Myriant Makes Substantial Progress Towards Production of Economical Bio-acrylic acid

Quincy, MA -- Myriant Corporation announced that it has made substantial progress towards the production of cost-competitive bio-acrylic acid made from renewable feedstocks. Myriant has filed for patent protection with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for its bio-acrylic acid process and will immediately initiate scale-up activities to provide product samples to customers in the second half of 2012. Based on its progress to-date, Myriant expects that its bio-acrylic acid product will be cost competitive, compared to petroleum-based acrylic acid without the need for government subsidies or green premiums.

"With our first product, D(-) lactic acid, commercialized and our second product, bio-succinic acid, entering commercial production in early 2013, Myriant is aggressively advancing our pipeline and diversifying our product offering of bio-based chemicals," said Cenan Ozmeral, Chief Operating Officer at Myriant. "Bio-acrylic acid, like our first two products, is an important chemical building-block monomer and demand exists for affordable, high-performing drop in bio-acrylic acid for existing large market applications. Strategically and operationally, this is an important pipeline expansion product for the Company and we look forward to meeting customer requests for kilogram-sized samples later this year."

Acrylic acid and its derivatives are some of the most versatile and widely used chemical monomers mainly because they impart important properties to a diverse array of consumer applications, including making plastics transparent and diapers more absorbent. Acrylic acid is also commonly used in applications ranging from coatings and adhesives to sealants and detergents, with an estimated market in excess of $14 billion at current prices. Today, acrylic acid is manufactured from petroleum derived propylene.

As worldwide supply of propylene becomes ever more constrained and pricing volatility persists for petroleum-derived chemicals, demand is increasing for the production of acrylic acid from cost-competitive, renewable feedstocks. Myriants high-performing bio-acrylic acid will be chemically identical to acrylic acid made from petroleum, without any loss in performance but with important predictability in price.

About Myriant Corporation

Myriant utilizes its proprietary technology platform to develop innovative, performance-based, renewable chemicals utilizing low-cost sugars. In December 2010, Myriant broke ground on its flagship 30 million pound commercial bio-succinic acid facility in Lake Providence, Louisiana and anticipates beginning commercial production in early 2013. The companys D(-) lactic acid started production at commercial scale in June 2008 for use in polylactic acid. Myriant has agreements with ThyssenKrupp Uhde GmbH for engineering, Davy Process Technology for the integration of Myriants biosuccinic acid process with the Davy butanediol process for the production of bio-based butanediol, and PTT Chemical for the commercialization of Myriants technology in Southeast Asia. Myriant is headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts.