29th Jul 2014 10:01
LONDON (Alliance News) - Hydrodec Group PLC Tuesday said its pretax loss narrowed in its first-half as revenues almost doubled on higher sales volumes brought about by its acquisition of OSS Group Ltd last year.
The cleantech oil re-refining group said its pretax loss narrowed to USD3.2 million for the six months ended June 30 from USD7.1 million in the previous year.
"Good progress this first half year demonstrates that we have a robust platform for our strategy, with real underlying operating momentum. We expect to move on significantly in the second half of the year delivering a series of milestones that will continue to build our unique renewable oil proposition," Chief Executive Ian Smale said in a statement.
The company said its revenues increased 83% to USD25.4 million from USD13.9 million as new sales brought about from its recent acquisition of OSS Group Ltd outweighed reduced income from its Canton re-refinery operations.
Hydrodec said its total sales volumes for the period more than doubled to 25.5 million litres from 12.4 million litres with steady growth at its recycling division despite more challenging market conditions in the UK for sourcing feedstock and sales of recycled oil.
The company also said its finance costs fell during the period to USD95,000 from USD3.1 million due to unsecured loan stock in the first-half 2013.
In December 2013, Hydrodec operations were hit when its Canton re-refinery in the US was significantly damaged by an explosion and subsequent fire.
In February, the company received an initial USD2 million insurance payment for the Canton accident, and it said the facility was safe and operational capabilities have been restored so that it can receive and dispatch oil. It said it was continuing with plans to expand the capacity of the plant by 50% in 2014.
On Tuesday, Hydrodec said the Canton rebuild and expansion project is underway with the first two train modules expected to be operational in the fourth quarter and a further four trains ready to go in the first quarter 2015, which should bring capacity at Canton to 150% of that in operation before the accident.
The company added that it is progressing towards final insurance settlements in respect to the Canton incident with interim payments of USD5.5 million received so far.
Hydrodec shares were up 11% to 12.25 pence, putting it amongst the top five AIM All-Share risers on Tuesday.
By Tom McIvor; [email protected]; @TomMcIvor1
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