(Corrects to remove reference to fund in fourth
paragraph.)
Sept. 8 (Bloomberg) — Glasspoint Solar Inc., a closely
held producer of solar equipment used for enhanced oil recovery,
received $53 million from a group of investors led by Royal
Dutch Shell Plc and Oman’s largest sovereign wealth fund.
The funds will be used to accelerate the deployment of
Glasspoint’s solar-steam generators in Oman, the Fremont,
California-based company said today in a statement. Existing
investors Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital, Nth Power and
Rockport Capital also contributed to the equity round.
Glasspoint’s systems concentrate sunlight on tubes to
create steam that’s injected to help retrieve heavy crude oil.
Generating that heat from the sun instead of liquefied natural
gas reduces a drilling site’s gas consumption by as much as 80
percent — and it costs less than half as much.
About one-quarter of Oman’s natural gas supply is used for
so-called enhanced oil recovery and using more sunlight allows
it to save or sell those supplies, Geert van de Wouw, managing
director of Shell Technology Ventures, said in a telephone
interview.
“Being able to re-appropriate it for other industries is
very important to Oman — as it is for us,” said van de Wouw,
who is based in the Netherlands. “We’re not just a venture
capital firm that tries to maximize a return on investment.
That’s important, but, more importantly, we try to find
opportunities to deploy these technologies.”
To contact the reporter on this story:
Justin Doom in New York at
jdoom1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
Robin Saponar, Tina Davis