Fearnely research:

Elliott JOnes is the best analyst on Quantafuel. His bullish research summary below:

1st Operating Revenues at Skive: a Major Statement Made

QFUEL recently announced their 1q21 results, posting first ever operative revenues delivered from BASF for Skive product. Total sales were NOK3.4m (inc. Geminor additional income of NOK1.7m), EBITDA of NOK-30.5m and an adj. net income of NOK39m. Skive guidance for stable production of 2 lines by the end of this quarter is reiterated (a major milestone), whilst capex is held steady. Kristiansund’s chemical
recycling pilot plant has produced first oil, whilst the company’s primary strategic partners remain as supportive as ever. We push back timing of full utilization Skive and Esbjerg, however these revisions are insignificant to long term value. We reiterate Buy, TP of NOK95/sh, with an unchanged investment case but a better entry point.

Skive operations – a major company milestone is hit
QFUEL announced the significant feat of first ever operational revenues at Skive. The company continues to enhance systems to reach stable and continuous production, capex is held steady and guidance of “proof of concept” by the end of this quarter is re-iterated. Furthermore, QFUEL’s second chemical recycling facility in Kristiansund produced first oil
– rounding off an impressive operational quarter for the company.

Partners and further newsflow demonstrates clear support and validation. The company’s existing primary strategic partners (BASF, Vitol, Kirkbi) remain fully supportive in the QFUEL process (despite a recent secondary sale causing the market to potentially think otherwise). Furthermore, recent news including management share purchases and an environmental application acceptance for Esbjerg adds to support for
the stock going forward. Moreover, recent partnerships upstream (Corepla, REMONDIS)
provides even further validation and paves the way for a future rollout across Europe.

Valuation
We maintain our previous valuation methodology and confirm that the near-term estimate revisions are insignificant to long-term value. All valuation drivers are held steady – we hold revenue from feedstock to USD30/tonne, sales price at USD824/tonne and a European capacity rollout of >2m tonnes plastic by 2029. We see a highly attractive
investment proposition, especially at current share price levels.

Quantafuel is now quite active on FB. Do follow their web site, if you are interested in the company. The link is below:

Quantafuel | Facebook

Yesterday they made the following announcement. I found it very bullish:

Curious to see what is going on at our plant in Skive, Denmark? Here, we have built the first, and to our knowledge, the only fully automated and continuous process plant transforming mixed waste plastic into high quality products. We are convinced that this approach is essential in our strategy to become the market leader within chemical recycling of plastic!

Last week, we were able to reach full line production capacity of 625 kg per hour in a controlled and stable process. Now we are focusing on increasing operational uptime at high production capacity into weeks, and then months. Watch this space!

The trade for this week is Hofseth Biocare. The investment story is at the link below:

Top Value Creation Play In Biocare (OTCMKTS:HOFBF) | Seeking Alpha

Hofseth Biocare is reporting their Q1 tomorrow. It should be very strong Q1. In the quarter they achieved significant sales wins. They started selling their salmon oil products on Amazon UK and Cosco UK. I placed the name of their salmon oil product into google and the first two search items were from Cosco UK and Amazon UK. Apart from that they also sent the first delivery to Nestle owned Garden of life, that is due to lunch a new product range in August using their protein. In summary the Q1 tomorrow should be very strong and the share price should jump swiftly up. I am long Hofseth.

Quantafuel newsflow continues. If you are interested in the company, do follow their FB page. I discovered that only yesterday. They do publish some interesting news flow there. Today, Fearnley Securities published the following note on Quantafuel:

Fearnley today:

Quantafuel (Buy, TP NOK 95/sh)
Environmental Impact application for Esbjerg site approved
Further to QFUELs positive Q1 update to the market at the end of last week, the company announced yesterday that Esbjerg City Council has unanimously approved QFUELs Environmental impact application for their planned new recycling plant in Esbjerg, with the project consisting of a feedstock pre-treatment plant integrated with a chemical recycling plant. Whilst stable and continuous production (on two lines) at Skive is the key trigger point to our mind next up, we view the news as a clear sign that things are being set up for the next plant location. This news also follows key members of the management team (Dr. Christian Lach, deputy CEO and CCO and Kristian Flaten, CFO) buying shares in the company – a strong sign of support for the company’s plans. The market has clearly agreed with us on the 1q21 update and subsequent news, and our view is that the recent share price rally may continue.3Reply19:42 AM

Some weeks ago I wrote here about XBrane Biocare. At that time the share price was below 90 SEK. Today it is 135 SEK. Up 50%. The reason is simple. These shares move when there is a catalyst coming. For XBrane it is the results of the Phase 3 study, that should be published most likely in this Quarter. They now have all the data and processing it. They said that the chance of success is 90%. My target is 150 SEK for the end of this quarter and 200 SEK by the end of the year.

Very similar play is Biovica. Biovica has tested their cancer product in major US hospitals (Mayo Clinic, Stanford, etc). They published more than 10 studies with US major hospitals. They are due to announce FDA results during Q3. The share price has not moved, yet. It should and most likely will, as the Q3 results are coming near. I believe the share price should easily double by Q3. Attractive risk reward.

HOfseth Biocare is publishing its Q1 this week. I participated on investor call where they said that the Q should be much higher revenues due to strong sales on Amazon, Cosco and LIdl. It is a one week trade. The share price could easily jump by 10-20% on the results. Not bad for one week exposure.

Congratulations to those who bought with me Quantafuel last week before the Q1 as I suggested in two posts last week. 31% in three days is a decent return.

I believe that this is just the beginning for Quantafuel. This is trending stock. I believe we have seen a bottom last week. The share price peaked around 80 NOK in September. If the company delivers as they promised on the call, I believe we will see 100 NOK in H2. When they start building a plant with a strategic partner, the share price will be heading to 200NOK. Quantafuel is my second largest position, after ERII (Energy Recovery).

Please note that Dr. Lach who joined Quantafeul from BASF reported share purchases on Friday:

Dr. Christian Lach, Deputy CEO and Chief Commercial Officer in Quantafuel ASA, has today bought 13,500 shares in Quantafuel ASA at a price of NOK 34.98 per share. After the transaction, Dr. Christian Lach holds 13,500 shares and 450,000 options in Quantafuel ASA. Kristian Flaten, CFO in Quantafuel ASA, has today bought 3,000 shares in Quantafuel ASA at a price of NOK 34.70 per share. After the transaction, Kristian Flaten holds 3,000 shares and 200,000 options in Quantafuel ASA.

Africa Energy has not been going as I expected. Since I wrote about it in September, the share price is 40% down. Despite the successful drilling results of 11B/12B, one of the largest deposit of gas condensates in the world, where AEC owns 10% interest. I believe that there were two reasons for the decline. Retail sold the fact and uncertainty over negotiations with the South Africa Government. I believe that AEC bottomed last week. There are two reasons for this:

• The South African Government submitted the new Energy bill to the parliament. It indicates an agreement – see the article below
• The drilling campaign on 2B plot is in progress – in the past AEC share price was growing as the drilling progressed. I expect this time it will be the same, multiplied by the South Africa agreement resolution.

https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/834/215818.html

Petroleum Bill has lift off at last

14 May 2021

South Africa’s gas potential, and interest from investors, meant government was under pressure to forge ahead with its legislative reforms needed to address upstream issues – which, until yesterday, have been in limbo.

In a media statement released on 13 May 2021, the Ministry in the Presidency announced that Cabinet has approved the submission of the draft Upstream Petroleum Resources Development Bill to Parliament.

“The Upstream Petroleum Bill was first published in the Government Gazette on 24 December 2019. Written submission from industry stakeholders were submitted by 21 February 2020. Government consultations on the industry submissions were conducted by the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy and the Petroleum Agency between April and May 2020. In September 2020 Government verbally presented its proposed amendments to the Upstream Petroleum Bill to industry stakeholders, which amendments aimed to address the concerns of raised by industry stakeholders,” says Megan Rodgers, director at Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr (CDH) and head of the firm’s oil and gas sector.

“A significant and welcomed amendment to the Upstream Petroleum Bill, would be the introduction of the petroleum right, which will govern the key terms of both the exploration and production phase. We expect to see the introduction of a retention permit which is to be granted in instances where development and production of petroleum not possible owing to unfavourable market or economic conditions and to enable a petroleum right holder to undertake gas market development, if so applicable. We also expect to see the end of granting of technical cooperation permits.

“We hope to see black-owned oil and gas companies having the right to dilute both shareholding equity and participating interest in order to raise funding to meet its participating share of costs,” said Rodgers.

She added that CDH would like to see recoverability on the state carry with a percentage of the state’s annual share of production to be allocated for repayment of its proportionate share of exploration and production costs. “We also hope to see all references to production bonus and petroleum rent tax removed from the Upstream Petroleum Bill, given these fiscal terms had not been fully formed and created investor uncertainty.”

I enclose the important parts from the report:

• We have operated a production line in Skive, Denmark, at full capacity with the right
  balance between gas and oil production and increased operational stability. With these
  major achievements we target proof-of concept in Q2 2021 and full production end of
  Q3 2021, as announced earlier.
• We are also pleased to confirm that we have started feeding plastics into the new technology test plant in our second plant in Kristiansund, Norway
• Quantafuel’s strategy is to build large-scale Plastics-to-Liquid (PtL) process plants at multiple locations throughout Europe, and in due time expand into other high-interest geographical regions. With NOK 577 million in cash by end of Q1 2021, and strong support from our three strategic partners, BASF, Vitol
  and Kirkbi (LEGO foundation), we are in a strong position to continue our journey shaping the chemical recycling market for plastic.
• In Skive, Quantafuel has built the first, and to our knowledge, only fully automated and continuous process plant transforming mixed waste plastic into high quality products. We are convinced that this approach is essential in our strategy to become the market leader within chemical recycling of plastic.
• Now that we are getting increasingly closer to this point, we have started to firm up our roll-out plan for
  Europe by signing an agreement with Corepla and Saipem for the Italian market and with BASF and Remondis targeting the German market, as well as other potential markets.
• We are working on a feasibility study with VTTI, a subsidiary of Vitol and ADNOC, with the aim of bringing a project on their zero-emissions site in Amsterdam to Final Investment Decision (FID) as soon as possible.
• During the first quarter, we concluded the purchase of 40% of Geminor, a Norwegian logistics- and recycling company with a presence in 11 countries and an annual turnover close to EUR 200 million, with an
  option to acquire the remaining outstanding shares.  Besides better-quality feedstock that in turn will improve product quality, we will considerably improve prices for feedstock. How much this will be is difficult to determine as it will change from contract to contract, but in certain cases we find it likely to improve financials with EUR 100 per ton or more.
• Europe has set a target of a 55% recycling rate by 2025. Denmark’s target is even higher, with
  a requirement of 65% for packaging material – post-consumer waste.
• The Kristiansund plant is currently recycling and producing plastic fractions from industrial and
  private plastic waste from the north-west coast of Norway. At our plant in Kristiansund, we are also testing
  new reactor design for future plastic-to-liquid plants. The chemical recycling pilot and reactor design testing is conducted in partnership with BASF. 
• Esbjerg plant – Quantafuel has been working on establishing a first large-scale plant in Denmark for the past two years, and after assessing more than 40 potential sites we selected a plot outside Esbjerg. Building and environmental permit applications were submitted six months ago, and we expect to receive final approval soon.

Watching Q1 presentation is a must for anybody intersted in QFUEL:

https://www.quantafuel.com/investors/reports-and-presentations

Link to the full report:

qfuel-q1-2021-report.pdf (d1kc1xo119v43s.cloudfront.net)

During the last two weeks I doubled my position on Quantafuel. I believe it will never be so cheap. I believe the Q1 call should change the share price trajectory upwards.

I expect that on Friday the company will report several positives:

1. First revenues from product sales to BASF – not sure how material the sales will be, but this is a proof that the product is as promised
2. Reiterate their goal to have continues production by Q2 end – the continues production will be the game changer for the company and its shareholders fortunes
3. Update on production – I understand from talking to broker’s analysts that they are making a good progress towards a continues production
4. BASF deputy CEO introduction – the appointment of Dr. Lach is very significant for Quantafuel. He comes from the position as Project Lead ChemCycling in BASF. He was on the board of three plastic recycling companies. He choose Quantafuel, because it is the most ambitious company in this area. He knew what Quantafuel does and what the others do. His arrival is rubber stamp on Quantafuel future. I expect him to speak at the Q1 call for the first time.

I like the below investment case summary:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4378135-quantafuel-global-leader-in-chemical-recycling-of-plastic-backed-basf-and-vitol-potential-to

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Congratulations to all that followed my XBrane idea here, prompted by the below article from SeekingAlpha. The stock is up 40% in one month. More like this!

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4419351-xbrane-partners-bausch-lomb-to-enter-usd-12-billion-market

Quantafuel – is my second largest position. I have been buying almost every day over the last two weeks. The company is reporting on Friday and I believe that we are seeing a share price bottom. I have doubled my position in the last 10 days. The stock is now around 30 NOK, it reached 80 in late January.

The stock has been declining since some unknown seller sold 1 mln shares in an SPO managed by Goldman. Initially there was a concern that the stock was sold by BASF, which triggered the sell off. The company announced that none of its partners sold. That did not stop the sell off. The possible reason is that the stock was placed by Goldmans to flippers, who were expecting a quick profit and drove the share price down as they were giving up.

The company should report positive news to the market on Friday. Both plants are now in trial production. The Skive plant has delivered the first products to BASF, so there will be the first tangible revenues this quarter. I also believe that they will reiterate their guidance that Skive will be in continues production by the end of this quarter. I believe that the stock price is bottoming now and I bought on again on today’s mkt weekness. I believe that once they reach continues production the share price will break 100 NOK and once they announce one large plant construction with a strong partner (BASF, Vitol) the share price will start quickly approaching 200 NOK. I am very bullish Quantafuel. The investment thesis is well summarised here:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4378135-quantafuel-global-leader-in-chemical-recycling-of-plastic-backed-basf-and-vitol-potential-to

ERII is my largest position. I first wrote about it here when the share price was 8USD. It is now around USD20. While the short term ride might be over, the longer term play is enact. I believe this will be triple digit stock within 3-5 years.

The Q1 was positive for ERII. The company delivered the highest revenue quarter in its history.

But the major event was the introduction of refrigeration / air-conditionaing product. More than 120 countries signed up to Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, in which companies committed to the elimination of greenhouse gasses. Those are used in air conditioning and refrigeration. The greenhouse gasses will be replaced by CO2. For CO2 to be effective, it has to run at much higher temperatures. ERII´s Pressure Exchanger technology could save 40% of energy costs. The USD55 billion market is vast and entering into this market is a game-changer for ERII. See the new page on ERII web site: https://energyrecovery.com/refrigeration/

ERII reported good progress on Vorteq – they have completed 25 frac stages, and Vorteq is now in operation with a client of LIberty Oil Services. The only issue is the durability of the PX cartridge, which would define the product’s profitability. ERII is now evaluating different commercial scenarios with Liberty. The final world of Vorteq commercialization will be provided during the June 10th shareholder meeting.

Do read the prepared notes for Q1: https://ir.energyrecovery.com/download/companies/energyrecover/AnnualMeetingPresentations/Earnings%20Script%202021%20Q1%20-%20FINAL.pdf

The XBrane idea is working well, reaching new all time high today – it is 20% since I first wrote about this two weeks ago. I believe that ride will continue until the investor day in mid May, when they are very likely to announce the positive news on Phase 3 study. See the below write up

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4419351-xbrane-partners-bausch-lomb-to-enter-usd-12-billion-market

SKITUDE – top reopening game in ScandinaviaI had a call with CFO of Skitude. Skitude is the ultimate reopening game. They have the best skiing app and they are the largest provider of ski ticket sales in the world.

Due to the China virus competitors suffered. They picked up two large competitors for pennies. They are looking for further acquisitions – the virus helped the consolidation of the industry.

SKITUDE is beating the seasonality by selling tickets for water parks, mainly in the US. They announced latest such contract last week, signing up 8 waterparks.

There are several catalysts:

– reopening play

– further acquisition of competitors affected by China virus

– consolidation of the industry

– news flow on further acquisitions of water parks

– news flow on consolidation and cross-selling within its existing businesses

The risks are:

– slow consolidation and slow cross-selling

If you have time, review the previous post summarising the current ideas, that may be worth further research

I must congratulate all that followed my XBrane suggestion up 15% in two weeks and ERII, which is up 200% this year, which I suggested here several times.

Ideas for your further research

I like XBrane very much. They were due to announce the results of their phase 3 study in May. Historically, Biosimilars have 76% success rate in Phase 3 studies (see their website section Biosimilars). We know that they are due to announce the results in May. As the Phase 3 includes 583 patients, they already have 99% of the results by now. They already know the outcome. Last week they already announced investor day for mid May. Phase 3 is the only thing they have for announcement. Companies would not call an investor day, if they would have a bad news. My reading is that this further reduces the risk of Phase 3 failure. I believe the share price will reach 120-130 by the investor day. Good write up below:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4419351-xbrane-partners-bausch-lomb-to-enter-usd-12-billion-market

Quantafuel – time to come back. I bought another shares today. I want to buy now gradually into the shareholder meeting. I believe that we are very close to continues production. The company claims they will be there by the end of Q2. When this happen the company will shoot up. My year end price target is well above 100 NOK. I would not hurry up into buying, but I would be gradual buyer. And I am doing that. Quantafuel will be my largest position by the time they announce continues production. That is my goal. I like the below article on Quantafuel:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4378135-quantafuel-global-leader-in-chemical-recycling-of-plastic-backed-basf-and-vitol-potential-to

I had a call with CFO of Skitude. Skitude is the ultimate reopening game. They have the best skiing app and they are the largest provider of ticket sales in the world. Due to the China virus competitors suffered. They picked up two large competitors for pennies. They are looking for further purchases – the virus helped the consolidation of the industry. They are beating the seasonality by selling tickets for water parks, mainly in the US. They announced latest such contract yesterday, signing up 8 waterparks. I have a small position now, but trying to analyze this further. Any comments appreciated.

The other ideas that I like are:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4395266-giant-hydrocarbons-discovery-total-and-africa-energy-better-expected

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4406713-next-biometrics-sales-wins-should-drive-revenues-400-percent-higher-this-year

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4364827-energy-recoverys-vorteq-game-changer-for-fracking-industry

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