed and split between two sub-rounds) last year through its investment arm Prosperity7.

Petrochemistry is going to be needed well into the future, Zhavoronkov said. In addition to renewable energy and other ESG efforts, the efficiency of petrochemicals should be a top priority.

“If you burn certain petrochemicals in certain combinations, you can achieve a reasonably clean burn and an energy efficient burn,” he said. For specific tasks like space travel or Formula 1 racing, combined fuels produce the necessary torque, and generative chemistry can achieve those objectives in a more sustainable way. “I think that we can make the world significantly cleaner just by modifying petrochemical products.”

The technology can also be used to make organic matter in petrochemical products degrade more quickly, which is useful in the case of plastics, Zhavoronkov said.

The company’s AI is primarily based in Montreal and in the drug discovery business in China, but fuel research takes place in Abu Dhabi. Zhavoronkov said he has hired a lot of “AI refugees” from Russia and Ukraine to work at the latter location. The company has 40 employees in the UAE and will likely scale to 70.

Insilico is capitalized for the next two years or so, he said. That doesn’t account for revenue, which closed at just under $30m in 2022. The petrochemical and materials business is under the AI research arm of the business, which is covered by funds raised to date.

“Our board would probably not allow me to reinvent myself as an energy play,” Zhavoronkov said. But the board does not object to applying resources to petrochemical products.

February 17, 2023

exclusive

Raising capital

AIMCo-backed midstream infrastructure firm in refi

The company, whose asset footprint includes Gulf Coast hydrogen production, today priced a debt refinancing transaction with an 8.875% coupon.

Howard Energy Partners today priced $550m of senior unsecured notes to refinance amounts outstanding on its revolving credit facility.

The company, which is majority owned by the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo), will pay 8.875% on the notes, inside of price talk of between 8.75% – 9%, according to sources familiar with the matter.

RBC Capital Markets and TD Securities are joint active bookrunners on the deal, the sources said.

Howard in 2021 closed on the acquisition of the Javelina Facility in Corpus Christi, Texas — a treating and fractionation plant that extracts olefins, hydrogen, and natural gas liquids from the gas streams produced by local refineries.

Starting in Jan of 2023, a strategic technology partner began producing a low-carbon diesel substitute using Javelina’s hydrogen and CO2 as feedstocks, making it one of the first merchant “clean” hydrogen facilities on the US Gulf Coast, according to the company. HEP is also pursuing carbon capture and sequestration opportunities with its Javelina assets through a joint venture with TALOS Energy and the Port of Corpus Christi.

AIMCo acquired an initial 28% stake in HEP in 2017, and brought its ownership stake to 87% last year following the purchase of Astatine Investment Partners’ stake in the company.

Howard operates in two key segments in the US and Mexico: natural gas and liquids. The natural gas segment includes 1,175 miles of pipelines and approximately 4.3 Bcf/d of throughput capacity and 600 MMCf/d of cryogenic processing capacity.

The liquids segment includes terminalling and logistics services for refined products as well as refinery-focused off-gas handling, treating, processing, fractionation and hydrogen supply services.

Spokespersons for the company, RBC, and TD did not respond to emails seeking comment.

June 29, 2023

exclusive

M&A, Raising capital

Green hydrogen developer in exclusivity with new investor

New York-based green hydrogen developer Ambient Fuels is in exclusivity with a new investor, with proceeds from the capital raise slated to fund project development and acquisitions.

Ambient Fuels, the New York-based green hydrogen developer, is in exclusivity with a new investor for a bilateral capital raise, CEO Jacob Susman said in an interview.

Susman declined to name the private equity provider but said the backing will allow Ambient to develop several projects, as well as acquire projects from other developers. The deal is proceeding without the help of a financial advisor.

Once the company reaches its run rate, Ambient plans to complete three to four projects per year costing $50m and up, Susman said, with the first expected to reach operation in 2025.

The company’s initial geographic focus is on the Gulf Coast, centered on the Port of Corpus Christi, Susman said. New York, California, the Pacific Northwest and traditional wind energy states in the Midwest and West are areas of additional work.

Hydrogen hubs

Ambient is closely following the DOE hydrogen hub applications process, Susman said. Which regions are awarded funding could make a difference for where the company locates new projects.

According to ReSource‘s project tracker, Ambient is involved in at least two of the hubs that were encouraged by the DOE to submit a final application: California’s Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES), and the Port of Corpus Christi Green Hydrogen Hub.

In 2021 Ambient completed a funding round led by SJF Ventures. Several other VC funds and angel investors also participated.

Open for offtake business

Ambient is looking for offtakers in industries that use the molecules for feedstock and energy but need to meet decarbonization targets.

The company is working to provide hydrogen as an industrial feedstock and energy source to sectors including transportation, oil and gas, mining, glass and steel production and automobile manufacturing. Supplying hydrogen for ammonia fertilizer is another target market.

Advisors with clients in those industries should reach out to Ambient, Susman said.

M&A strategy

Ambient strives to be a fully integrated devco with the resources, capital and expertise to take a project to fruition, Susman said. Projects developed by smaller companies can look to Ambient as a buyer for their projects.

“We want to be a home for those great projects that are being developed independently,” Susman said. “Absolutely we will be acquiring projects.”

Smaller developers with good projects could also be targets for takeover with the backing from the new investor, Susman said. The firm could also make a technology buy in software for project development, operations, or possibly the equipment side, though Susman said there’s a low probability of that.

Financial advisors that have leads on good projects Ambient can acquire are welcome to pitch, Susman said.

Susman said he is not in a hurry to exit Ambient and can see the company being independently financed for years to come.

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January 27, 2023

Veteran legal advisor joins new firm

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8 Rivers appoints new CEO

Decarbonization start-up raises $7.5m seed capital

Talos Energy divests carbon management business

Pharma and fuels tech provider could be ready for public listing

AIMCo-backed midstream infrastructure firm in refi

Green hydrogen developer in exclusivity with new investor

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