Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe's largest oil company, and closely held Virent Energy Systems Inc. are studying ways to produce gasoline from plant sugar that would be cheaper to use than biofuels such as ethanol, Bloomberg News reported.

So-called biogasoline would have higher energy content and fuel efficiency than ethanol and be mixed in greater proportions with regular gasoline to fuel standard vehicles, the companies said in an e-mailed statement. The fuel wouldn't require adaptation of current engine designs and could be made from nonedible feedstocks such as sugarcane pulp and switchgrass, Bloomberg said.