Solazyme, a synthetic biology company pioneering the clean and sustainable bioproduction of fuels, industrial chemicals and specialty ingredients from marine microbes, today announced that it has signed a biodiesel feedstock development and testing agreement with Chevron Technology Ventures, a division of Chevron U.S.A. Inc.

"Building a relationship with Chevron Technology Ventures is an important step toward commercialization of Solazyme's technology which fits cleanly into Chevron's existing refining and fuels distribution infrastructure." said Jonathan Wolfson, chief executive officer of Solazyme.

Using a proprietary protected process that optimizes algal oil production, Solazyme is producing high-value, functional oils that can be leveraged across a wide variety of industries and applications including biodiesel, biojet and other biofuels. Solazyme has developed an industrial scale fermentation process currently capable of producing thousands of gallons of algal oil using standard industrial equipment. In addition, Solazyme has plans to dramatically expand production in 2008.