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TheT. Good post, on all counts.

Jack

I think they will take this chance to get out. I believe that they placed their bet on the fact that many small companies bringing new technology to market either:

- fail - so a share crash and a big win for them or

- take longer than expected to so, running out of cash, need to raise and a reasonably big win as the share price drops

I think the Helikon mistake has been, on the back of a very successful shorting of ITM (where they have made a great deal of money) they saw AFC as a parallel opportunity. However, they opened their short at a low price and substantially ramped it up at even lower, circa 12p.

Since then, AFC have done better than expected and there have been a series of formal announcements evidencing a pattern of substantive progress towards commercialisation, e.g. Speedy partnership, generator certification and FAT, long term contracts to key suppliers, as well as informal 'announcements' e.g. discussions with contract manufacturers in Germany.

Combined, these add up to strong evidence of getting close to 'break out', and that is why the price has been rising as those announcements were made. That was putting Helikon deeper into the red. I believe they held on because they calculated that AFC would need a large amount of cash to finance the stock and work in progress materials as scale production ramps up. Given current interest rates, and the likely persistence at high level rates into the medium-term future, a raise was the least expensive route.

In that regard Helikon were correct. That is also a very strong reason for them to get out now. The need for a large cash raise is clear evidence that 'break out' is imminent. The funds are not going to R&D, they are going working capital to buy materials that AFC will be selling profitably soon. As we progress further towards that, the price will rise, hence they will get out now in the 'least worst' position from their badly timed short.

Brightfuture

ITM and AFC are indeed down.

However, CWR is ok and PLUG, Fuelcell, Bloom and Ballard in the USA are all up.

The common factor for ITM and AFC is Helikon - they have substantial shorts on both companies. I suspect they are buying and selling in the open market to drop the price - maybe to get out or maybe not. However, any 'losses' they make in open market selling are of course hedged by their short. So, they can do this at very little cost to themselves.

Alpha

There will almost certainly have been staged payments on the contract. Normal practice would see the final stage being client acceptance testing after commissioning. On that basis pretty much all of the revenue will have been invoiced by this year end.

That assumes of course that the official plant opening and the plant running are the same event - but these are Norwegians so much less likelihood of messing around on that kind of stuff.

There seems to be some confusion in comparing AFC and Ceres after this morning's CWR RNS.

These technologies and their industrial applications are completely different, and discussion of comparable efficiencies and rates of production are meaningless.

This being the AFC board I will assume everyone has an idea of how AFC kit works. On that basis you will all agree that Shell would not buy AFC kit to supply one of its refineries with at-scale volumes of hydrogen. Primarily because AFC kit produces electricity, not hydrogen gas.

Shell is using CWR kit in a refinery application for a highly specific reason. CWR electrolysers operate at very high temperatures, circa 600 degrees centigrade, and refinery processes produce waste heat in that temperature range.

CWR kit will use that ‘free’ heat and create hydrogen at high levels of efficiency. Refineries also consume large volumes of hydrogen in their production processes. The CWR produced H2 will displace that production, largely very ‘dirty’ steam reformation.

The CWR kit will use waste heat from a process, to produce hydrogen for use in that process on the same site. It is a sort of chemical alchemy. It also has very clear de-carbonisation, operational and financial benefits for Shell.

Hence, there is no basis for the CWR – AFC comparison discussed here this morning.

Have a good day

Qube have made a small reduction on their short.

Accelerating. Third million in 40 minutes.

And the pace of trading continues. 2 million in the first hour.

Our average daily traded shares is 1.65 m.

1 million shares traded in the first 30 minutes of trading.

Not the usual start.

Daz

You do not like being caught out on your astounding ignorance of some basic facts?

But you reply by implying yet more mis-information.

AFC are cracking 400kg of H2 in the UK test site, which might be a ‘big deal’ at some time in the future.

Air Products are providing an unspecified supply of H2 in Germany for fuel cell testing – not a particularly big deal, just a supply contract.

You seem unable to separate quite simple issues. I guess facts and simplicity do not fit your narrative.

Have a good day

Snork

It is not my position to fact-check every other post here.

However, Daz takes a constant position of 'knowing' what the status of all things AFC is, and issuing challenges to all and sundry to provide 'evidence' of this, that or the other proposition he posts. That is fine, I do not really care that that is his position.

However, when he posts 'facts' about AFC that are clearly absurd he demonstrates that he knows a lot less about AFC that he claims to and is certainly not an authoritative voice that might be trusted.

Core fact - fuel cells consume hydrogen, they do not produce it. AFC make fuel cells, not electrolysers.

Daz

“I give up it’s pointless arguing with an idiot who can’t spell”

AFC do indeed have a 5-year hydrogen supply contract with AFC – in Germany.

They will supply to the Stade facility where AFC factory acceptance tests will be done. To be clear, the hydrogen supplied to the AFC test contractors will fuel those tests.

Why do you think AFC will be venting the H2 or indeed bottling it? This site will consume H2, and neither produce nor distribute it.

Perhaps the ‘idiot’ is one who cannot, or will not, read the facts published. Preferring to manufacture absurd propositions in pursuit of their own narrative that are in fact nonsense.

Have a good day.

Over 2 million shares purchased. An unusually high number I believe.

A good announcement and a reasonable response today.

Most importantly it is another validation of both AFC technology and capacity to deliver by a successful organisation that has decided to become a customer.

To replace a key component in an established bit of kit is not done lightly. Niftylift will have done detailed due diligence on this concept before making this decision. I think/guess that they will have also done some sort of testing and fuel cell assessment to be assured it delivers the required levels of performance and reliability.

This is not another 'Bond promise/jam tomorrow' RNS - as so much beloved by the more backward-looking posters on here and LSE boards.

This is a serious company making a serious commitment because they believe it will deliver for them and their customers. This is a source of assurance on the close to market commercialisation promises now being made by AFC.

It is also nicely timed after presenting those promises to a room full of analysts just a few days ago.

Agreed on the presentation. Very good, very clear strategic direction and loaded with appropriate detail. I can see why that would have been well received as noted by previous poster.

Snork. Was on his LinkedIn feed a few weeks ago. Pictures of AFC guys in Germany visiting potential contract manufacturers in Germany.

Snork. Germany is discussed as the finished product assembly location.

1863

The Marshall Wace short move of 0.11% is 212,317 shares purchased.

CWR average daily volume is 733,102

CWR price is up 34.47% in the last month.

That suggests Marshall Wace are responding to a price move rather than causing it. However their reducing is making a small contribution. Another 3.26m shares to be bought back to clear all published shorts, and probably some more below the 0.5% declaration level.

Bit of a roller coaster. BUT, Chipotle and Google (twof of our three biggest holdings) come out of quarterlight very strongly. Excellent.

Brightfuture

Thanks for your notes on the AGM.

The constraints in the UK electricity grid are a massive problem. There have been housing development projects in west London put ‘on hold’ i.e. effectively abandoned, because of electricity grid constraints in that part of the city.

I also read an article by the MD of one of the UK motorway service station operators. He was complaining that grid supply is strangling their plans to install changing points at service stations. It is particularly difficult for the fast-charge units, that everyone really wants, as they consume much higher power inputs.

He reported grid connection waits of greater than 7 years being quoted on some projects. We might reasonably expect those delays that to get longer rather than shorter.

No real prospect of this issue going away soon, as planning objections are endless, and we have no govt willing to address that issue.

Just as well ABB (and others) will be offering off-grid capacity for applications like service stations, bus depots and commercial vehicle charging requirements.