HAMBURG, Germany and EMERYVILLE, Calif., Oct. 26, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- H&R USA (H&R), a company of The Hansen & Rosenthal Group, of Hamburg (Germany), and Novvi LLC today announced that H&R has made an equity investment into Novvi LLC, a joint venture of Amyris, Inc. (Nasdaq:AMRS), Cosan S.A., American Refining Group (ARG) and Chevron USA (NYSE:CVX). Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Novvi's products and technology are recognized by the global lubricant market to deliver sustainable, high-performance solutions in a range of lubricant applications. Since launching first commercial production in 2014, Novvi has been steadily increasing base oil manufacturing to keep up with robust and growing demand for a variety of automotive and industrial lubricant applications.

"We are delighted to have H&R join Novvi as a strategic investor. H&R's partnership continues to demonstrate that the global base oil market has a requirement for and acceptance of Novvi technology," stated Jeff Brown, Novvi LLC's CEO. "As we continue to increase our global market penetration, H&R's deep know-how of the process oil business and its application development capability further enhance our growth plan," he continued.

"We are pleased that H&R, a company with a long tradition as a global innovator with hundreds of oil and wax based specialty products has joined with Novvi to support further growth in renewable products to meet growing consumer demand for high performance and sustainably sourced products," said John Melo, Amyris President & CEO. "This demand continues to contribute to our strong revenue growth and to support our mission of accelerating the transition to high performance, sustainably sourced products. We are very pleased to have H&R join us, Cosan, Chevron and ARG on this mission."

"The Novvi partnership will provide us with access to high-performance renewable base oils, which is well aligned with what our customers are looking for: best performance plus renewable and sustainable," said Niels H. Hansen, chairman of the executive board at H&R. "Novvi's technology creates new possibilities for longer-term product development with H&R and its customers — renewable and sustainable chemistry that can grow the market for the future," he added.

The Hansen & Rosenthal Group

The Hansen & Rosenthal Group (H&R) is a specialist chemical company. It develops and manufactures crude oil-based chemical and pharmaceutical products. The H&R Group in Germany and its affiliated companies are a worldwide sales network with refineries and specialty product plants at the service of its customers to cover their needs in products like white oils, wax emulsions, paraffin, plasticizing oils.

Novvi LLC

Novvi LLC is the market leader in renewable oils and is a joint venture of Amyris, Inc., American Refining Group, Inc., Cosan S.A. Industria e Comercio and Chevron USA. Novvi produces targeted hydrocarbon molecules from plant sugar for automotive, industrial, marine, and construction applications at unbeatable economics. Novvi designs the best oils ever built to meet the demands of the advanced machine world. Learn more at www.Novvi.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements regarding Amyris, and any statements regarding Amyris other than statements of historical facts could be deemed to be forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, statements regarding future events (such as expected growth in demand for renewable products and anticipated Amyris revenue growth)­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are based on management's current expectations and actual results and future events may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties, including risks related to manufacturing capacity at Amyris's Brotas facility, delays or failures in development, production and commercialization of products, liquidity and ability to fund capital expenditures, Amyris's reliance on third parties to achieve its goals, and other risks detailed in the "Risk Factors" section of Amyris's quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed on August 14, 2017. Amyris disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Media Contacts:

The Hansen & Rosenthal Group:Thies Kaiser, PR/IR Managerthies.kaiser@hur.com+49 40 43218 321

Novvi:William R Downey, Senior VP, Business Developmentdowney@novvi.com+1-917-214-8063