Jean-Michel Gires, a 25-year oil veteran and former president and CEO of Total E&P Canada from 2009 until last December, was named venture partner of Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital. He will be part of a new fund that is planning to raise $150 million to $250 million, reports the Calgary Herald.
Gires will utilize his experience in heavy oil, mining, and sustainable development to focus on new technologies that deliver better solutions for challenges faced by the energy industry, which is addressing global environmental and social standards, according to the Chrysalix press release.
While CEO of Total E&P Canada, Gires often declared the company would spend $20 billion to achieve 200,000 barrels per day of oil sands production by 2020, reports the Calgary Herald.
Gires also helped found Total E&P’s venture arm, Total Technology Ventures, which was a limited partner in Chrysalix’s CELP III Fund launched in 2008.
Chrysalix has focused on investing in traditional energy innovation, partnering with oil & gas companies who are increasingly looking outside their in-house teams to find technology solutions that can make their operations cleaner and efficient. Recent Chrysalix investments include Axine Water Technologies, which treats fracking wastewater, Liquid Light, which turns carbon dioxide into chemicals for industrial use, and GlassPoint, which makes solar-powered steam generators for oil-drilling facilities.
The Cleantech Group had its first Oil & Gas Technology Summit earlier this year, which drew a lot of interest from corporate and strategic venture capital firms, according to Greg Niechen, executive VP of the Cleantech Group. “There certainly is a genuine uptick in the number of deals matching clean technologies to oil and gas and a concurrent growth in investor interest”, Niechen said in a phone interview in May.
To read more about the intersection of cleantech and conventional oil & gas, click here.
To read the Chrysalix press release, click here
To read the Calgary Herald article cited in this story, click here