Transcription of The Stock Network Interview with Green360 Technologies (ASX:GT3), Executive Chairman Aaron Banks
Lel Smits: Green360 Technologies has secured a major commercial milestone with a non-binding MOU signed with Holcim. The agreement marks Ecoclay’s first named commercial customer and up to 4,800 tonnes per annum will be supplied into Holcim’s Victorian operations, with a binding supply agreement targeted within 90 days. I’m joined today by Green60 Executive Chairman, Aaron Banks, to discuss commercial momentum, scale-up and market validation.
Aaron, welcome to the Stock Network.
Aaron Banks: Thank you, Lel. I appreciate your time.
Lel Smits: Now, what does securing Holcim as your first named Ecoclay customer signal for product validation and broader market acceptance?
Aaron Banks: Well, Lel, I think, I guess it signals commercial validation. Holcim is one of the leading companies, concrete players on the planet that is sort of targeted sort of the net zero along with policy and government. So to be able to sort of partner with them as our first named commercial arrangement, I think speaks volumes to Ecoclay, the product that we’ve sort of put forward as the answer to the SEM dilemma, the supplementary cementitious material dilemma where coal-fired power stations are on the decline, they’re about to be shut down, as we know.
So fly ash has traditionally gone into concrete as a way of reducing sort of that carbon footprint. So not only are we stepping up and sort of helping reduce the carbon footprint issue of the single largest industrial polluter on the planet, we’re also actually shoring up supply chains, guaranteeing that government infrastructure projects, construction, et cetera, can continue whilst these other SEMs that the concrete players have been using to date to lower the carbon footprint, steadily now have a time horizon and it’s limited. And partnering and doing that with Holcim it couldn’t have made a better first at bat.
Lel Smits: Fantastic. So when it comes to first production, already achieved and supply now moving towards 4,800 tonnes per annum, how quickly can Ecoclay transition from early validation to meaningful commercial scale?
Aaron Banks: Pretty quickly. What we’ve done is the second last announcement we ran at full production scale, we produced about 150 tonne in less than a 48 hour period.
So that it validates the capacity out at Calix. So extrapolated on an annual sort of annualised basis, sort of sits at circa 30,000 tonne, probably could go a fraction higher than that. So we’ve demonstrated a commercial scale now.
The first order, as you said, from, or the MOU with Holcim to negotiate the supply agreement of 4,800 tonne, which is spread over five batching plants that we’re looking at and that Holcim are looking at. So with potentially two more to bring on, you know, on top of that. So I actually think my gut feeling is that 4,800 tonne will be exceeded.
But to scale now to Calix’s 30,000, the capacity that we have available at Calix, that’s going to require probably in the coming weeks, months, further offtakes. Now, look, you know, the nature of the beast being, you know, a construction industry that’s sort of worth circa 60, $70 billion is the concrete component of that. I would proffer that the other sort of majors and larger dependents would want to start getting involved with this.
It would be unlikely that one player would be allowed to have a competitive advantage over, or such a competitive advantage over others. So we sort of expect the phone to start ringing now. So from here on in, it’s a case of just building out, you know, the available sort of capacity at Calix.
And once we’ve hit that sort of 30,000 tonnes, if the stars align, it will be done within sort of a six month, perhaps 12 month process. Then we can move to sort of investigating, you know, what it looks like to have our own sort of process trains out at Piton to be able to start beefing up capacity and looking to get to sort of the 30,000 tonne, which is the commercial validation piece, where we’re going into the market, getting governments to use the product, large infrastructure players like Langerook, Acciona, CPB, John Holland, et cetera, the large concrete players. So we’ve sort of set the game and then we return to Piton, and then we’ll look at beefing up capacity at our manufacturing plant to sort of scale.
And we’ll sort of drop an announcement, a feasibility study sort of fairly soon. We’re working on it now, probably the next quarter or thereabouts of what it looks like at a vast sort of commercial scale, sort of 100, 200, 300, 400,000 tonnes per annum. At the back of the envelope, Calc’s at the moment, it looks pretty good.
Lel Smits: Well, congratulations on the progress, a milestone for green 360 technologies and look forward to hearing what happens next.
Aaron Banks: Thanks, Lel, I appreciate your time.
Ends