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Respectfully, I think the differences in risk between TOM and QFI/QED are significant.

For example, the technology side of QED is very strong; they have a lot of IP; they have multiple active projects with world-class clients. The BD side isn't progressing anywhere near as fast or consistently as we want, but there's something underpinning it.

QED also have world-leading in-house expertise in the relevant technology areas that underpins the MSAR emulsion fuel technology.

With TomCo, they don't have any relevant IP, or much technical talent in-house. It's the JP show, and he's a project manager and businessman. Their share in Greenfield and its PQE license is valuable in the future if they can execute, but these are all smaller players at the moment and the tar sands stuff is a bit of a way out, anyway.

TOM have been claiming they will raise the funding needed to secure TSH-II and complete the pilot wells programme for about 1 year. That's been dragging on with more and more esoteric funding arrangements over time that suggest they are struggling to raise.

The amount of money TOM need to progress the projects is very large in comparison with their market cap, assets such as licenses, and in-house capabilities. They are clinging onto TSH-II by the skin of their teeth every month.

Can they turn it around, yes, absolutely. Do they have ideas and licenses that are of value, absolutely. I'm all for them to them

Is the risk in the same category as QED — IMO, not at all. Even if they succeed, I think this is still a rational assessment of relative risk.

QED - very high risk
TOM - extremely high risk

My view is that bioMSAR has not been an impediment at all.

In fact, it has likely been the only reason we got the MSC project rolling.

And if we do successfully partake in a fundraising, it will likely be a critical element of the story.

For example — from my conversations with the team, the a key OEM had indicated they were only prepared to collaborate on a fuel that had a strong green element to it. Without their collaboration the marine project would have been impossible.

On the technology/RDI side of things, they've been smashing it out of the park. Also remember that the people who work on RDI are not the same people doing business development, project management, and client engagement, which is where the weaknesses/mistakes have been over the years.

I think it's best to consider MSAR as a fuel technology platform on top of which you're able to carry many different sources of calories.

In MSAR it's purely conventional, with efficiency benefits.
In bioMSAR it's a blend of conventional and low-cost low-carbon bio elements.
In MSAR Zero it's just those low/zero carbon calories.

It's like a buffet where you are choosing your ingredients as suits your tastes, budget, and availability. But it's fundamentally the same concept.

Various fair comments made. Thanks to those who have been careful in their thinking.

Clearly, QFI/QED have to prove themselves to us after failing on their timeline guidance repeatedly. They have not learned well enough from previous hitches.

Yet, despite somehow fumble things at the last moment on all of our key projects, they don't need to do much in order to ensure the company's success. One major project materially progressing to commerciality will, IMO, crack things.

As many of the interpretations posted today have pointed out, the key point is that the technology and opportunities are not in doubt. It's the execution that has been problematic. In this update, the QED team have attributed all of the delays to external factors, whilst many commentators here have attributed the delays to the team not getting things right on the BD side. I suspect it's a combination of both, and I hope the QFI/QED are being constructively self-critical and trying to avoid these recurring issues.

As various people (inc me) have pointed out over recent months, it has been evident for a good while that QFI/QED were unlikely to deliver sufficiently in runway remaining to avoid a fundraising. I suspect the team have probably known that in their hearts for a good while, as well.

I will personally continue holding, and will regularly review the situation over the course of Q2 to see whether any of the promised progress emerges. There's not much runway left, so QED BD team need to be on point now.

I think I'm being balanced and fair in this assessment, and overall I remain very cautiously optimistic — but significant risks are present due to the lack of timely execution of business-related milestones (as opposed to technical milestones, where QFI/QED's performance has been consistently excellent).

If/when QFI/QED pop a key milestone, I believe we'll be in a very different situation.

I don't think people are being unreasonable to have a wide gamut of interpretations on this set of interim results.

Mangled that sentence somehow, trying again: "you've been one of the people giving a commentary ..."

I'm slightly confused, you've been on the of people giving a commentary on MSC Leandra and her travels towards dry dock before the upcoming MSC LONO trials. How were you not aware of Quadrise's partnership with MSC? Maybe a slight semantic distinction that I'm missing.

I don't think it's worth spending any time comparing MSAR and nuclear.

Morocco trials are very simple, I seriously doubt it will take months of data trawling. How many dollars of fuel were required to get the product to required dryness; was the equipment undamaged, and were all operational and logistical aspects conducted successfully.

I personally expect that commercial negotiations with customer and supplier will undoubtedly take a good while. Some have speculated that this might be shortcut somewhat by having the same supplier for MSC and OCP, but I guess it's too early to know how likely that option is.

Will be interesting to see what they have to say for themselves tomorrow (or shortly thereafter).

Could be for different oil products such as lube oils, etc.

AIUI, Leandra would only use 150tpd going at high speeds, which she almost never does. You're looking at 70-100 for her typical speeds according to JM (depends on vessel load, speed, weather, etc).

The arrangement for trials does not necessarily need to be the same for commercial. Could be a more ad-hoc temporary arrangement at a refuelling terminal for PoC and LONO, and then transition to a full refinery installation later.

Reading the latest business update suggests (but by no means is clear) that there is some need to agree the post-LONO commercial arrangements before the parties will get involved in the trials.

REVKOR — https://www.revkorholdings.com/team

Same Valkor guys again. Byle, Crawford, etc.

No, it's Shell Alumni, so a network for former Shell employees.

Quit edging; deliver!

Yes, Salinger, true — plus, it's hard to predict how long it will take to seal agreements with customers and suppliers. QFI were quite bullish on rapidly getting the LONO supply-side agreements sorted out, and that certainly hasn't panned out in the timelines they anticipated.

And I agree with your second point (broadly), that securing the signatures for Morocco would be much stronger basis for another raise than our current status. The same applies same for LONO supply deals and getting POC and LONO sailing underway. It seems vanishingly unlikely that the company will be generating sufficient revenues within the runway available to avoid a raise — but they have plenty of opportunities to make the situation much less dilutive by delivering on their key project milestones.

Agree on that entirely, Salinger. Both of these are roadblocks, but it's becoming clear that the drydocking part should (hopefully?) be unblocked sooner rather than later.

It has been frustrating, hasn't it!

There is a huge shortage/backlog of dry dock capacity caused by Xi's (recently-cancelled) "Zero C19" policy that shut down and quarantined dockyards every time a single person tested positive for C19 — as you can imagine, that basically meant docks were closed more often than they were open.

There were cases that you can search on YouTube of crews being stuck in China aboard their docked vessels for several months and unable to leave. Kafkaesque nightmare.

Anyway, I suspect MSC will seek another short extension from Lloyds Register in Mauritius or Singapore, as they'll not want to run the clock down too much further before heading towards China.

Clearly, I hope that means they are imminently seeking to take her into drydock (having swapped her route to take her towards China). Of course, there's a chance the China route aspect is coincidental, and we'll only know for sure afterwards — but I'm optimistic on this one.

Speculation:

- Timing would align with arrival to dry dock in early April, given the sailing distances and slow ports. This would be in line with Q2 guidance (though noting that guidance has typically been extremely inaccurate).

- Typically only 2-3 weeks docking period, even for deep overhauls which would include scrubber retrofits.

A surprise Quorum Short Stuff for you all.

Higher resolution pictures of MSC Leandra in Port of Durban. You've probably seen most of these already, but it's better quality.

Quorum Short Stuff: Pictures of MSC Leandra at Port of Durban, bioMSAR’s soon-to-be LONO test vessel
https://quorumzine.gitlab.io/quorum/content/2023/03/07/msc-leandra-test-vessel-pictures-in-durban.html

Thanks to Trevor of Nautical Images, South Africa.

Big thanks also to @maggulus for organising the pictures and getting permission from Trevor for Quorum to publish the pictures.

That $50/t number sounds like the uplift that is to be shared between involved parties (e.g. QFI, refiner, customer), not the profit that goes to Quadrise alone. I think this might be a mistake or poor phrasing from Shore Cap.

Ngqura/Coega is next to Port Elizabeth and they share an anchorage AFAICT. Leandra is on the Ngqura arrivals list.

She's going over 20kt so should arrive this afternoon to the anchorage (from UTC perspective).

There are some cool new video clips and data on this page now for bioMSAR — well worth checking out:

https://www.quadrisefuels.com/biomsar/references/

Leandra is finally leaving Durban now.