HutanBio, a Cambridge-founded biotechnology company developing algae-based oils for sustainable aviation, maritime and heavy transport fuels, has signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding with Utopia World Investment in Oman, marking a significant step towards the company’s first commercial deployment.
Under the MoU, Wakud International, which owns and operates Oman’s first dedicated biodiesel refinery and is majority owned by Utopia, is expected to act as an offtaker for HutanBio’s algae-derived oil as the organisations progress towards commercial deployment.
The milestone represents HutanBio’s first commercial offtake MoU and supports the company’s decision to establish its first commercial site in Oman, where existing refinery infrastructure, coastal desert land, high solar radiation and access to saline water create strong conditions for scaling algae-based biofuel production.
Founded in 2019, HutanBio is developing a low-carbon oil platform to produce sustainable fuel feedstocks without relying on arable land or freshwater. The technology uses proprietary marine microalgae, rooted in research from the University of Cambridge and later developed at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia.
The company’s founding team first came together through the University of Cambridge, where early research focused on discovering and developing industrial organisms from nature. That work led to the identification of a new-to-science organism which now underpins HutanBio’s platform. While production will take place in Oman, HutanBio’s intellectual property, leadership team and engineering biology expertise remain rooted in Cambridge, reinforcing the UK’s position as a global hub for sustainable fuel innovation.
The partnership comes as governments and industry look to diversify and decarbonise liquid fuel production, particularly in hard-to-abate sectors such as aviation and shipping. HutanBio’s approach is designed to support a more distributed model of fuel production, using coastal desert environments and existing refining pathways to produce scalable low-carbon fuels.
