Oxford sustainable fuel tech Velocys reports £3.3 million first half profit
Velocys plc the Oxford based sustainable fuels technology company, has reported £3.3 million profit in the first half of 2021, on revenues of £8.2 million (up from £0.2 million during the same period last year).
Henrik Wareborn, CEO of Velocys, said: "Our interim results demonstrate that Velocys has achieved an important milestone, recognising £8.2m of revenue and £3.3m gross profit in HY2021 from our first major commercial customer contract. The downwards trend in our operating loss continued, declining to £2.0m in HY2021 from £2.6m in HY2020 (£5.2m in HY2019 and £11.0m in HY2018). This shows that the Company is controlling its spending well whilst also delivering to our customers and progressing our two reference projects towards funding for their FEED stages and then onto financial close.
"At the same time, I am pleased with the safe and efficient operational performance of Velocys despite the challenges of COVID-19, and excited about the sustainable fuels market dynamics and the business development opportunities available to us for the short, medium and long term."
Velocys is collaborating with Toyo Engineering in Japan to start development of a commercial scale biomass-to-jet fuel project along with other renewable fuel opportunities. Velocys was selected by Toyo Engineering to supply a compact FT reactor for a demonstration project to convert CO2 and Hydrogen directly to synthetic "e-fuels" via Artificial Photosynthesis.
Fuel from the NEDO demonstration in Japan was used in a commercial flight on 17 June by Japan Airlines powered by a 25 per cent blend of sustainable aviation fuel and fossil standard Jet A1 fuel. This was the first time globally a commercial flight was fuelled by such a large blend percentage of synthetic jet fuel made from woodchips.
(The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation promotes the development and introduction of new energy technologies. It has become one of the largest public research and development management organisations in Japan,).
Earlier this month the company announced it had secured a grant from the UK Department for Transport (DfT) under the Green Fuels, Green Skies competition. The grant award is up to a maximum of £2.4M.
The Altalto project based at Immingham in East Lincolnshire is a collaboration between Velocys and British Airways.
The proposed plant will convert hundreds of thousands of tonnes per year of residual waste into sustainable fuels, mainly aviation fuel. Planning consent was granted in 2020; the project is ready to proceed to the final stages of engineering prior to construction, subject to the policy progress mentioned above and to third party project funding.