SAN FRANCISCO, CA — (Marketwired) — 11/20/14 — Siluria Technologies, a pioneer in the commercial production of fuels and chemicals made from clean and abundant natural gas, announced today that Alex Tkachenko, Ph.D., Siluria–s co-founder, will step down as president and join the company–s advisory committee. Other members of the advisory committee are Dr. Angela Belcher, MIT professor and Siluria co-founder; and Honorable Edward Djerejian, former US Ambassador to Israel and Syria, and founding director of The Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.
“In its first five years under Alex–s leadership, Siluria grew from an incubation effort to a world leader in the development of natural gas-based chemical processes; tackled numerous technology challenges, advancing from an idea to proof of concept to commercialization; assembled a top tier group of investors; and won multiple industry awards,” said Ed Dineen, Siluria CEO. “We are extremely grateful to Alex for his leadership during Siluria–s formation and growth, and look forward to his continued support in his new role.”
“Replacing oil with natural gas as the foundation of modern industry is the greatest economic opportunity of our generation,” said Tkachenko. “With our pioneering technology, great leadership, outstanding technical and commercial team, industry-leading partners such as Linde, Braskem and Saudi Aramco, Siluria is poised to make natural gas into an abundant and economically advantaged feedstock for customers and industries worldwide. It has been a privilege to be part of Siluria–s launch and early growth. Today, I am excited to pursue other early-stage opportunities, while still contributing as an advisory committee member as Siluria commercializes our highly advantaged set of natural gas-based technologies.”
Founded in 2008, Siluria has raised over $110 million in four financing rounds to develop and commercialize its unique technology and processes for transforming natural gas — the most abundant and widely available hydrocarbons on earth — into transportation fuels and commodity chemicals in an efficient, cost-effective, scalable manner. Using standard industry equipment that integrates seamlessly into existing industry plants, Siluria is commercializing a growing portfolio of process configurations with applications in upstream, midstream gas processing, downstream chemicals production and refining operations. First commercial production based on Siluria–s Oxidative Coupling of Methane (OCM) and Ethylene to Liquids (ETL) processes is expected in the 2017/2018 timeframe.
Siluria Technologies is pioneering the commercial production of fuels and chemicals made from clean, abundant natural gas. Siluria–s break through Oxidative Coupling of Methane (“OCM”) process technology is believed to be the first commercially viable process to directly convert methane to ethylene. Siluria–s second process technology can convert ethylene to liquid fuels such as gasoline, diesel or jet fuel. This enables natural gas to potentially supplement petroleum as the worldwide basis for transportation fuels and commodity chemicals. Siluria–s revolutionary catalyst and process technologies uniquely combine nanomaterials, templating and chemical engineering, to convert natural gas into higher value products using efficient processes that can be seamlessly integrated into existing industry infrastructure. For more information about Siluria, visit
Stephanie Kays
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