D1 Oils plc is a biofuels technology company focused on developing new energy crops into sustainable commercial fuels. It hit a bit of a bump back in April when it announced back in April that it was shutting down all its refining operations in Britain after running up a £46m annual loss. This was blamed on "splash-and-dash" imports of heavily subsidised American B99 biodiesel - biodiesel with 1% petroleum diesel.
Going forward, it has abandoned its "earth to engine" business mode. It has withdrawn from refining and trading in order to concentrate in other parts of the world on plant science and the planting of jatropha, a tropical oilseed bearing tree. It has a $160 million biodiesel project that uses jatropha, a robust, tropical oilseed bearing tree, as a feedstock. The joint venture, called D1-BP Fuel Crops Ltd., intends to plant 1 million hectares of jatropha in its first four years. Jatropha is able to make use of land not suitable for arable agriculture. It apparently has a pricing advantage over other biofuel sources such as rapeseed and soya ($575 to $625 a tonne, below the prevailing prices for rapeseed and soya of over $1,600 a tonne).
The issue is that, since its Aim flotation in October 2004, D1 raised £99.1m - from its initial IPO and three subsequent placings, up until the end of last year when it had a net cash balance of £7.8m, so it's been nailing the cash. It raised a further 14.9 million pounds in April but one has to wonder how that will last (supposedly until end of 2009)...
Planet saving miracle or just a load of hot air?
