As many Shareholders are already aware, the Victorian Government yesterday announced they would begin a process to open up new allocations in the State’s vast reserves of brown coal. These have been widely reported by various media outlets.
Links to some of the related news stories (opens in new window):
- Herald Sun- http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/rich-coal-deal-promises-thousands-of-new-jobs/story-fn7j19iv-1226304769598
- The Age- http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieu-set-to-boost-brown-coal-20120319-1vfue.html
Environmental Clean Technologies welcomes these moves by the Victorian Government, especially as they recognise the need to dovetail these allocations with technology to increase value and mitigate environmental impacts.
As communicated in announcements over recent months, ECT is currently progressing our brown coal drying technology – Coldry – with the design for the first commercial scale plant on track to be completed later this year. The Design for Tender (DFT) will produce a detailed design for deployment in the Latrobe Valley of a multi-module plant producing 2 million tonnes of Coldry pellets per annum, and allow construction companies to bid for the project.
Further, ECT announced last week Monash Capital Group as a prospective ‘cornerstone investor’, subject to shareholder approvals. This transaction would finance the balance of the DFT for the plant. Additionally, discussions around provision of project financing for the first commercial scale demonstration module are underway with Monash Capital. This commercial scale demonstration would then enable the financing for the full plant to be de-risked sufficiently to attract a range of investors from Australia and overseas.
ECT’s COO, Ashley Moore noted that “We are now spending millions of dollars to advance our technology through a detailed engineering process. This will take it from the current ‘Proven at Pilot Scale’ level of development to be ready for commercial deployment. Our prospective new Cornerstone Investor Monash Capital are keen to support this effort, and we’re keen to move forward as speedily as possible. As such, ECT are ready to explore the Government’s allocation process when it is ultimately made public to investigate how this could bolster our efforts already underway to commercialise Coldry technology.”
