The most one can gather from the news item/press release is that CelluForce is researching applications in the oil and gas sector and that they’re very happy to receive money although there’s no indication as to how much. From a March 26, 2015 news item on Azonano,

CelluForce is pleased to announce an investment into the company by Schlumberger, the world’s leading supplier of technology, integrated project management and information solutions for the global oil and gas industry.

CelluForce’s March 25, 2015 press release does go on but there are no more details to be had,

This investment furthers the collaboration between CelluForce and Schlumberger to explore the use of CelluForce’s wood-derived nano-crystalline cellulose (CelluForce NCCTM) to enhance the productivity of oil and gas wells.

“We are very proud to be expanding our partnership with Schlumberger, the world’s leading oil and gas service company”, stated René Goguen, Acting President of CelluForce. “We have always believed that NCC applications hold promise extending far beyond the forest sector, and we see this investment from an international company as respected as Schlumberger as confirmation of this belief.”

NCC is a fundamental building block of trees that can be extracted from the forest biomass and has unique properties that offer a wide range of potential applications. Measured in units as small as nanometres, these tiny structures have strength properties comparable to steel and will have uses in a variety of industrial sectors.

The first small-scale NCC pilot plant was built and began operation in 2006 at FPInnovations’ laboratory in Montréal, Québec. Supported in part by Natural Resources Canada and the Ministère de l’Énergie et des Ressources naturelles du Québec, the pilot plant operation led to a scalable NCC production process and placed Canada in the pole position of the global race towards commercial NCC manufacture. Based on the success of the small-scale pilot plant, CelluForce, a joint venture of Domtar and FPInnovations, was created which led to the construction of a demonstration plant at Domtar’s mill in Windsor, Québec, having a production capacity of 1000 kg of NCC per day.

This announcement follows the recent announcement by the Honourable Greg Rickford, Minister of Natural Resources, of a $4.0 million contribution by Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to optimize the extraction process of NCC from dry wood pulp and develop applications for its use in the oil and gas sector.

The $4M Canadian federal government investment was mentioned in my Feb. 19, 2015 post (scroll down about 40% of the way).

I get the feeling CelluForce is trying to recover from a setback and I wonder if it has anything to do with their production facility’s stockpile of NCC (aka, CNC or cellulose nanocrystals), first mentioned here in an Oct. 3, 2013 post. There was much fanfare about producing NCC/CNC but there was and is no substantive demand for the material in Canada or anywhere else globally.

Canada has three facilities that produce CNC (CelluForce being the largest) and there are production facilities in other countries. To date, there is no major application for CNC but given its properties, there is substantive research into how it could be commercialized. My Nov. 25, 2014 post covers a recent US report about commercializing nanocellulosic materials, including CNC.

I hope that CelluForce is able to overcome whatever problems it seems to be experiencing. Certainly, investments such as Schlumberger’s hint at the possibility. I wish the management team good luck.