Nce the oil is being produced in algal cells, you might try to use chlamydomonas, an algal model organism that is easy to grow in the lab. you could test whether rhodopseudomonas produces a similar compound and try to isolate the genes and enzymes necessary to produce it. or you could perhaps mutagenize (knock out) genes in your chlamydomonas cell and see which ones are needed to produce the biofuel.