Hydrogen Utopia – Solving the plastic and energy puzzle “in desperate times” – Proactive Investors.
Hydrogen Utopia International PLC (LSE:HUI, OTCQB:HUIPF), which hired former British mercenary Simon Mann as its new strategic advisor, remains committed to its “mission” to solve the dual plastics and energy crises, according to chief executive Aleksandra Binkowska.
She told Proactive Investors that the company’s fundamental business model, which is to solve the problem of unwanted plastics and meet demand for cleaner energy in the form of hydrogen, has stayed the same despite its recent investment in cannabis production.
Binkowska, said:
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Its goal is to demonstrate the first-of-its-kind plant for converting waste plastics into hydrogen fuel, which if successful, could solve one of the most critical problems of a generation. The solution is almost too “obvious”,
“Plastic is everywhere, and recycling is not the greatest strategy, it is for certain materials but not for most of them,” she said in an interview.
“What we do is we take what nobody wants, all the un-recycled plastics, and we turn them into what everybody needs, which is the future fuel of the future, which is hydrogen. So, it’s like solving two problems.”
Financing through cannabis
The London Stock Exchange-listed company made the unusual decision last month to use a sideways investment in cannabis as an opportunity to bridge its finances, instead of raising more money from shareholders.
In October, Hydrogen Utopia agreed to buy a 49% stake in Ohrid Organics, a UK-based holding company that has a subsidiary in northern Macedonia with a licence to produce medicinal cannabis.
Ohrid Organics has the potential to generate significant cash flows for Hydrogen Utopia, according to Binkowska, which would enable the company to fund hydrogen projects without diluting shareholders.
It is named after the city of Ohrid in Macedonia, where it operates a state-of-the-art facility that produces cannabis for medicinal purposes.
This month Ohrid Organics said it had received certification under the Control Union Medical Cannabis Standard – Good Agricultural Practice, granting it access to market medicinal cannabis in Israel.
According to a Progressive equity research note, Ohrid Organics has a production capacity of 12,000 kilograms per year, with costs in the region of €0.28 per gram and a targeted selling price of up to or over about €4 per gram.
Hydrogen Utopia’s chief executive said she hopes the investment will provide a steady source of income to finance hydrogen facilities and bring more investors to the company.
Binkowska, said:
“The whole point of this investment is that… it’s going to be cash generative,”
“So HUI will not have to ask shareholders for money.”
Simon Mann as chair
This year she hired Simon Mann, a former British soldier and mercenary with a history of military operations in Africa and the Middle East, as a strategic adviser, chair and board member.
Mann has a controversial past, once imprisoned in Zimbabwe and Equatorial Guinea for his alleged role in a coup in Equatorial New Guinea.
The former SAS officer, who was pardoned and released in 2009, is a friend of Mark Thatcher, who was also implicated in the attempted coup and is the son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Hydrogen Utopia’s chief executive, said:
Mann is a valuable asset, as he can make introductions to influential people who could help secure contracts and deals in the hydrogen sector.
The CEO said:
while Mann is not an engineer or a city professional, he has a “very interesting past” and a network that could “open doors”.
Growth in Hydrogen Valleys
Hydrogen Utopia’s main focus is producing and distributing hydrogen, a clean source of energy that can be used as fuel for transport, industry, and power generation.
Binkowska said the company has identified several regions where hydrogen is in demand.
One of these is Poland, where the government has launched a national hydrogen strategy to develop a hydrogen economy and deploy a thousand hydrogen buses and infrastructure by 2030.
Poland has established eight hydrogen valleys, which will operate as clusters of hydrogen infrastructure and related business.
The CEO said Poland is “extremely keen” on hydrogen, and that there are local players investing and building hydrogen fuelling stations.
“So, why do you need clean hydrogen? You need clean hydrogen in order to fuel your vehicles,” she said, making the case for hydrogen as the fuel of the future.
Hydrogen Utopia had set its sights on County Longford in Ireland as the location for its first waste plastic to hydrogen plant before developer PowerHouse Energy announced delays to the project last month.
Binkowska said the company is looking in Poland and elsewhere for potential sites that could work for a fuel-from-waste plant of this kind.
Such a plant could hold the key to unlock both the need to get rid of plastic and the need to produce cleaner fuel.
The company plans to use Linde technology to extract hydrogen from waste syngas, combined with a chemical conversion chamber from Electron, which is currently in the design phase.
Such a configuration would heat pulverised plastic at extremely high temperatures of up to 1000 degrees Fahrenheit and “pull” clean hydrogen from the resulting gases, Binkowska said.
“It’s so perfect, it’s like a puzzle, you know? And you just need to find the right people to put it together,” she said.
When asked if she has plans to expand over the next year, she said: “If Ohrid Organics will demonstrate what we believe it can demonstrate then, absolutely yes, we will be hiring more people.”
That could include consultants, technical people, and engineers in countries where such a plant would be needed.
She did not say how many people she would hire, adding that amid a backdrop of an ongoing war in Ukraine and challenging market conditions, she is being conservative: “We are in desperate times.”
So what does 2024 hold in store for the company? “That HUI will be a company that is profitable. And that it can fund its own system,” said Binkowska.
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Hydrogen Utopia – Solving the plastic and energy puzzle “in desperate times” – Proactive Investors. source
