Elevance Renewable Sciences, Inc., a  specialty chemicals company that creates novel specialty chemicals from natural oils, has entered into a new collaboration with Genting Plantations Berhad through Genting Integrated Biorefinery Sdn Bhd (GIB), to be located in the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC) in Lahad Datu, Sabah, Malaysia.

The 25:75 collaboration between Elevance and Genting Plantations Berhad will build a 240,000 MT metathesis biorefinery based on Elevance’s proprietary metathesis technology, and will produce renewable, high-performance olefins and specialty chemicals that can be used in multiple end-product applications, including lubricants, surfactants and detergents.

As part of the collaboration agreement, GIB has agreed to pay Elevance license and design fees, and Elevance will provide intellectual property rights, knowledge transfer, and technical and consulting services. Elevance will also be exclusively responsible for the sale of all specialty chemicals that are produced at the biorefinery.

The Elevance metathesis biorefinery produces multiple high-value chemical streams similar to petroleum-based refineries. Elevance’s low-pressure, low-temperature process uses Nobel Prize-winning innovations in metathesis catalysis that consume significantly less energy and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 50 percent compared to petrochemical technologies. A highly efficient, selective catalyst is used to break down natural oils and recombine fragments, resulting in a process with lower source pollution, production costs and capital expenditures than petrochemical refineries.