Member Info for foxm

I'm sure I heard Jason say he expected something RNS-able from Mexico before the end of the year too.

Did they say that TOM has the possibility to produce oil in Utah before the end of 2021? Or did I hear that wrong? Oil from the 5 wells being drilled, not the oil sands. Does that mean an MMU could be on its way to Utah shortly, before the end of the year? Presuming that the drilling is successful, obviously.

Did I read somewhere that there are actually 4 different companies now planning to build plants at different sites in Utah? Obviously Tomco, who own all of Greenfield now, Valkor on land which they bought leases for, Petroteq presumably on land which they own, and also some ex-Petroteq boss or engineer or something, who left and works for another company I can't remember the name of, but he wants to get CORT plants up and running too? Is that correct?

I'm sure I read somewhere that it's 66.67% in Canada and a majority, 50% + 1 share in the USA. Notifiable interests are different too, it's 3% minimum in the UK, but I think 5% in the USA and 10% in Canada. I'm not sure which would be used, since it's listed on both exchanges. Gerald Bailey said in his last video that they had a buyer, then changed it swiftly to "potential buyer".

OK cheers, it's not him then. We'll find out who it is in the next month or so, already been selected and appointed, just not officially started yet.

That link doesn't work, try this one instead -

https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?currentCompany=%5B%221899657%22%5D&origin=COMPANY_PAGE_CANNED_SEARCH

There might be a new face which has appeared on LinkedIn, but I can't get a name. He's outside my network, so I can't see his profile, but I'm sure I've not seen him before.

https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?currentCompany=["1899657"]

Bottom of the page - "Worldwide Connector, Value Creator, Networking Mentor, Board Member, Special Advisor" based in Nyon, so presumably Switzerland. Is anybody here connected to Jason on LinkedIn? Maybe they might be able to see this guy's name? International Energy Group AG was the Swiss company which set up QFI and Nautical Petroleum, so that might explain the Switzerland link.

If (and after today's "kick the can down the road yet again" RNS, it's a big if) they can get the share price to somewhere near 15p by the end of Q1 next year, they will probably have quite a bit of extra cash coming in via warrants being exercised. The Moroccan guy's warrants expire at the end of Feb 2022, 3 million at just over 3.5p, but all the rest of them expire in Sept next year. 15p seems a long way away from today's SP, but if we do get MSC signed up at long last, trials successfully completed in Morocco, a licence agreement signed for Utah + progress on any other projects (3 x South America), 15p is easily achievable. But only if they finally deliver!! Even without the Moroccan warrants, if all the rest were all exercised, it would bring in about £2.7m. That should cover the delay in getting to sustainable revenues by Q1 2023.

I'm starting to hope we get an early offer coming in, from whoever it is that's trying to buy out Petroteq. Reading some of the PQE boards, Shell seems to be the favourite, backed up with some rather intriguing evidence. There was a poll on a Reddit forum last week on the identity of the buyer, and RDS came out on top with almost 37% of the vote. If it is them, there might be a good possibility they’ll also come after QFI. MSAR is the key to unlocking the economics of these heavy oil deposits, and it improves the environmental aspects massively too. It might be foolish to have one company without the other. I would welcome it wholeheartedly, being a shareholder in this company is becoming so bloody tedious, and it might mean I actually get the time to enjoy some of the profits. If this goes on any longer, I'm not sure WTF I would be able to do with a large wad of cash. Buy a gold-plated commode? See if Harrods sell luxury incontinence pants? Buy an Aston Martin mobility scooter? The sooner this ends now for me, the better.

PharaohRocher, I reckon the CO2 reduction could be closer to 40% for a Utah bioMSAR, from well to wake. The results from VTT showed a 27% reduction, but that was from a formula of 40% glycerol, 50% residue, 10% water. I believe the extra tests being done in September were on a bioMSAR made with 50% glycerol, 40% residue, so that should take the figure up to about 32%

But then you have to add in the two extras, the very low carbon intensity of the production method, and the fact that no refinery process is involved. Petroteq tweeted just recently that CORT saves about 75kg CO2 per bbl compared to conventional oil sands production. Oil sands production is much more energy intensive than the more traditional methods, at least twice as bad, but the reduction should still be in the region of 200kg CO2 per tonne of oil produced. 1g of fuel oil burned produces 3.114g of CO2, so each ton of HFO burned produces 3114 kg of CO2. 200kg of CO2 less, is therefore quite significant.

I'm not sure if an MMU could run off a 13 amp plug, that's maybe pushing it, but 50 amps might just about do it. Do you think you could run an oil refinery from a 50 amp cable? Hydro-crackers, desulphurisation units, etc. I've got no idea what the actual reduction would be, but it must be at least a few percent points. Add both of those factors to the 32%, and we must be easily close to 40%.

The IMO 2050 goal is currently a 50% reduction in carbon emissions. MSC announced yesterday that they're going to start using an air lubrication technology from Silverstream Technologies, which can reduce fuel consumption and emissions by up to 10%. Run one of those ships on a Utah bioMSAR and the 50% reduction can already been achieved. THAT'S MASSIVE.

jackg123, at $525 a tonne, it's well over $80 a barrel. The average specific gravity of Residual fuel oil is different to Crude Oil, so the conversion factor is 6.35 instead of 7.33. I use the figures in this BP document -

https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/statistical-review/bp-stats-review-2021-approximate-conversion-factors.pdf

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bud-darr-87088319_sustainability-cop26-zeroemissionshipping-activity-6846420803832037376-lcwy/

"It's only Wednesday of this week, and I can't wait for what still lies ahead!"

A f***ing signature on a bioMSAR LONO trial would be nice, Bud. #WhyAreWeWaiting

Just over a month ago, on their first Blog post, QFI said -

"For MSC, the focus has been on switching to bioMSAR™ as the first fuel to be trialled during the LONO trials. We are currently providing feedback to MSC on the positive test results at VTT carried out on a medium speed Wärtsilä engine, and the plan remains to commence the on-board vessel trials by the end of 2021."

It's three months and one week until the end of 2021, if we don't get these tri-party contracts signed with a fuel producer in the next week, they haven't got a hope in hell's chance of meeting that timeline. Three months to install an MMU, one week to produce the first batch of fuel.

So, imminent and substantial news due, you heard it here first. Oh sorry, that was 8 years ago, (c) Ian Williams, my mistake.

Complete film, 'Making Waves: The Future of Shipping', here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DATlzcPNmc8

Quadrise specific part here -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsTuNqCiBCY

Interesting to note at 55 seconds into that video, seen on the screen in the presentation which Jason is giving, the first official mention of "bioMSAR2", incorporating Lignin into the emulsion fuel.

Also worth watching -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdh6rgXpL7Q

Full set of videos on UK Chamber of Shipping's youtube channel -

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCGMoRsyixirBVZrraig3NA/videos

Soren Toft is in London this week, he's making a keynote speech at the LISW21 Conference tomorrow. I hope he's brought a pen with him, he could sign some LONO trial contracts while he's here.

https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/msc-ceo-soren-toft-to-make-keynote-speech-at-lisw21-conference/

This was Jason/Mike's comment about Mexico from the recent Q&A, just over 9 weeks ago.

"MSAR® opportunities in Mexico are wide-ranging and include upstream, refinery refueling, domestic power generation and fuel exports that also reduce imports. Domestic use of fuel oil has been mandated by the government, and MSAR offers the best solution to improve profitability of domestic refineries whilst reducing power plant emissions and generating costs. Very positive meetings have been held with major stakeholders, managed by our local agent Redliner. We are making good progress finally in concluding an NDA with the oil company, and look forward to finally working on this potentially major project for Mexico."

So if they did finally get the NDA signed in July, then it's possible that things did get moving at long last. Those recent comments from Rocio Nahle only appeared about 2 weeks ago.

"I would be cautious about making a connection though. When have politicians ever been ahead of company announcements"

I agree, but the statement she made about phasing out HFO production in the next few years, by simply reconfiguring a few of their refineries, it wasn't too big a slip of the tongue, was it? If she had gone on to say it was because they were going to be replacing it with an emulsion fuel from a lovely British company, then the cat would have been out of the bag. But most readers probably wouldn't have batted an eyelid at that comment, even people with much greater knowledge of the oil industry than me. My eyes almost popped out my head when I read it though, but only because I'm a shareholder here. If that was a serious comment, they've only got one possible path to get there. And she is the ONE PERSON I would want to hear it from too, chair of the Pemex board AND the Energy Minister, reports directly to the president, it doesn't get higher up the ladder than that, she is the key.

Another serious thing to consider is Pemex's massive debt, currently $115 billion, and the ever more prevalent ESG problem, they might not actually have much choice but to use MSAR, they might almost be forced into it. There are the obvious financial benefits of switching to MSAR ($100m savings per year per refinery according to Redliner), but the environmental benefits ("it burns just like a gas") might be just as important to them, as pointed out by a few recent articles -

https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news/2245467-pemexs-esg-woes-may-tighten-debt-access

https://thehill.com/latino/560812-report-mexicos-state-oil-company-sliding-on-environmental-standards?rl=1

"Pemex's reliance on fuel oil and flaring could also hurt the value of its debt, which is publicly traded in the United States, as investors weigh environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk in their portfolios."

https://www.naturalgasintel.com/esg-concerns-mounting-for-mexicos-pemex-as-natural-gas-flaring-fuel-oil-production-rising/

Researchers warned that if Pemex doesn’t improve its ESG risk management, “it will be excluded from the best financing options in the coming years…”

"Pemex reported fuel oil production of 254,000 b/d in May, up from 198,700 b/d in May 2020. Total production of refined products was 790,200 b/d, meaning that 32% of each barrel refined by Pemex was converted to heavy or intermediate fuel oil."

There are 6.35 barrels of HFO in a ton, so 40,000 tons of HFO a day = 14.6 million tons a year currently being produced. If they're going to continue significantly increasing refinery production to stop gasoline imports, that could easily reach 20 - 25 million tons a year. But even 14.6 million tons, in tolling mode, would add about £2.50 to the share price :-)

Agreed Salinger, progress in Mexico has been at the usual QFI speed, snail's pace, 18 months after the Redliner agreement was signed, we still hadn't even managed to sign a NDA with Pemex, so much for the usual hype - "Redliner are exactly the type of partner that we need in Mexico to progress projects at pace." Muy rapido.

But that was a bizarre statement by the Energy Minister, you can't easily just “phase out” 25 million tons of HFO production a year, not without MSAR anyway. Together with Jason's comment, fingers crossed things are finally moving. Although she is a politician, maybe she's just talking out of her hole, most of them do.

So what's her plan? “It doesn’t worry me.” she says, it would worry me!! 30% of the refinery output is HFO, but they're just going to phase that out by 2023? As easy as pie. Just make it magically disappear. Unless she's enlisting the help of Uri Geller or Penn & Teller, there are only two options, half a dozen hydrocrackers or MSAR. The first option would cost BILLIONS, money which Pemex can't afford, and even if they could, there's no way they would be installed in the next 2 years. They would be lucky to have them working by 2026 at the very earliest. From our old general manager, Mr Verle -

https://www.bunkerspot.com/global/44660-quadrise-hoping-shipping-scrubs-up

"Relatively speaking, our technology is not expensive to install in a refinery and can be up and running in under 12 months, as was the case in Cepsa. It’s not like putting in a coker or hydrocracker, which are huge 8-9 digit investments and generally take between five and seven years. MSAR systems are modular, so you can add units to match market demand."

So if we rule out hydrocrackers as the solution, there's only one possible way they can achieve it. Unless she's got a magic wand. Unless she can miraculously turn refinery residue into refried beans.

VIVA MEXICO.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:p58rd-JukH4J:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-14/mexican-power-plants-boost-dirty-fuel-oil-use-shun-natural-gas+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk

"With the global shipping industry shunning sulfurous fuel oil to curb emissions, storage tanks in Mexico are overflowing with the stuff, a byproduct of its attempt to produce more gasoline domestically.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has pledged to reduce Mexico’s dependence on fuel imports but is faced with highly inefficient refineries.

State oil company Petroleos Mexicanos produces copious amounts of fuel oil unintentionally because its refineries lack the technology to extract cleaner fuels from the sludge that is leftover during the initial process of turning crude into gasoline. Therefore, the more gasoline the country’s refineries produce, the more extra fuel oil they have to find a home for."

But in the last couple of weeks, there have been some EXTRAORDINARY COMMENTS made by Rocio Nahle, the Mexican energy minister.

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:s2BJThjIIcEJ:https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-27/the-woman-behind-mexico-s-controversial-drive-to-refine-more-oil+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk

https://www.worldoil.com/news/2021/8/20/mexico-bans-vitol-trafigura-from-new-oil-trades-on-corruption-allegations

"As much of the world aims to move away from fossil fuels, Mexico is marching vigorously in the opposite direction -- reviving its state oil company Pemex and adding refining capacity even if it means producing more hyper-polluting fuel oil.

Nahle’s success in refining, however, has come at a cost for the environment. Pemex is producing more fuel oil -- a highly polluting refined product that was banned for international ship use -- because the refineries lack the technology to extract cleaner fuels from the sludge that is left over after converting crude to gasoline.

“Of course we are increasing fuel oil, because the refineries are getting more cargoes” of oil, she said. But the government intends to “phase out” fuel oil production with the reconfiguration of several of its refineries in central Mexico by 2023, and Dos Bocas will not produce fuel oil. “It doesn’t worry me.”

She also said that state utility CFE “burns very little fuel oil,” purchasing about 45,000 barrels a day from Pemex. Switching a gas-power plant to fuel oil generates 16% more carbon dioxide, according to BloombergNEF calculations."

CONT'D.........

A few people mentioned the comment made by Jason in one of his recent video interviews - "good progress on a number of projects in the Americas". The two obvious possibilities would be Ecuador and Mexico. Ecuador is still alive, but probably on hold until the start of next year, I just read that the tender process for the Esmeraldas refinery is to be started again in October, but until that is complete by Q1 2022, I wouldn't expect any major progress.

https://www.marketscreener.com/news/latest/Ecuador-sees-8-crude-output-rebound-eyes-14-bln-in-investment--36203428/

But a few comments coming out of Mexico recently sound interesting, to say the least. AMLO is now trying to push through constitutional reform to continue with his plans, the main goal being to eliminate the huge amount of gasoline they have to import for domestic consumption.

https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/090121-constitutional-reform-to-undo-power-liberalization-to-be-presented-in-september-mexican-president

Proposal said to restore dominance of state utility CFE in power generation business
Strategy to reduce dependency on fuel imports on track

"The president also praised the results achieved so far in strengthening the state oil company Pemex, in particular in its refining business. The president highlighted the program to modernize the six existing refineries and the construction of a seventh refinery in the port of Dos Bocas in the state of Tabasco which will help the country reduce its dependency on imported fuels.

Mexico has increasingly depended on imported fuels to meet demand. At the end of June, imports of gasoline were 643,000 b/d, while demand was 779,000 b/d, data from the energy Secretariat shows."

Refinery output has increased in the last few years, but that comes at a cost, as pointed out in the following two articles.

https://www.naturalgasintel.com/mexicos-pemex-said-poorly-positioned-to-capitalize-on-oil-price-rally/

"Another challenge for Pemex, Barrios said, is the government’s insistence on increasing refinery output from Pemex’s own downstream unit, a perennial lossmaker for the state-owned firm.

Pemex “loses a scandalous amount of money” in the Mexican refining segment, Barrios said. She cited that around 30% of each barrel of oil refined by Pemex becomes high-sulfur fuel oil, which sells for less per bbl than the oil used to produce it."

CONT'D.........

https://shipandbunker.com/news/world/928078-interview-maersk-decarbonisation-guru-sets-out-path-to-zero-carbon

"It's getting harder and harder now; there are no low-hanging fruits. We will rely more and more on digital technology. But it goes without saying that with the fuel bill we have, we are highly incentivised."

I can think of one low-hanging fruit that's still there to be picked.

By the end of 2021 they will probably have 120 scrubber-equipped ships, burning about 4 millions tons of high sulphur HFO a year. If they ran those on MSAR instead of IFO380, they could easily cut more than $200m a year from their annual fuel bill, as well as having a much more environmentally friendly fuel. What a bunch of plums.

There certainly shouldn't be a problem sourcing lignin, another abundant waste product which they are trying to find suitable uses for.

http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/14388/researchers-use-waste-lignin-to-make-carbon-fiber

About 50 million tons of lignin—or structural part of a plant—piles up each year as waste from the U.S. paper and pulping industry, he said. Additional lignin could come from biorefineries that use plants to produce ethanol, yielding another 100 million to 200 million tons of lignin waste each year. Yet only about 2 percent of the lignin waste is currently recycled into new products, Yuan said.

“Lignin is considered as one of the most abundant biopolymers in the world,” he said. “All this waste accumulates, and it will be great to use it for something.”

https://www.rina.org.uk/Making_marine_fuel_from_biorefinery_waste.html

The focus is on the waste stream of lignin-rich sludge resulting from saccharification of the carbohydrates. Lignin is an abundant class of organic polymers. Most of the industrial lignin waste is currently burned to generate heat or electricity for the biofuel plant, but the growing volumes entailed, expected to reach 200 million tons by 2050, provide a challenge to develop new technology to convert lignin into value-added bioproducts.