Ecoslops Issues €5.5 Mln Bonds for Growth

Success of Port of Sinès operation and generation of €2.7 million of revenue in 2015 validates business model and sets platform for exponential growth
 
Ecoslops, the first company to develop a technology to sustainably produce marine fuels from refined marine oil residues (‘slops’), has announced the successful issuance of ORNANE convertible bonds for the nominal value of €5.5 million.

Following the commercial validation of its first micro-refining plant in the Port of Sinès, Portugal, the additional capital will be used to accelerate the development of new projects, while continuing to ramp up the initial operation to full capacity by the end of 2016.
 
Vincent Favier, CEO, Ecoslops, said,  “Our micro-refinery in the Port of Sinès has shown its capability to transform 98% of hydrocarbon residue into marketable and certified products, exceeding expectations. In conjunction with this, the fall in global oil prices is saturating the market with slops, stretching the physical unloading of slops from ships, as well as their storage and disposal in ports to capacity. This is unsustainable in the short and medium term.
 
Ecoslops also announced total income for 2015 of €2.7 million and €2.3 million of sales, with €2.0 million coming from its traditional activities in Sinès after only a few months of production and sales. Revenue was generated from services provided to ships and industries, as well as the collection of hydrocarbon residue in the port. The latter has been very dynamic, driven by both the growth of the port itself and the appeal and value of the services provided by the Ecoslops teams managing the unloading process. Following the commencement of industrial production at the Port of Sinès, 1,000 tons of marine diesel oil (MDO) and 320 tons of light bitumen (XFO) have been sold for a total of €0.3 million. 

Since Q4 2015 to the present date Ecoslops has imported 10,000 tonnes of slops to its site in the Port of Sinès. The company plans to run the refinery at full production capacity of 2,500 tonnes per months (30,000 tonnes per year) by the end of 2016. With the significant surplus of slops in the market, and the reduction in transportation costs, the cost of importing slops has been reduced by 70%, enabling Ecoslops to drive further profitability into its operations.
 
In conjunction with the recent announcements of the development of projects in the Port of Constanta on the Black Sea, and in the Port of Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, Ecoslops is actively working on two new sites in the ARA region (Antwerp-Rotterdam-Amsterdam), and also in the Mediterranean. Further to this, the company has initiated talks in Egypt, the Middle East and South Africa, and Ecoslops will strengthen its development teams accordingly in order to manage these projects through to completion. This is in line with the company’s objective of signing three more projects by the end of 2017. The Americas and Asia regions, where the demand for the sustainable disposal of slops is just as high, will be more actively targeted by the end of 2016.
 
Based on its experience and learnings from the development of its first site, Ecoslops expects the investment requited for the developments of future plants to be in the region of €10 - €12 million each, versus nearly €20 million for the Port of Sinès. The company also believes that new sites will have an enhanced production capacity of 35,000 tonnes per year.