Yield10 Bioscience Inc. released second quarter financial results on Aug. 14, reporting that the harvest of 2022-’23 winter camelina under grower contracts is well underway and the first delivery of camelina to a biofuel customer is now complete.

"The first half of 2023 was productive for Yield10 as we demonstrated significant progress toward building our value chain for broadly commercializing Camelina as a platform crop to produce low-carbon intensity feedstock oil for the biofuel market," said Oliver Peoples, president and CEO of Yield10. "We continue to engage with potential supply chain and customer prospects in the biofuel space, including ongoing discussions with Marathon Petroleum and Mitsubishi with the goal of finalizing Camelina oil offtake and investment agreements.

"We have supported our Camelina growers throughout the season and anticipate harvesting all contracted acres across the U.S. and Canada over the coming weeks,” Peoples continued. “I am pleased to report that we are seeing a building momentum in new interest, as well as repeat interest, among growers for participation in our upcoming 2023/2024 winter Camelina grower contracting program.”

In addition to the discussions with Marathon and Mitsubishi, Peoples said Yield10 continues to receive inbound inquiries from energy company partner prospects with the goal of creating the option to establish a network of alliances to supply camelina feedstock oil to the biofuel market.  

According to Peoples, the renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) markets offer tremendous opportunity for the company’s camelina. New demand is being generated as new biorefineries come online and new environmental commitments are being made to utilize these cleaner fuels across the globe, he said. Camelina cultivation could help reduce risk for these biofuel producers by expanding the overall supply of feedstock oil, especially using winter canola, Peoples added.

Last fall, Yield10 contracted with growers to plant its WDH2 variety of camelina, which is a cold hardy winter variety, with plots ranging from 30 to 160 acres, Peoples said. That contracting was done to set in motion steps in the value chain from planting, to harvest, to grain delivery to an offtake customer. Yield10 also contracted spring camelina acres, which were planted in May. That harvest is expected to be completed in the coming weeks. A portion of that grain is expected to be sold for use as biofuel feedstock. The harvest will also be used to produce customer samples, according to the company. Peoples noted that Yield10 is currently engaging with existing and new growers and seeing good interest in contracting winter acres in the 2023-’24 growing season. The 2023-’24 winter crop is expected to be planted by the end of the third quarter.

Yield10 reported a net loss of $3.7 million for the second quarter, or 64 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $3.4 million, or 70 cents per share, reported for the same period of last year.