New Plant Construction

14 Feb 2005 07:00

HydroDec Group plc14 February 2005 14 February 2005 HydroDec Group plc New Plant Construction The Board of HydroDec Group plc ("HydroDec" or "the Company") (AIM: HYR) ispleased to announce that it has committed the sum of £1 million (one millionpounds) to the construction of a new, larger HydroDec plant capable ofprocessing up to 20,000 litres (per day) of speciality oils and/or chlorinatedorganic wastes as was envisaged in the Company's AIM admission document dated 25November 2004. The Company is in the process of finalising the designspecifications and anticipates that plant construction will commence inAustralia within six weeks, and the overall construction period will beapproximately nine months. When fully operational, the new plant will produce anear seven-fold increase in HydroDec's processing capacity. Since June 2004, a 3,000 litre (per day) HydroDec plant has been operating inAustralia principally re-refining PCB contaminated transformer oils forAustralian power utilities. The technology has also been used to treat a varietyof other chlorinated organic wastes, commonly referred to as "PersistentOrganics Pollutant" ("POPs"). The HydroDec Technology is a patented form of catalytic hydrogenation based onstandard oil and petrochemical industry packed bed hydrogenation processes. The uniqueness of the HydroDec Technology in part derives from its ability toapply durable quantitative standard hydrogenation reactions that deliver totaldechlorination with no by-product formation. Essentially, this means that toxic,chlorinated organic waste, such as Dioxins, Furans, DDT, DDD, DDE, PCB,Chlorobenzene, Chlorophenol and HCB/HCBD can be destroyed in an environmentallysafe, zero-emission, closed-loop process that has no direct air emissions. By tailoring the reaction conditions appropriately, the HydroDec process alsoensures that the hydrocarbon carrier for the halogen chemicals is recovered.This means the beneficial chemical value of the feedstock carrying the POPschemicals can be recovered for reuse; creating economic, greenhouse andsustainability values additional to that available from destruction systems. The Board is currently considering several potential applications for the newplant and will make further announcements as necessary. For further information please contact: John Gunn, Chairman Nick FoxHydroDec Group plc M: Communications LimitedTel: 020 7236 6236 Tel: 020 7153 1530 This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock Exchange