EQTEC Italian project recommissioning on track for December

In Italy, the EQTEC Italia Market Development Center in Gallina, near Castiglione d’Orcia, Tuscany, Italy project to recommission the plant remains on track, with the commercial operations date scheduled for December 2022, subject to the availability of service providers to complete work on ancillary equipment. Earlier this year, the company employed an operations manager and operations specialists to run the plant and has had EQTEC operations & maintenance specialists on site since October, to train and support the ramp up of the local team. The company expects to take delivery of the last, critical, ancillary equipment this week, with mechanical and electrical completion of the Pplant anticipated by the end of November 2022.

The project has overcome a number of unexpected delays with on-time delivery of key components and availability of service providers to support commissioning of specific pieces of ancillary equipment.

The company intends to continue communicating its progress with Italia MDC in coming weeks, in the run-up to full operation of its first Market Development Centre (“MDC”). The company is also currently pursuing construction and commissioning of additional MDCs in Croatia, France and the UK.

The investors have agreed to invest in specific enhancements to the plant that will allow it to produce biochar, for which there is a growing market in Italy and Europe more generally. Additionally, the Investors agreed to installation of an additional feeding-in system so that the Plant can accommodate both low-density and high-density feedstocks. These augmentations will allow the Plant to vary its feedstocks as market conditions change and to add biochar as a revenue stream. Other augmentations, such as addition of a dryer and a thermal oxidizer will make the Plant more self-sufficient and give the operation greater control over the end-to-end conversion process.