Eden Energy today announced plans to raise a further $15 million to support the commercial roll-out of its innovative concrete additive product, having tapped investors for $10.3 million in May this year.
Eden Energy today announced plans to raise a further $15 million to support the commercial roll-out of its innovative concrete additive product, having tapped investors for $10.3 million in May this year.
The new raising is priced at 18 cents per share compared to a current trading price of 22 cents and below the pricing of the May placement at 23 cents per share.
The latest raising was led by Bell Potter Securities.
The company’s product EdenCrete is a carbon nanotube-enriched concrete additive, where nanotubes (a molecule made up of a large number of carbon atoms) bond to cement and produce an extremely strong concrete.
More than $13 million of the total amount raised is being placed to four Australian institutional investors.
Eden Energy chair Gregory Solomon said this was the first time the company had large institutions come onto its register and was a sign Eden was moving up to the next level.
“We are in the process of scaling our production up, we’re only a small company and we’ve had limited production based in Colorado,” he said.
Mr Solomon said EdenCrete had undergone numerous successful trials in the US.
“The department of transport used it on a field trial on an interstate highway in August 2015 and we got good results,” he said.
“There was a 45.8 per cent increase in the compressive strength of the concrete and a 56 per cent reduction in the rate of abrasion.
“When we went back and examined it this year the standard concrete had already cracked, yet the EdenCrete slab looked brand new.”
The Georgia department of transport recently approved use of EdenCrete in its 24-hour concrete repair mix for highway repairs.
In addition, the Georgia state and local governments have supported Eden in the form of a combined US$24.7 million financial incentive package to establish a plant in Augusta, Georgia.
“The purpose of this capital raising is to try and take a large part of risk away,” he said.
“We wanted to ensure that no matter what happens in financial markets we’ve got enough cash in the bank to be able to fast track and accelerate the process in Georgia.”
The placement will de-risk its US project and will enable Eden to fast track the initial development of the Georgia production facility in 2017-2018 to meet the anticipated demand.
The funds will also ensure the company can expand its newly formed sales team in order to increase the volume of EdenCrete sales over the next year.
Mr Solomon said he hadn’t focused on the Australian market as the majority of roads were made out of bitumen.
Eden shares closed 0.5 cents lower at 22 cents per share.
