CIA Clean Invest Africa Plc

 
TIDMCIA 
 
24 March 2022 
 
                            Clean Invest Africa Plc 
 
                                 Group Update 
 
Clean Invest Africa plc (AQUIS: CIA) is pleased to provide an investor update. 
 
At a corporate level the Company has been busy raising finance for current and 
new projects. The Company has recently welcomed a new strategic investor who is 
attracted to the potential of CIA and its subsidiaries, particularly now with 
significantly renewed interest and opportunities across a number of geographies 
given worldwide energy demands. Further discussions with potential investors 
are underway and may result in improved financing prospects of the Company. 
 
The CIA chairman, Shaikh Mohamed Abdulla Khalifa AlKhalifa welcomed the recent 
strategic investment and said "The future potential of the CoalTech technology 
is very exciting and we are seeing substantial renewed and active interest from 
across the globe. The Company is working hard with its partners to secure its 
first project with major prospects in India, Columbia and South Africa, showing 
specific short term potential." 
 
In addition shareholders should note that the final step in the 2019 
Acquisition was obtaining the necessary approvals from the South African 
Reserve Bank ("SARB") for the acquisition of Coal Agglomeration South Africa 
(Pty) Ltd. It was expected that SARB approval would be granted after around 12 
months, and in 2020. This has been delayed by Covid. A further announcement 
will be made in due course as it is expected the transaction will complete by 
approximately Q3 2022.  Pursuant to the Acquisition there are still a further 
13,291,745 Ordinary Shares to be issued to the SA Resident Vendors once the 
necessary approvals from SARB have been granted. 
 
Trading Update Regarding its current holding in the CoalTech Group of 
Companies. 
 
CoalTech has advanced significantly in its project development in India, 
Columbia and South Africa and has developed prospects in Indonesia, Greece and 
Australia. The strategy of CoalTech is to secure long-term, large-scale 
customer relationships with whom it will develop one or more full scale plants 
each with long term offtake arrangements. Securing any one of these projects 
will be transformative, with any such project likely to have a project value in 
tens of millions of USD and involving the processing of large-scale fines or 
tailings, typically over 1 million tonnes and operational over an extended 
period of a decade or more. 
 
The CoalTech technology originally was only believed to be applied to coal 
fines or coal waste. As previously announced, it has been adapted by CoalTech 
to pelletise other, higher value and more in demand, materials, such as 
high-grade ores, precious metals, minerals and solid based natural resources. 
CoalTech is continuing to evaluate opportunities for pelletised Ilmenite, 
chrome, iron ore, manganese, as well as other base, ferrous and precious metals 
and biomass. An advanced ilmenite project is described below and a live chrome 
trial is about to get underway. Together these are indicators of far greater 
and longer-term potential for the Company's investment, beyond coal, than 
previously considered. 
 
The initial stages of most CoalTech commercial discussions, whether for coal or 
other materials, typically involve CoalTech running test batches. These batches 
often start small, for example 10's of kilos and then increase to sample 
production size batches of, typically, 10's of tonnes. Once batches are 
completed, the outputs are exhaustively tested by CoalTech and by the potential 
client. This process is a considerable proportion of the CoalTech overhead and 
consumes the majority of the available production of the Bulpan production 
facility. Test batches are run with raw material shipped from a specific mine 
somewhere in the world and the output shipped back to the mine. The entire 
process takes time and funding, and we are delighted to announce that we have 
now advanced several of the testing phase projects and are proceeding to 
commercial negotiation and discussion on the final phase of business model, 
plant construction and rollout. 
 
Three Key Commercial Opportunities in India, Columbia and South Africa. 
 
INDIA 
 
Large Scale Multi-plant Coal fines pelletizing project: Together with its local 
partner Exagogi, CoalTech has received a Purchase Order from Tata Steel for 
carrying out a commercial testing programme with Tata coal fines to be carried 
out at the Bulpan Plant in South Africa. The successful outcome of the testing 
programme will pave the way for the commercial negotiation with Tata on a 
project comprising the development of possibly 3 coal fines pelletising plants 
at their sites in India with a capacity of 28,000 tonnes per month each. Each 
28,000 tonnes per month plant shows the following estimated financial key 
performance indicators: Total investment cost of approx. USD 16,000,000 with 
Net Margin ratio around 39%, ROE: 56% and Payback time: 1.87 years and a 
discounted cash flow value (DCF) of 51 million USD over a 10-year period. The 
total project would therefore indicate a DCF of 153m USD over a decade. 
 
COLOMBIA 
 
Mindesa - Thermal coal project: A trial project has reached completion. 
Commercial negotiations are underway. An Off-take agreement is under discussion 
and terms are expected to be finalized shortly, likely by 2nd half of April 
2022. Project scope is for a 3,000-5,000 tonnes per month plant (final capacity 
will be determined during the design stage) to be developed at the Mindesa 
site, with the following estimated financial key performance indicators: Total 
investment cost of approx. USD 6,000,000), with Net Margin ratio around 41%, 
ROE: 26% and Payback time: 3.67 years and a discounted cash flow value (DCF) of 
6 million USD over 10 year period. 
 
SOUTH AFRICA 
 
Ilmenite project: Ilmenite is a higher value resource than coal. Testing work 
has restarted at CoalTech's Bulpan plant, on a 10,000 tonnes trial project over 
the next 2-3 months (completion expected circa June 2022). This phase will 
include the development of a project plan for a dedicated 3,000-5,000 tonnes 
per month pelletising plant at Richards Bay in South Africa. The final project 
scale will be determined during the design stage and initial parameters include 
the following estimated financial key performance indicators. Total project 
investment cost of approx. USD 6,500,000, with Net Margin ratio around 35%, 
ROE: 23% and Payback time: 4.3 years and a discounted cash flow value (DCF) of 
6,000,000 USD over 10-year period. 
 
Final numbers for each project will be adjusted to include project funding 
costs once parameters and inputs are agreed. The Company is confident given the 
structure of the deals with offtake in place before commencement, that it can 
raise the majority of the project costs through project financing. 
 
Other early-stage commercial opportunities are ongoing. 
 
Further projects are underway at various stages of progress including for 
example in South Africa where a chrome test project is underway. Should tests 
be successful, negotiations should commence on a 20,000 tonnes trial project. 
Further successful advances into the precious metals markets could be highly 
lucrative. In addition, CoalTech is engaged in small scale testwork on low 
grade coal "(LGC") with a client, of circa 100kg of upgraded fines.  Success 
here could be significant as a successful trial outcome would open access to a 
substantial volume of coal fines, currently not utilized due to low grade 
calorific value. Current dialogue with client is for a dedicated 28,000 tonne 
per month plant, with an offtake for twenty years. Also in South Africa in the 
past weeks CoalTech has bid for production of a minimum of 30,0000 tonnes of 
pellets over 6-7 months based on an RFP for a potential future client. 
 
In addition to South Africa, projects elsewhere include a large scale prospect 
in India, a mining operation transaction in East Africa, a further project in 
Columbia for metallurgical coal, a recent lignite project in Greece and a long 
term at scale fines recovery prospect in Australia. CoalTech has also recently 
submitted a budgetary proposal for the development of a 500 tonnes per month 
mobile testing unit for a prospective client in Asia. These testing units are 
relatively cost effective and can be shipped anywhere in the world in a small 
number of shipping containers. 
 
Finally, CoalTech has seen a renewed interest in its offering, in Europe, 
following the geopolitical events of the past months and including the 
announcement by the German and Italian governments to re-open coal fired power 
plants due to potential energy supply shortages as a result of the 
Russia-Ukraine crisis. CoalTech has commenced steps to withdraw from its 
Russian joint venture, this has no material impact on the overall CoalTech 
pipeline above. 
 
CIA Chief Executive Officer Filippo Fantechi remarked that "this trading update 
indicates the scale and scope of the promising lucrative future horizon for 
CoalTech." 
 
The directors of the Company accept responsibility for the contents of this 
announcement. 
 
ENQUIRIES : 
 
Clean Invest Africa plc 
 
Filippo Fantechi - Chief Executive Officer:  +973 3 9696273 
 
Peterhouse Capital Limited 
 
Guy Miller: +44 20 7469 0930 
 
 
 
END 
 
 

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