(Bloomberg) — Gevo Inc., a U.S. biofuel producer backed by
the French oil company Total SA, more than doubled after Alaska
Air Group Inc. agreed to buy its renewable jet fuel.
Gevo rose 123 percent to $5.46 at the close in New York,
the most since the company’s 2011 public offering.
The airline holding company’s Alaska Airlines is planning a
demonstration flight this year using Gevo’s fuel, the Englewood,
Colorado-based company said in a statement Thursday.
The deal is part of Alaska Air’s efforts to use sustainably
produced biofuel. The carrier previously has flown aircraft
using fuel derived from used cooking oil.
“If we’re at full scale, we’d have the lowest-cost,
renewable-resource-based jet fuel around,” Gevo Chief Executive
Officer Pat Gruber said Thursday in a telephone interview.
“It’s just likes standard-performance kerosene, but our stuff
generally burns way cleaner than petrochemical-based jet fuel.”
Gevo converts corn and plant waste into isobutanol, which
is processed into jet fuel that’s a drop-in substitute for
petroleum-based fuel.
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Justin Doom in New York at
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
Will Wade, Jim Efstathiou Jr.