KiOR: The Inside True Story of a Company Gone Wrong. Part 4, the Year of Living Disingenuously

The concern at the time, was not just about shareholder backlash, but competition. The report contended in its opening that “KiOR was not able to compete with Ensyn/UOP, who were said to producing Bio oil with yields of 80+ gallons per dry ton of Biomass, at a cost of less than $2 per gallon.” In short, the very yields that KiOR hoped to achieve.

The New Technology

The new technology was described as “entirely novel and should be patentable.” There was other good news, specifically that the catalysts and heat carriers, to be used in the new technology would replace the ruinously expensive ZSM Zeolite catalyst. They had been already made by former KiOR staffer Mike Brady and tested by Robert Bartek at the pilot plant in 2009. Their chemical compositions, the proposal outlined, could be further optimized, as well.

At the heart of the technology? A new family of materials exhibiting “Dual-Functionalities”, proprietary to KiOR. They were described as “Metal-Doped Clay-based Spinels”. The proposed new Biomass overall Conversion process, contained certain key individual process steps which had been tested and commercially evaluated, as published in prior art, led Stamires to report that it “ensured that the overall process was scalable up to large commercial size Plants, and Bio oil yields of 80+ gallons per dry ton of Biomass with acceptable quality, and low production cost, will be obtainable.”

Curiously, the IP became somewhat mangled, according to Stamires. “It turned out that some of the new materials and catalysts, invented and developed by Brady and Bartek, had been patented by Paul O’Connor, on Dec. 28th, 2011 and assigned to BIOeCON.”

Cannon’s Public Response, and Private Non-Response

While the Stealth team awaited a response from Cannon, the CEO went on a PR offensive regarding the company’s bullish prospects. In the Q3 2012 earnings call on November 8th, Cannon stated:

“Based on our experience at our pilot plant and demonstration scale facilities here in Houston , we expect that our technology on implementing the unit at our full-scale commercial plant, in Natchez, would achieve a yield of 72 gallons per bone dry ton of biomass. We believe that the progress generated by R&D investments to date, reflect a steady march to our target yield of 92 gallons per bone dry ton.”