Cemvita Corp., an up-and-coming clean technology and biochemicals company, named a new CFO as it continues on a trajectory to commercialization.
The Houston-based company named Lisa Bromiley as its first CFO this week. Bromiley has served in several financial and accounting leadership roles in companies in and around the Houston area.
She was most recently the CFO of Houston-based oil and gas producer Fortify Energy, departing that role in September 2023. Bromiley is currently on the board of directors at Minneapolis-based Northern Oil and Gas Inc. (NYSE: NOG) and previously held roles at Houston-based Flotek Industries Inc. (NYSE: FTK).
“We're moving swiftly from development to commercialization, using our patented microbes to produce sustainable feedstocks from carbon waste,” Bromiley said in Cemvita’s Jan. 10 press release. “I believe our core mission to recycle carbon waste, including CO2, for profitable industrial feedstock production is vital for a more sustainable world."
Cemvita uses a library of microbes to turn carbon dioxide and waste products into feedstocks that can be further refined to create products such as sustainable aviation fuel, a targeted commodity for airlines looking to decarbonize their fleets. Last year, the company hit a major milestone when it secured a deal with investor United Airlines (Nasdaq: UAL) to produce up to 1 billion gallons of SAF.
Cemvita said it expects to complete the full-scale plants used in the United deal around 2028 or 2029. The company is evaluating locations for the plants based on carbon dioxide availability.
Also in 2023, Cemvita opened its first pilot plant, the ECO2 Process Innovation Center. CEO and co-founder Moji Karimi told the Houston Business Journal that the plant was a template for future plant designs that can be reproduced and sold to be installed on existing energy campuses or pipelines — or even at a different source of carbon dioxide. According to Cemvita officials, the plant can capture carbon dioxide emissions either at a point-source level, such as flue gas from a refinery, or at a bulk-source level from a pipeline.
Moji Karimi and his co-founder and sister, Tara, have been working on Cemvita’s technology for most of the past decade after exploring its application in the energy field. Moji Karimi, who previously worked in the oil and gas sector and had experience on drilling rigs, said part of the challenge pitching the technology was finding receptive audiences.
One of those audiences was Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE: OXY) and its CEO, Vicki Hollub. Early meetings with Hollub and Oxy led to a 2021 collaboration for an ethylene plant developed by Cemvita with aid from the energy giant’s investment arm, Oxy Clean Ventures.
