27th Mar 2018 12:46
LONDON (Alliance News) - Quadrise Fuels International PLC on Tuesday reported a narrowed pretax loss for the first half of its financial year and said that it is "hugely disappointed" due to delays in commencing MSAR fuel trials in Saudi Arabia and has now decided to focus resources on activities that can deliver meaningful progress.
Shares in the company were down 44% at 3.08 pence in afternoon trading Tuesday, having already lost 44% on Monday. The stock was trading at 11.70p as recently as March 12.
Quadrise on Monday had said its planned MSAR fuel production-to-combustion trial project in Saudi Arabia is no longer anticipated to go ahead as originally planned. It said the signing of the fuel supply agreement between the Saudi Arabian oil company and the refinery counterparty has not yet been achieved, due to a delay in obtaining a back-to-back trial agreement between the oil company and the electricity company, respectively.
For the six months to the end of 2017, Quadrise recorded a pretax loss of GBP1.9 million, compared with a pretax loss of GBP2.4 million in the year ago period. No revenue was generated in either financial period.
The narrowed loss was mainly attributed to lower costs. Administration expenses fell to GBP830,000 from GBP1.0 million, while production and development costs totaled GBP1.1 million, down from GBP1.3 million.
"We will continue to pursue projects in [Saudi Arabia], as the scale of the opportunity in the world's largest oil-fired power generation market remains huge. Alongside this, we will continue our discussions on other projects in the wider region and further work alongside our new partners in Japan, [engineering contractor] JGC, with whom we signed an MoU in November 2017, to pursue opportunities in Japan and other selected markets," Quadrise said.
"Our work in the marine bunker market continues, and we are anticipating an acceleration of activity with operators who see the use of high-sulphur fuel and EGCS [Exhaust Gas Cleaning System] as providing the lowest cost of compliance with the IMO 2020 sulphur standards, as the implementation deadline approaches," the company added.
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