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(Alliance News) - Kibo Energy PLC on Wednesday said it has agreed to acquire an advanced UK waste to energy project based in Southport, England.
The Galway, Ireland-based energy company with projects in Africa and UK will acquire all the share capital of Shankley Biogas Ltd, which is developing the project, for GBP600,000. Of that, GBP350,000 will be payable as shares in Kibo, while GBP250,000 will be paid in cash over various dates.
The Southport power plant comprises an 80,000 tonne waste-reception centre with anaerobic digestion technology set to produce 5.5 million metres cubed of bio-methane per annum. The bio-methane will, in turn, be exported to the UK's national gas grid network
Project rights incorporated in the acquisition include all technology licence agreements, equipment supply and maintenance agreements and related project documentation.
Shankley Biogas has already negotiated a power purchase agreement and a gas purchase agreement on favourable terms with a blue-chip company, Kibo noted.
Before Wednesday, EQTEC PLC, the Cork, Ireland-based gasification company focused on turning waste into sustainable energy, had a legal requirement to purchase Shankley Biogas.
However, on Wednesday EQTEC agreed with Rotunda Group Ltd, which owns Shankley Biogas, to absolve itself from its requirement to purchase Shankley Biogas. This enabled Kibo to purchase it instead. The agreement also secured EQTEC's right to develop phase two of the Southport project through a newly-created subsidiary, EQTEC Southport H2 MDC Ltd.
Phase two of the project is intended to incorporate EQTEC synthetic gas technology to help turn refuse derived fuel created in phase one of the project into hydrogen.
Kibo Chief Executive Officer Louis Coetzee said: "We believe this opportunity supports our strategic intent to significantly advance and accelerate the development of the company's renewable energy portfolio in the UK.
"The project further deliberately and actively drives Kibo's transition from fossil fuel-based energy solutions to sustainable renewable energy solutions and will now bring our waste-to-energy portfolio to an aggregate of around 140,000 megawatt hours per annum, with this entire capacity expected to go into production over the next 12 to 18 months," Coetzee said.
EQTEC Chief Executive Officer David Palumbo said: "The Southport project continues to be an exciting one, and we are pleased to have found, with our development partners, a way to focus and drive greater pace toward full funding and financial close. We renew our commitment to engage owner-operators and funders toward making the project a reality through the Build phase and into Operation.
"We are also happy to formally focus EQTEC's role on our core capabilities of technology development and engineering, with a degree of broader project development as required to support the project. Not only does this release us from capital investment commitments that come with sustained SPV ownership, but it accelerates progress with our business strategy, toward becoming exclusively a technology innovator and licensor."
Shares in Kibo were trading 1.5% higher at 0.17 pence, while EQTEC shares were trading 0.4% lower at 0.42 pence in London on Wednesday afternoon.
By Chris Dorrell; chrisdorrell@alliancenews.com
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