Archive for the 'Business' Category
More Dilution at Ormat
On the heels of a very strong earnings report, Ormat announced the sale of 3.1M shares in a block to Lehman Brothers last week, sending the issue down nearly 7% on the day of the announcement. Subsequently, the stock has recovered a bit. The company plans to use the proceeds, some $60M, for equipment, development, and operations. After this placement, Ormat now has 45.3M shares outstanding and boosts a market capitalization of over $2B.
Links:
Ormat
Lehman Brothers
Want to Get Your Project Financed?
Then check out the excellent two part series on Foundations of Project Energy Finance over at Cleantech Finance Insider. Bill Lemon has done an excellent job explaining the topics that need to be considered when bringing a project forward for consideration. Remember, it’s all about risk vs. reward. Your job as a developer is to minimize the risks and maximize the rewards, if you can crack that code, you’ll find money for your project.
Links:
Foundations of Project Energy Finance Part 1
Foundations of Project Energy Finance Part 2
Western GeoPower Raises $8.6M
Attribution: Geysir Green Energy
In a previously announced private placement, Geysir Green Energy has consummated the transaction to acquire 13.7% of Western GeoPower raising a $8.6M to continue development of the old Unit 15 project at the Geysers in Northern California. This comes on the heels of successful flow tests of the first production well on the site. Additionally, Geysir has warrants on 9.3M shares exercisable at $0.35/share - in total, Geysir controls 18.8% of WGP’s outstanding shares which could reach 25% if the warrants are exercised.
Links:
Western GeoPower
Geysir Green Energy
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Q1 Strong for Ormat
Pure play geothermal equipment and electricity generator Ormat (ORA) turned in a very strong Q1 earnings result today. The company increased the top line from $62M to $69M Y/Y despite the fact that the product segment revenue fell by 50% in the same period. This was offset by an increase in the generation segment due to greater MWh produced and higher prices being secured for that energy.
Even better for long-term shareholders, costs were controlled tightly and were down $9M overall. But the electricity segment was down $1.1M while net output from the unit increased making it significantly more profitable. Profits for the quarter were $10M after taxes compared to -$5.8M in the same period last year.
No matter how you cut it, this was a stellar quarter for Ormat.
Disclosure: The author holds no position in Ormat.
10MW well at The Geysers
Attribution: Western GeoPower
If they all produce like well #1, Western GeoPower will be able to save some money on drilling. The company announced today after an eight hour flow test that the well produced steam at 1,200 kg/minute flow rate - good for around 10MW/hr of electricity. Sustained production rates are predicted to be in the 7MW range. The reservoir is pressurized at 280 psia, higher than the predicted 250 psia; both the flow test and reservoir pressure may indicate that there is more resource in the leasehold than was previously predicted.
This is the site of PG&E’s old Unit 15, a 60+MW plant that was decommissioned in 1989 after reservoir pressures dropped dramatically due to over production. WGP’s original plan called for a 25MWe harvest unit, they’re now up to 35MWe, and perhaps we’ll see that boosted even higher. It would be a terrible waste to repeat the mistakes of 20 years ago and not manage the reservoir in a sustainable manner. We trust WGP is sensitive to this issue and will take steps to maximize production while keeping the resource viable.
