Taronis Fuels Provides Update on International Business Developments
Successfully Executes $20 Million in Unit Sales
PHOENIX, AZ, Sept. 14, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Taronis Fuels, Inc., (“Taronis” or “the Company”) (OTCQB: TRNF), a global producer of renewable and socially responsible fuel products, today provided a corporate update on recent international business developments related to an existing contract in the Republic of Turkey. Most importantly, the existing $18.75 million, five-unit purchase order was formally approved and released by the Turkish authorities, and the order has been modified to $20 million to account for additional design specifications unique to the Turkish market. All five units are currently in production, with the first units projected for shipment in January of 2021.
Beginning on August 23rd, a technical and engineering team from Taronis was deployed for over two weeks in Ankara. The team was able to successfully commission a mobile 50KW Venturi plasma arc gasification unit at its new location in Gazi, on the southwest outskirts of Ankara. The unit was officially commissioned by technical and legal representatives from the Turkish Ministry of Finance and Trade on August 30, 2020.
On September 3rd, the Company jointly hosted a commissioning and ribbon-cutting ceremony at the facility in Gazi. The event was widely attended by government officials, representatives from the majority of the industrial gas companies in Turkey, as well as a select group of prospective buyers of the gasification units both within Turkey and from neighboring markets in Central Asia.
The ceremony was very well received, both locally in Ankara and nationally by the Turkish business community, as the event was widely covered by both the national print and television media. In total, nine national financial and business publications in Turkey have published articles on the event. In addition, Taronis Fuels was featured on two leading Turkish national television stations immediately following the event.
The Company subsequently conducted more than a dozen private demonstrations for prospective buyers of the gasification unit the week of September 7th. In particular, representatives from the majority of the leading industrial gas providers in Turkey participated in these private, technical presentations. Virtually all of these prospective buyers have expressed interest in securing access to scalable quantities of MagneGas, the Company’s patented, renewable metal cutting fuel. In several instances, these industrial gas competitors have also expressed interest in purchasing one or more gasification units.
In addition, the Company has identified multiple promising channels to sell MagneGas or gasification units into other end-use applications. As examples, the Company presented to a cement producer, an operator of hydroelectric power plants, and a steel foundry. In each instance, the prospective consumers require significant quantities of acetylene for their infrastructure. In several additional instances, the client expressed interest in the comingling, or co-combustion of MagneGas with traditional fossil fuel products to increase the efficiency of the combustion process. Taronis has previously researched this application and has validated that this co-combustion process can increase heat output by up to 800%, while reducing harmful emissions by up to 50%.
This co-combustion opportunity may expand to include coal-fired electric power plants across much of Turkey. With 47 power plants producing over 19GW of power each year, Turkey is the 12th largest user of coal-powered electric utilities today. The use of MagneGas through co-combustion could quickly become the primary justification for the government to procure the remaining 25 gasification units under the $165 million, 30-unit contract currently in place through a Turkish joint venture in which Taronis Fuels is a 49% minority owner.
As part of the initial $20 million, five-unit funding approval, the Turkish government also granted the Turkish joint venture a five-year importation approval for both virgin and waste ethanol. Ethanol is in scarce supply in both forms in Turkey and is priced at a significant premium to prevailing market prices in Europe and the United States. Through the Turkish joint venture, the Company is actively looking to scale its existing relationship with Catalent, a global leader in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry.
With multiple facilities in Europe, Catalent would be an ideal partner for this emerging ethanol importation business. The Company currently sources all of its waste ethanol for its patented MagneGas production through Catalent’s St. Petersburg, Florida gelcap manufacturing facilities.
“This was a watershed moment in our international expansion,” commented Scott Mahoney, CEO of Taronis Fuels. “Securing the full certification of our technology by the Turkish government was a major accomplishment for our engineering team. We are all very proud of their ability to deliver a mobile gasification unit into Ankara during an incredibly challenging set of circumstances over the past six months. From procuring components during supply chain disruption with China and Europe, limited shipping options during the Florida lockdown, and then commissioning the unit during the COVID-19 pandemic, they came through and delivered.”
“The ribbon-cutting ceremony was well planned and executed by our joint venture partners. The national media put our business front and center, and we have immediately seen the benefit from a business development perspective. Our team performed more than a dozen private demonstrations of the unit in operation and MagneGas at its best.”
Mr. Mahoney continued, “We all took great pride watching industrial gas leaders from Turkey express complete amazement at the unique power of MagneGas as a metal cutting fuel. We took a massive 100-millimeter block of steel and cut through it with ease. It was this simple test alone that had several industrial gas companies lined up to have private meetings with our team to discuss how we can partner to leverage MagneGas in the local market. We generated a powerful, positive impression on the local market.”
“Beyond this key accomplishment, we identified several new ancillary revenue streams. Every unit in operation in Turkey will require upwards of $1 million in ethanol feedstock annually. With our unique import license, this is expected to become a scaling source of recurring revenues for Taronis.”
“We are actively evaluating some promising applications for our technology outside the traditional metal cutting fuel market. Foundries, cement manufacturing, insulation production and coal-fired power plants all have a need for cleaner, more efficient combustion solutions. We are carefully evaluating the opportunity to sell additional gasification units into the broader Turkish market. We believe there are even greater opportunities in Turkey than we had originally identified.”
“We have excellent momentum. We have already spent about half of the total cost required to complete the initial five units. Based on our current timeline, we expect to ship the first two units in January, and the remaining three units in February of 2021. The added revenues and cash flows from this initial transaction are a significant catalyst to our growth plans heading into 2021,” concluded Mr. Mahoney.
About Taronis Fuels, Inc.
Taronis Fuels, Inc. is a global producer of renewable and socially responsible fuel products. Our goal is to deliver environmentally sustainable, technology driven alternatives to traditional fossil fuel and carbon-based economy products. We believe our products offer a vastly cleaner solution to legacy acetylene and propane alternatives.
Taronis is also dedicated to providing fundamentally safer solutions to meet the industrial, commercial and residential needs of tomorrow’s global economy. Our products have been rigorously tested and independently validated by global gas authorities as vastly safer than acetylene, the most dangerous industrial gas in use today.
Lastly, we strive to deliver products that offer significant function superiority at a reduced cost to the end consumer. Through these efforts, we support 9 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. For more information, please visit our website at www.taronisfuels.com/
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined within Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. These statements relate to future events, including our ability to raise capital, or to our future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements since they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond our control and which could, and likely will, materially affect actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements. Any forward-looking statement reflects our current views with respect to future events and is subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to our operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity. We assume no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our public filings with the SEC are available from commercial document retrieval services and at the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov.
Investor Contacts:
Michael Khorassani
IR@Taronisfuels.com
