On Sept. 6, Tesoro Corp. announced an agreement under which it will acquire Virent Inc. and become the company’s new strategic owner. Virent said the acquisition will support the scale-up and commercialization of its BioForming technology for the production of low-carbon biofuels and chemicals. Virent’s BioForming technology converts sugars and other biomass-derived feedstocks into renewable gasoline blendstocks and aromatics. In addition to transportation fuel, the aromatics can also be used for renewable chemicals, including paraxylene, which is a component of polyester. Read the full article here.