Roundtable Discussion; The Future of Mineral Sands. Watch the video here.
Looks like IES has delivered on a March '23 order (according to x.com).
"Delighted to have completed another #vfb delivery, this time to our partners in Hungary, Ideona Group & STS Group. This #battery will provide grid balancing & #solar shifting which will form part of Hungary's journey to a 90% clean energy mix by 2030"
https://invinity.com/case-study-ideona-osku/
Highlights from their rns...
Largest liquid green hydrogen plant in the U.S. market.
Largest electrolytic liquid hydrogen production plant, and largest PEM electrolyzer deployment operating in the U.S.
Designed to produce 15 tons per day (TPD) of liquid electrolytic hydrogen.
Listening to their trading update today, they seem to have solved their cash problems. Recently they announced an agreement to sell loads of stock to raise cash, but they may not need to do that with a large DOE loan they feel could be sorted in the next few months. Plug stock is up roughly 45% from its recent low last week.
Hopefully some of the positivity reflected in others within the sector will rub off an our presentation next week. I'd like a 50% rise here too.
Don't forget, no matter how much cash you have if you don't have sales the cash will eventually run out. I think the downward trend will only stop once regular, repeated and growing orders are booked. Otherwise you'll be comparing cash in the bank and stock price all the way to zero every £50m and 5p decrements.
The regulators and rule makers are basically making this an impossible market for electrolyser producers. If the price of industrial electricity, as hurrayharry suggests, is now too expensive for industry to justify their own onsite electrolysis, then surely that only leaves grid scale implementations. But each grid scale implementation has to be matched with a new renewable source and they are not exactly quick to be contracted and built.
Unless they ease the rules to allow something like adding electrolysis to an existing renewable farm (as if it had been agreed from the start as per current rules) then I fear we have an excellent product without a sufficiently active market.
By the time the rule makers learn their mistake it may be too late for the current run of companies as cash burn will eventually kill the companies.
The risk versus reward seems attractive down here at 50p again. There's always the possibility of complete failure and losing everything, but for new investments the upside should be a 10x. If the factory fills with a consistent stream of orders it should justify a valuation of £3bn. It'll be very interesting to hear the tone at the presentation at the end of the month.
Perhaps the new owners will give the management an ultimatum... either take your remuneration solely in shares or you can walk. You've got to have everyone on the same path or they'll get screwed same way we did.
All too common. Can't even say "last one out switch off the lights". The new owners will keep the lights on... for a while at least. We're now relegated to observers.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I could have sold out with a decent gain several years ago, but I thought it was just the start of a solid future building. Oh well.
Fair point Rainman, I think I already understood that from the comments I read. I've no intention of changing peoples mind regarding their vote. The only reason I posted what I did was to point out to some that they're not likely to get a better outcome than the current offer. I've been in this position several times and I haven't had one yet go any other way.
Counter point is that I think a 'No' vote would be interpreted by the BOD as a vote of confidence in them that people want them to continue - I think the BOD are really that self-centred as to interpret it that way.
Thanks Rainman. So I've read through all the posts and still can't work out what you think I'm missing. Seems like people genuinely wanting to try to stop the sale. Let me know. Happy to listen.
Sadly it's pretty futile to vote 'No'. Even if the company sale on these terms were voted down by enough private investors the likely result would be that the company would simply run out of money and the Directors would declare the business insolvant. At that point the Administrators would be called in and the company would be stripped of various assets and the remainder sold for peanuts to anyone interested in the IP. Under those circumstances current shareholders wouldn't even get the 0.25p currently on offer.
Best just accept it's over and move on. The vote will inevitably go through and you will get your 0.25p and the technology of Velosys will live on under new ownership. If you're still interested then you may get to buy shares in the reincarnation when they next decide to bring it back to the market. Hopefully the Directors at that time will be better skilled in building and scaling the opportunity.
You win some, you lose some.
There is a chance that it will be an ITM electrolyser. Ryze Hydrogen is involved and they have a few interesting links. Jo Bamford's investment company HyCap recently bought ITM's Motive Fuels.
https://www.motivefuels.com/news/motive-fuels-acquired-by-hycap-group
So if Motive are going to supply the refuelling for the project maybe their system design will still use ITM kit.
Inspired by the Oak Bloke's substack I've emailed TENT with the following...
"In light of your announcement to dispose of assets and return capital to shareholders I would like to make the comment that I feel this is a premature reaction. The FED has given a strong indication that the US rates have peaked and will likely begin to fall during 2024. The response to this is likely to be that much of the cash currently on the sidelines will be reintroduced to the market in the near to medium term. Although the UK is not directly tied to the US market, and our inflation and interest rates is lagging the US, it is a fair bet to suggest that the UK markets will follow a similar trend.
I believe that by throwing in the towel now TENT will effectively find themselves selling at the bottom.
TENT has a very interesting portfolio of investments. Despite the recent 'pause' in clean energy investment support from the market I expect that hindsight will show this to be short-lived and simply a response to the over-enthusiastic clean energy investment landscape of 2019-2021 where results could clearly never match the hype. The clean energy market will likely be reenergised with the previously sidelined money needing to find a new home and, in conjunction, events such as COP and global governments offering support and insisting that it be the general direction of travel.
If it is not to late to do so, I would urge you to reconsider your decision to wind down the fund, and instead seek an adventurous new investment opportunity to excite the new money that will soon be waiting in the wings."
It's going to be interesting to see if it tracks over to the UK, with particular interest in ITM and CWR. I have my doubts (but will be happy to be wrong). Plug has plenty of orders, is building out tons of production, but is running out of cash. The anticipated Fed cuts will bring all the side-lined money back into the US market which could swiftly ease Plug's financial problems so it makes sense they will pop on the expectation.
ITM and CWR have the opposite problem, enough money to survive (?) but with no orders and little production. So are they likely to be attracting any of this 'new' money. I have my doubts. Obviously if really significant money goes nuts and just starts chasing anything and everything then we can all breathe a sigh of relief, but I think we'll still need to show orders to make it stick.
Looking forward to tomorrow and 2024 to find out.
The Fed just gave the US market reason to up the expectation of rate cuts next year resulting in a significant pop in stocks. The talk now is of a significant amount of money coming off the side-lines and back into the market. Maybe TENT should not be too hasty as they may once again be in a position to raise cash next year and continue with the original growth plans. It would be a shame to throw in the towel at exactly the wrong moment.
Thanks. I see it as the difference between being an investor versus simply a trader of stocks.
Looks like Snam have still got big plans. I wonder if they will remember they have a significant stake in an electrolyser company?
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/energy-groups-launch-two-green-hydrogen-projects-italy-2023-12-12/
James, so did I. Of course it's a tiny amount in the grand scheme of things so doesn't make any difference to me. But I thought it best to offer up my money as that's what the company needs right now. I wonder how many other investors think the same way?
Oh, and the other thing that seems to set them apart from 'normal' trades is they are invariably right at the upper and lower limit of the spread. They never seem to be floating in the middle like normal trades. I've even seen several outside the bands...perhaps a really special message, that one.
Agricore, I think you're probably right about the signalling theory. Or it could simply be inter-dealer trading as they balance their positions to keep their availability optimal. The reason I'm leaning more toward the signalling theory is that many of these events all get recorded at an identical time - that's what sets it apart from 'wallies' as there would never be that many wallies all making the same mistake at the exact same time. The other reason is that I saw a couple of 'zero' quantity trades. How on earth is that possible if it's not simply some elaborate messaging system between market-makers? Anyone out there smart enough to crack the code?
Hi Rebess, hopefully the change in the story will turn out to be a good thing. As with many stock market bubbles, too much optimism followed by the reality of no actual money being made is not a rosy tale. The reality is that green hydrogen has to source electricity from renewables and there won't be anywhere near enough excess renewables to satisfy every single demand proposal cited by all the 'hype' stocks from three years ago. Therefore some of those proposals have to die and for now at least it appears that personal road transport is at least one of them, and likely, home heating will be another. There needs to be enough of these that bite the dust so that the useful green hydrogen needs can be met with the available renewables. In the UK at least there also needs to be a concerted effort to speed up the grid connections otherwise the new renewables won't be able to keep up with even the remaining demand.
Whilst the parliamentarians are distracted by Oil, Gas and CCS projects we may once again be able to get back to building and completing some actual green hydrogen projects and deliveries as long as companies don't hold out too long on their FID in their desire for government subsidies.
There are some key areas where Gas and Oil can't deliver and the main one is curtailment of wind power. Eventually I think the payments for curtailment will get so large that even the blinkered will have to recognise it's such a waste of the public's money (either through bills or taxes) to pay so much out simply to throw away the energy. For ITM I hope people realise that green hydrogen is a better conversion of that excess than battery storage, but I fear that realisation is going to be slow to dawn.
I've always had 2025 as a critical year for ITM, but I would hope for some indication of liklihood of success through 2024. So fingers are firmly crossed that some sense will prevail in the evolving story. Best of luck.