Quadrise Fuels International plc (AIM: QFI) provides the following update on business development activities.
On 18 July 2018 Quadrise was pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with Freepoint Commodities LLP (“Freepoint”). The Board believes that this will provide a significant catalyst to the Company’s business development activities across all business segments, in both existing and new geographic markets in the Americas and in Asia.
Following signature of the MOU, the Company is now working with Freepoint to agree and prioritise an expanded list of specific target projects, with a focus on those opportunities that will benefit from the synergy available from utilising Quadrises’s MSAR® technology in conjunction with Freepoint’s proven trading and investment activities to create and develop sustainable markets for the production, supply and consumption of MSAR®. In addition, opportunities for Freepoint’s specific expertise and deep knowledge of fuel and distillate markets to add further value to some of our current projects are already becoming apparent. We look forward to providing updates on the initiatives under the MOU in due course.
As noted previously, Quadrise is continuing to develop a broad spread of potential opportunities in the power, marine, upstream, petrochemical and refinery refuelling markets.
· Cepsa and Quadrise continue to explore opportunities to use the installed facility at Cepsa for supply to the marine or power markets. The Company will also evaluate opportunities to accelerate the development of other projects by using the equipment currently installed at Cepsa.
· There are significant opportunities in the power market in the Americas, the Middle East (in addition to those in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (“KSA”)), Africa and the Far East (with the potential to supply from Europe for some projects). Quadrise will continue to address these either directly, or through our relationships with YTL-PowerSeraya, JGC and/or Freepoint, as appropriate.
· The marine market is now exhibiting a substantive change with regards to the acceptance of exhaust gas cleaning (or “scrubbers”), with significant momentum building, and large orders recently announced, on their implementation across all major segments including tankers, bulkers and container ships. This is being driven by: a) increased concern over distillate fuel availability and compatibility potentially impacting operations; and b) increasing oil prices and a widening of the price spread between high and low sulphur fuels leading to material increases in fuel costs for shippers. This environment further increases the economic benefits of MSAR® in combination with scrubbers further enabling the Company to engage with shippers and engine manufacturers.
· Discussions progress with Maersk relating to the Royalty Agreement in the context of recent market developments.
· Feedback is awaited from a client relating to the use of MSAR® technology in the petrochemical market, which would initially comprise a trial for a new residue application.
· Quadrise continues to evaluate opportunities for MSAR® to be used as part of a number of processing facility solutions to enable lower cost steam generation to improve the economics of crude oil production and export for a low sulphur heavy oil asset and, separately, to reduce on-site power generation costs in another upstream application.
The previously outlined challenges faced in Saudi Arabia have required the Company to re-evaluate how best to progress the substantial opportunities that it continues to believe exist in the KSA power generation market in the medium term. Information relating to the KSA’s proposed new energy strategy and the proposed restructuring of the power sector is awaited and is now not expected to be available until early autumn 2018.
Even with the ambitious targets for renewables that have been announced recently in KSA, liquid fuels will still, we believe, be a major fuel source for generating power and desalination in the KSA for many years given the Kingdom’s growing energy demand. As such, the implementation of MSAR® in the interim period could save many billions of dollars as the KSA implements its ambitious Vision 2030 plans.
Mike Kirk, Executive Chairman of Quadrise, said:
“We have been working hard during 2018 to develop a broader platform for our MSAR® technology across a larger number of projects. Whilst we still have some way to go to progress these to commercial contracts, there has been a real change in the marine market, driven by the forthcoming IMO 2020 regulations, that has fundamentally improved the economics for MSAR® projects. Alongside this, adding to our existing relationships with YTL-PowerSeraya and JGC, our MOU with Freepoint will enable us to progress new projects and to potentially accelerate existing projects globally across a range of sectors.”
Source: Quadrise Fuels International Plc