MINNEAPOLIS - BioAmber Inc. has achieved an important milestone in its application for a $360 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy (U.S. DOE). This loan guarantee is in connection with the company’s goal of securing non-dilutive funding for its proposed second manufacturing facility, which would be located in the United States.

The U.S. DOE’s Loan Program Office (LPO) administers a four-phase process under the Title XVII Innovative Clean Energy Projects loan guarantee program. This program finances innovative renewable energy and efficient energy projects. BioAmber successfully completed the first two phases of the process and was selected for the next phase in which it will engage the LPO in the negotiation of terms and conditions of the potential loan guarantee, and work with the LPO to validate the engineering, environmental, market and financial information that BioAmber submitted in the previous phases.

BioAmber’s proposed second facility will be over six times the size of its existing Sarnia plant, with annual capacity of 70,000 tons of bio-based 1,4-butanediol (BDO), 24,000 tons of bio-based tetrahydrofuran (THF) and 60,000 tons of bio-based succinic acid. Using 10-year average feedstock and chemical pricing, and the same performance targets as the Sarnia plant, this facility is forecast to generate annual sales of over $350 million and $150 million of EBITDA at full capacity.

Jean-Francois Huc, BioAmber’s CEO, stated, “Our first commercial plant in Sarnia is ramping up to full capacity, and performance is on track. Securing funding for our second facility would be the cornerstone of our next phase of growth, where we will have expanded our product line to include bio-BDO and bio-THF and in so doing, become a world leader in renewable chemicals.”