Quadrise Fuels shares fall after progress update

Quadrise Fuels International updated the market on its current projects on Monday, reporting that in Morocco, after its previously-reported delays, the ‘bioMSAR’ fuel arrived at the client site in December.

The AIM-traded firm said the ‘MSAR’ fuel was currently at Moroccan customs, awaiting final clearance.

Quadrise visited the client site earlier in January to progress the engineering set-up, and to expedite the project actions once Moroccan customs had cleared the fuel.

“We anticipate that the remaining logistical issues will be resolved this month so that the trial can then proceed as planned,” the board said in its statement.

“Quadrise expects a successful trial to be followed thereafter by discussions to conclude a commercial fuel supply agreement in the first half of 2023, as planned.”

In Utah, meanwhile, commercial discussions for the supply of a licence and manufacturing unit to enable Valkor to produce MSAR and bioMSAR were progressing “well”, with the company working towards the execution of definitive agreements in the first quarter.

Elsewhere, the completion of MSC's vessel preparations for the proof-of-concept and letter of no objection trials were now scheduled for the second quarter of 2023.

Discussions were continuing with third-party fuel suppliers, pursuant to the production of the fuels for the vessel trials and for future commercial fuel supply agreements.

Following the successful completion of the bioMSAR tests in Italy in December, meanwhile, Wärtsilä was now finalising the test reports which would be available for commercial purposes in the first quarter.

“Separately, work continues under the joint development agreement with Vertoro to investigate the use of their crude sugar oils as an alternative biofuel feedstock for bioMSAR - costs for which are now supported by the EU Innovation Fund.”

Looking at its longer-term ambitions of producing a net-zero biofuel solution by 2030, Quadrise said RDI work was continuing on its ‘bioMSAR Zero’ solution at its QRF laboratory with a number of renewable fuel counterparties.

Diesel engine testing on bioMSAR and other fuel-biofuel formulations to support the Quadrise ‘blend-on-board’ solution was in progress at Aquafuel, with the results from that activity still expected in the first quarter.

Finally, in the Americas, Quadrise and its local agents were “actively pursuing” trial and commercial supply agreements with candidate power generation clients in Panama and Honduras, and were in discussions with a “large refinery” in the Caribbean in addition to ongoing efforts to progress activities in Mexico during the first half of the year.

“Whilst we are frustrated with the delays that we have faced in progressing some of our projects, we remain confident that these will be overcome soon,” said chief executive officer Jason Miles.

“The team has worked extremely diligently to seek to navigate these challenges such that the impact on the delivery of our projects should be minimal.

“We look forward to progressing our client trials and to seeing the commercial application of our technology in a number of sectors later this year.”

At 1613 GMT, shares in Quadrise Fuels International were down 8.06% at 1.54p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.