Ceramic Fuel Cells Regulatory News (CFU)

22 Nov 2007 07:01

Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited22 November 2007 22 November 2007 Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited AGM Statement At the Annual General Meeting of Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited, held earlier today,Julian Dinsdale, Chairman, made the following statement: "I am pleased to report that during the year the Company continued tosuccessfully implement its strategy, with several outstanding achievements. Field Trials On the customer side, the Company completed extensive field trials and has nowmoved into product development projects in four key markets in Europe. The field trials demonstrated the Company's technology working in real worldconditions. During the trials, four demonstration combined heat and power (CHP) units builtby the Company were operated at customers' sites in Germany, Australia and NewZealand. Each of the units met local regulations, including the demandingEuropean CE safety approval. All of the units were connected to the localnatural gas, water, electricity grid and telecommunications lines. Onceconnected, the units successfully exported power and generated heat. The unitswere also turned on and off many times, operating with several different fuelcell stacks. The Company's customer support team monitored all of the unitsremotely over the internet. The experience developed during these field trials is invaluable for theCompany's ongoing technical improvements and product development projects. Product Development Agreements Since last year's AGM the Company has signed product development agreements withleading companies in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. These agreements are a critical validation of the Company's commercialisationstrategy and a standout achievement. So far as we know, no other fuel cellcompany has secured product development contracts with partners in fourdifferent markets - and we achieved it in a little over six months. Each project is a three way collaboration between CFCL, a utility customer andan appliance partner to design, build and deploy fully integrated m-CHP unitsfor homes. The Company's utility customers in these markets have a total of more than 20million gas and electricity customers, and our appliance partners arespecialists at designing, making and servicing home heating units. In France our partners are Gaz de France, Europe's leading distributor ofnatural gas, with 11 million customers in France, and De Dietrich Thermique, thelargest provider of gas heating systems in France. In Germany we have extended our strong relationship with our utility customerEWE, together with specialist boiler manufacturer Bruns Heiztechnik. Our partners in the UK are E.ON UK, the company that runs Powergen, and boilermaker Gledhill Water Storage. E.ON is the UK's largest integrated power and gascompany, with around 8.5 million customer accounts. Finally, in The Netherlands and Belgium we are working with Nuon, a leadingDutch energy company, and the De Dietrich-Remeha Group, one of the largestboiler companies in Europe. Securing these contracts was a significant achievement in 2007, and implementingthese projects will be a major activity during 2008. Manufacturing Apart from securing customers and developing products, the Company has alsoincreased its capacity to supply products. During the year the Company upgraded its Melbourne production facility andsecured a site in Heinsberg, Germany, for a large scale fuel cell plant. In December 2006 the Company secured the Heinsberg location and regionalGovernment assistance. The Company has signed a lease over an existing building,with an option to buy Greenfield land for later expansion. During the year the owner of the site, Nuon, has conducted extensive site worksand helped the Company to apply for initial planning permits. In May the Companyopened a Heinsberg office and hired three local staff. During the year the Company continued to refine the project plans, includingretaining an international consulting firm to review the project scope, timingand cost. The Heinsberg plant will be a significant focus during the comingyear, and the Company expects to update shareholders on the project in the nextfew months. As part of its long term business strategy the Company also built a plant inBromborough, UK, to make high quality ceramic powders using the Company'sproprietary technology. The plant will primarily make powders for use in theCompany's fuel cells, however the Company will continue to explore opportunitiesto make high quality powders for other applications. The Company 's powdertechnology has shown promising results and we believe it could generatesignificant value in the future. Technology The Company has continued to invest in improvements to its core technology. During the financial year the Company developed its next generation of morepowerful fuel cells, together with important breakthroughs in tightly integratedand highly efficient balance of plant components. These advances have been integrated into the Gennex fuel cell module, launchedin April 2007, which will be used in the Company's product development projects. The Company also announced a collaboration with the Julich research institute inGermany, one of Europe's leading research bodies. Through this partnership theCompany will continue to play a leading role in solid oxide fuel celldevelopment and commercialisation. Financial The Company's higher cash holdings contributed to increased revenues, whilstoperating costs and cash outflow also increased over the year. This was largelydue to the Company's product development activities and to the costs ofestablishing customer and partner relationships and manufacturing facilities inEurope. The financial results for the year included a higher net loss, however this waslargely due to a $5.8 million turnaround in the foreign exchange position oncash and investments, rather than any significant change in the underlyingoperations of the Company. As expected, capital expenditure was significantly higher than last year, as theCompany upgraded its Melbourne plant and built its UK powder plant. The Company ended the year in a strong financial position, with total net assetsat 30 June 2007 of $66.3 million. Board At board level, during the 2007 financial year Mr Bob Kennett became theCompany's first UK based director and in January 2007 the Company's CEO BrendanDow joined the Board as Managing Director. In September 2007 the Board appointed Mr Jeff Harding as Deputy Chairman. Jeffhas an outstanding record at building international clean energy businesses,most prominently as Managing Director of Pacific Hydro from 1995 to 2005. This AGM will be my last as a director of CFCL. I joined the Company as Chairmanfive years ago, and certainly the Company has changed a lot in that time. TheCompany listed on the ASX and then the London exchange, and now has more than4000 shareholders across the world. The Company has also opened offices in theUK and Germany and is a great example of Australian technology being developedfor world markets. I have great confidence that the management team and Board, under the leadershipof Brendan Dow and the incoming Chairman Jeff Harding, will continue to achievegreat things for CFCL. The Board thanks you for your support and looks forward to another year ofachievements for Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited." The AGM Chairman's address is available as a webcast/podcast at www.brr.com.au/cfu and the AGM presentation by Managing Director Brendan Dow is available onthe web at www.cfcl.com.au. For further information please contact: Ceramic Fuel CellsAndrew Neilson Tel: +61 419 950 771 Email: investor@cfcl.com.au Hogarth Partnership (PR for CFCL) Tel: +44 (0) 20 7357 9477Sarah MacLeod / Vicky Watkins Libertas Capital (NOMAD for CFCL) Tel: +44 (0) 20 7569 9650Aamir Quraishi / Andrew Hardy NOTES TO EDITORS About CFCL Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited is a world leader in developing solid oxide fuel cell(SOFC) technology which can provide reliable, energy efficient, high-quality,and low-emission electricity from widely available natural gas and renewablefuels. CFCL is developing SOFC products for small-scale on-site micro combinedheat and power (m-CHP) and distributed generation units that co-generateelectricity and heat for domestic use. CFCL is listed on the London StockExchange AIM market and the Australian Stock Exchange (code CFU). www.cfcl.com.au This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange