UK Battery Maker Sees Shares Crash
By Paul Homewood
h/t sean2829
From Oil Price.com
Lithium-ion and battery producer AMTE Power’s shares crashed more than 70 per cent today, following an announcement that the company needed to raise new funds within the next few weeks.
AMTE Power – who are currently set to build a £200m gigafactory in Dundee – said in the announcement that it needed to raise more cash in “no less than four weeks,” and that discussions with investors were ongoing.
It warned that without further funding the “recovery of value” by shareholders “would be uncertain.”
The group had previously said in December that it would need to raise more capital by April, in order to meet its operating costs.
It follows just a day after AMTE’s boss Alan Hollis threatened to build the group’s planned Dundee gigafactory overseas, unless the UK closed the clean energy subsidy gap – although it is not clear what impact today’s announcement would have on the project.
Any re-arrangement of plans to build the gigafactory would be a blow to the UK’s EV sector, which has come into the spotlight recently following concerns from industry that the UK’s battery manufacturing capacity and competitiveness was sub-par.
CEO Hollis said on Thursday: “AMTE Power is the UK’s only remaining homegrown commercial battery cell maker. We have established ourselves as a leading player in the sector, with differentiated lithium and sodium-ion technology on the cusp of commercialisation as indicated by our updates to the stock market in recent months.”
“We are active in our engagement with stakeholders to raise funding and to communicate the importance of developing a homegrown battery manufacturing industry to enable a just transition to net zero, support the UK’s energy security and unlock green industrial growth.”
In other words, they are not viable without a subsidy.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
And where will this “Homegrown” battery manufacturer get the raw materials for its products?
Cobalt from child miners in Congo, rare earths from China, nickel from goodness knows where as Russia has the worlds largest known deposits, lithium from Bolivia where extracting it from salt flats is severely depleting the water table meaning that indigenous farmers can no longer irrigate their land.
Lithium is being seriously invested in down Cornwall way. This BBC article about development is quite interesting for all the wrong reasons.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65184600
Notice haw they the BBC felt this potentially good news British development story has to be countered with this crap;
{One local climate activist, Nichola Andersen, is sceptical and claims she knows “a lot of people around the Cornish Lithium project who are against it”.
“I’m very suspicious of it, bearing in mind the history of companies in Cornwall,” she says.
“Anyone exploiting the resources here are just trying to feather their own nest.
“It’s just another example of people extracting value out of Cornwall. The money goes out of Cornwall and never comes back.”}
It is beyond me why the BBC felt the need to so heavily promote the views of just one Eco Nut job
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nichola-sherriff-andersen-85801b12/?originalSubdomain=uk
Biased reporting or what? Is the UK not allowed to have industry anymore? And who the F@#K gives a toss about what “Nichola” thinks?
p.s. I think her court appearing is due soon, hope they lock her up and throw away the key.
Never mind all that stuff about battery raw material sourcing and the filthy process of of winning ( mining) the raw materials. The folly should be apparent much earlier in the conversation. EVs are massively expensive with highly speculative or even lousy residuals. When given little choice by London’s mayor and others who would soak you for your assets they become a forced purchase with added virtue signalling by the wealthy and lightweights in the political world.
” … to enable a just transition to net zero, … ”
… and to rejuvenate my collapsed shares in this company. (Sotto voce – My house payment is due July 1)
‘on the cusp of commercialisation as indicated by our updates to the stock market in recent months’
If investors believed you, you’d have no trouble raising capital.
‘We are active in our engagement with stakeholders to raise funding and to communicate the importance of developing a homegrown battery manufacturing industry’
Investors don’t give a $#|+ about your importance. They want returns on their money.
‘In other words, they are not viable without a subsidy.’
I’m leaning toward not viable WITH subsidies.
Cirrusly, this is just junk:
‘to enable a just transition to net zero, support the UK’s energy security and unlock green industrial growth’
You aren’t going to get investors saying $#|+ like this. Indeed, this is stuff you would say to get subsidies from government.
Who is his audience? Fred Smith in Bath, or Ministers of Parliament?
and, once again, we can see the lack of planning and foresight by the EV/EcoLoon sect and the damage it can cause. It also shows that no-one in Government – either in the political administration or in the wokeist Civil Service have done any viability planning – at all. They just figure they will throw ever increasing amount of money at failing startups and subsidizing things like windmills.
No the problem is they are trying to plan, but as ever, planning fails. The government shouldn’t pick winners (always picking losers in reality) based on some Industrial or Green strategy.
According to the article, they said they need to raise the capital in “no less than four weeks.” They obviously must have meant “no MORE than four weeks.”
The fact that the company’s leaders have so much trouble with the English language does not inspire confidence that they will do anything else well, either.
Yes that was the first thing I noticed! Also the fact he talks about “stakeholders” means he’s not getting anywhere with shareholders – good money after bad.
Great, take the subsidies from taxpayers elsewhere. The cost to me of the product will be the same but I won’t have forked out extra taxes for it as well.
Lump of Labour fallacy combined with the bizarre “its a race” fantasy.
This cannot be a surprise.
I’ve just seen a pretty funny TV ad for a Ford electric car. It is a tie in with the latest Indiana Jones film and has an electric car called “Explorer” driving out into a desert. Good luck finding a charging point guys.
Nice bit of blackmail, “Subsidise us, or we’re off & you’re screwed with the EU’s ROOs!
I notice that Khan’s spaffed another £3 million up the wall https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12203861/Sadiq-Khans-green-fund-loses-3-2m-electric-car-firm-goes-administration.html
“… and sodium-ion technology on the cusp of commercialisation …” Yeah, I’m going to lend them money. Not.
I love the way these characters always talk about being on the ‘cusp of commercialisation’, as if success and glory is just around the corner. A cusp is a transition point, from where one can go either way.In this instance – backwards!