(Alliance News) - Kibo Energy PLC on Thursday said it is investigating the feasibility of being able to power its coal-fired plants with renewable biofuel.
Shares in Kibo were down 2.2% in London on Thursday at 0.18 pence and shed 4.6% in Johannesburg to ZAR0.21.
The move, Kibo said, comes from its review of its business, which started in June 2021.
"This follows an extensive review of the company's operations and assets wherein it determined to dispose of all its coal assets while retaining the associated energy [power] projects through its introduction of innovative biofuel technology, on which the company has been doing extensive work in recent months," it explained.
It has set up a 'requests for proposals' process to "determine the economic and technical viability of utilising the specific biomass - or bio-coal - technology".
Kibo hopes to turn the biomass into a feasible fuel source at industrial scale, which will fuel its existing and already developed utility scale power projects.
It added: "The feasibility studies will investigate whether sufficient biomass can be sustainably produced and supplied as fuel for a 300 MW power plant over a 20 to 25-year power purchase agreement period."
Kibo said the fuel has undergone "extensive bench testing" and it has "delivered positive results in all tests performed".
Chief Executive Louis Coetzee said: "By undertaking this evidence-based process, we believe we should be able to replace the traditional coal-mining activity with a 100% renewable energy source.
"Work completed to date indicates that our existing coal-fired power plants can be easily adapted to accept the new renewable fuel solution with only minor design changes on the energy-generation side."
By Paul McGowan; paulmcgowan@alliancenews.com
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Kibo Energy (KIBO)