| To: Terry Jackson who wrote (83) | 10/29/1999 2:52:00 PM | | From: Terry Jackson | | | |
More great news! Up 44% in two days
Friday October 29, 2:17 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Rentech, Inc.
Rentech's Fischer-Tropsch Technology Proposed As Part of
Australian Project
DENVER, Oct. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Rentech, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: RNTK - news), the Denver-based holding company which developed and licenses a
proprietary and patented process, Gas-To-Liquids (''GTL''), for the conversion of gases, solid or liquid carbon-bearing material into valuable liquid
hydrocarbons, announced today that Rentech's Fischer-Tropsch (FT) technology is expected to play an important part in a proposed electrical power and
FT fuels project in West Australia as announced October 29, 1999 by Hillcrest Resources N.L. (''Hillcrest'').
As indicated in that press release, the Global Gas & Power Division of Texaco, Inc. (''Texaco''), Hillcrest, and Australian Power & Energy Corporation
Holdings Ltd. (''APEC''), have agreed to enter into formal joint venture negotiations for the development of the proposed Esperance Power Project.
APEC holds the rights to the lignite deposit which underlies the project. The deposit is located at Salmon Gums, approximately 350 miles east southeast of
Perth, Australia and 60 miles north of the port town of Esperance.
The deposit is large with a total resource exceeding 2 billion tons. The project focus will be on an area of around 760 million tons. Total indicated oil
resources in the lignite zone are approximately 272 million barrels (in the form of kerogen).
Preliminary project sizing is for a 200 megawatt electrical power plant and a 6,000 barrel per day Fischer-Tropsch plant according to principals of Hillcrest
and APEC. It is expected that Texaco's gasification technology will be used to gasify the lignite to product a syngas consisting of hydrogen and carbon
monoxide. The syngas will in turn be used to produce electricity and feed the Rentech-designed Fischer-Tropsch reactor.
Hillcrest indicated in a press release issued June 11, 1999 that total capital costs for the Esperance Power Project are expected to be around $500 million.
These costs will be borne by the joint venture group.
''During the past several years, Rentech has been extremely active in pursuing a number of initiatives to further commercialize its technology. We are
delighted that some of these initiatives have now progressed to the point where we can make them public,'' stated Dennis L. Yakobson, president and CEO
of Rentech. Yakobson continued, ''Our ongoing efforts reflect the tremendous flexibility of Rentech's Fischer-Tropsch technology and the opportunity it
affords Rentech to participate in projects around the world that will produce very clean fuels and products from coal, industrial off-gases, refinery bottoms,
and natural gas as Rentech seeks to evolve into a premiere Fischer-Tropsch technology licensing company.''
Certain portions of this press release may contain ''forward looking'' statements as defined by the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation
Reform Act of 1995 and within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Any
number of important factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements herein. For more information
concerning factors that could cause such a difference, see the Company's annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. Although Rentech believes its statements to be reasonable, investors are cautioned that such forward looking
statements involve risk and uncertainties. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions to any such
forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
For more information, please contact: Mark Koenig, Director of Investor Relations of Rentech, Inc., 303-298-8008, or Email at rntk1331@aol.com.
SOURCE: Rentech, Inc. |
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| To: jwk who wrote (91) | 12/18/1999 5:05:00 PM | | From: Bradpalm1 | | | |
In light of Friday's dramatic price and volume action, here's a reprint of an excellent recent post from the Raging Bull RNTK thread discussing a presentation made by RNTK in Denver last Tuesday. Texaco also had an analysts meeting in NYC on Friday where they discussed plans to increase capex spending for next year by 20% on "projects including oil-refinery upgrades and construction of power plants." These are two areas where RNTK has known ongoing collaborative efforts with Texaco. From Friday's tape, it certainly appears that some type of significant accumulation is taking place.
By: Dooper55
Reply To: None
Wednesday, 15 Dec 1999 at 9:22 AM EST
Post # of 9662
"Website Launch Meeting" notes..................
Glad I went. Forecast was accurate......no blockbusters, but some good discussions. 30-35 attendees, upbeat mood, no hecklers which is nice considering the stock performance. Cash bar and hors d'oeuvres table grew cobwebs. People were there to listen and learn.
RNTKers: Mark Koenig (IR head), Jim Samuels (CFO) and Ron Butz (VP/COO)
Half-hour of informal chatting preceded the presentation. Renewed acquaintances with some nice folks from the last Annual Meeting and met some new ones.
Mark opened the formal meeting with a brief discussion about the company. Working since 1981 on F-T. While things like hydrogen and CNG may come along in decades to come, F-T diesel is the best and only near term clean fuel answer since it can use existing infrastructure. F-T diesel can begin solving pollution problems in the near future. Colorado, at least the Denver basin, especially needs F-T diesel to make inroads on our infamous (though lessening) "brown cloud". [Two local, ranking political party representatives were there but didn't speak.] Mark noted that he'd had an opportunity to talk to Colorado's Governor, Bill Owens, on December 10th. He introduced Owens to RNTK the company and to F-T diesel and its potential for Colorado/Denver. [We have a huge I-25-thru-Denver upgrade starting next year that Owens promoted.] The governor was interested enough to request specific additional information and arranged for Mark to start meeting with Colorado transportation and clean air people starting today if I heard it right. This is good IMHO.
Mark also said GTL is on the front burner at every major oil company in the world. Virtually every one is talking about getting into GTL. When GTL does start being implemented, it will mean significant business for the incumbents. GTL will NOT be like the Internet. New companies will not be able to spring up because GTL technology is thoroughly protected by patents and it took many years and tens/hundreds of millions of dollars to develop it.
Why the new website? Mark said it's needed as they move into commercializing RNTK's F-T processes. It's intended to bring more attention to the company and provide more and better information. [RNTK has been told repeatedly that even their existing website provided the best tutorial information about the GTL industry and its technology.] RNTK gets up to 15 or so serious (industry) requests for RNTK GTL technical information per month.
A fellow named John from Webolutions (the website builder) and Mark then walked us through a CD-ROM version of the new website, highlighting features like the comprehensive Company Profile (gets my "Best New Feature" vote), e-mail PR sign-up, technology comparisons, access to Corporate Window info for investors, distributed e-mail contact buttons so people can contact specific, appropriate RNTKers in their areas of expertise, etc.
Nobody asked any questions about the new website. My impression is that it was regarded as interesting but not a blockbuster. More interest was apparent in the discussions that followed.......
Jim Samuels (CFO) spoke about where RNTK has been and where they're headed. Last year has seen a major transformation. New lab, doing paid research. Working with 7-8 "major firms" on potential GTL projects. Ticked through highlights of the events as shown in the Company Profile. Bought PML and PWL. Discussed the virtues of converting methanol plants to GTL. A retrofit operation (adding RNTK F-T and product upgrading) would take 12-18 months. [In response to a question, Ron Butz said that a fully-retrofitted methanol plant will cost (new money) about 1/2 what a "greenfield" GTL plant will cost.] I think this means about $15,000 per daily barrel of capacity for retrofitting, including installing F-T product upgrading hardware.
Rule of thumb expressed: Greenfield GTL plants ($30,000+ per daily bbl of capacity) need $16 or higher crude in order for GTL plants to break even. That assumes F-T diesel sells at a 10-cent premium.
In the last two years, the company has grown from 7 to more than 50 employees. The core F-T technical staff is now 14 and 7-8 will be added to that in the next 2-3 months.
They are looking for opportunities to be equity partners in GTL facilities, not just technology licensors. They expect to use their intellectual property (18 years and about $35 million invested) to help buy their equity shares.
Financial outlook..........
I get the feeling Jim Samuels wishes he hadn't verbally set the "cash flow neutral in 1999" goal at the Annual Meeting. Things move slower than RNTK expected. I think they now expect to be cash flow neutral in FY2000 by adding to their current TX/PML/PWL/Okon income. Jim talked about a "two stream" approach to revenues. Upon completion of the First Union PP (more later) they aim to get to cash flow neutrality and profitability INDEPENDENT of GTL/F-T. That's the first "stream". That involves completing the REN acquisition as a minimum.
The second "stream" is GTL/F-T. This will be an erratic stream since the first things will be increments of license fees and these will come in increments at times set by paperwork completion/signing. Different quarters will see different sized chunks. But they DO expect to get these initial chunks and I believe they see these initial chunks starting to show up in 2000. Jim didn't talk about it but other chunks will follow when engineering is completed and plants come online. That's all more than a year from now and then the royalties will come too.
About the Everen/First Union PP. Jim said it was "30 to 33% subscribed and it will be closed January 12, 2000". That means they are now guaranteed having significant money to work with from the PP. The total sought was not given, but this is still very good news, IMHO. Jim also said that if the proceeds from the PP get large enough, they could do more things sooner and get to profitability sooner. IMHO, that could include getting equity-involvement in a real GTL project (a methanol plant conversion, IMHO) sooner rather than later.
EECP/DOE/TX project. TX should be firming up the schedules and plans for this shortly per their commitments to the DOE. The site (a coal-fed IGCC powerplant that'll get a RNTK F-T add-on) has not been specified [publicly anyway] yet.
Alternative Fuels designation is moving slowly. Federal budget hang-ups slowing work at DOE. They expect questions from DOE at some point before action is taken on their petition. The questions haven't come yet. Tea leaves say "months".
That's about it. I believe RNTK is quite optimistic about the future. I believe that in addition to the many known intentions/possibilities, there are many that we haven't heard about yet. IMHO some of the known ones will come to fruition in the near term and others will emerge. All in all, with the First Union PP money available now or very soon and with several diverse opportunities in hand, I think RNTK will move forward nicely and their future is essentially assured.
Happy holidays to all. |
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