Thread by @MylesMcNulty

#SAE @simecatlantis: a quick delve into developments at Uskmouth and the overall power plant conversion division.

Specifically re: Uskmouth, the importance of a particular update in the 16/07/2020 RNS has been overlooked:

"Development of private wire offtake opportunity."

1/14

The house broker's numbers assume a route-to-market private purchase agreement (essentially selling directly to the grid at wholesale prices) for 80% of the 220MW output, with 20% going to a private wire PPA.

The RtM PPA is priced at £45/MWh, whilst the PW PPA is £70/MWh.

2/14

The PW PPA would be with a data centre. There are DCs already in operation a few miles away; and #SAE is also exploring the option of developing DCs on land directly adjacent to Uskmouth.

Industrial customers usually source power directly from the grid at at least £100/MWh 3/14

I believe it's #SAE's intention to put in place PW PPAs with one or more DCs for ALL of Uskmouth's 220MW output.

DCs would be sourcing energy from Uskmouth at say £70/MWh - a 30% discount to what they would usually have to pay.

Uskmouth would be selling at a ~55% premium...4/14

..to what it would normally receive, were it all being fed into the grid. A win-win.

House broker Arden's revenue forecast for Uskmouth in 2025 (assuming 2% inflation pa) is £103m (including ROCS - the government support mechanism - of £21.5m).

Its EBITDA forecast is £70m. 5/14

If we assume ALL 220MW of output went via PW PPA to DCs, revenue (including ROCS) would increase to £136m.

This would essentially fall right down to EBITDA - which would translate into 2025 EBITDA of just over £100m.

I expect we'll hear of a PW PPA in the next 8 weeks.

6/14

The second point relates to the new fuel JV with N+P. This is a historic development for #SAE, second in importance only to 23/06/20 RNS (success in large scale combustion testing of fuel).

Firstly, with regards to Uskmouth:

The JV (50% owned by SAE, 50% by N+P) will be... 7/14

...constructing 4 fuel processing plants across the UK. Capex for each plant will be ~£30m (based on the cost of the first UK plant already constructed by N+P).

Each plant will produce 220 thousand tonnes pa of fuel (Uskmouth at full output will require 880ktpa of fuel).

8/14

It requires 1t of waste (50% plastic, 50% paper / cardboard) to produce 0.75t of fuel pellets. Thus each 220ktpa processing plant will require ~293ktpa of waste input.

Landfill currently costs circa £100/t. As such, were #SAE's processing plants to charge say £70/t to... 9/14

receive waste from waste management companies, those companies would be making a 30% saving.

70 x 293,000 = £20.5m

#SAE's JV will then be selling the fuel plants directly to Uskmouth at say £6/t.

6 x 220,000 = £1.3m

Total revenue per 220ktpa plant: £21.8m

Margins?

10/14

Assuming an EBITDA margin of 40-50%, that's £8.7m to £10.9m.

4 plants equates to revs of ~£87m, EBITDA of ~£40m.

#SAE's share will be 50% - so an extra £20m EBITDA for the Uskmouth project.

In total then, assuming PW PPAs are agreed with new DCs for the full 220MW, then..11/14

#SAE's share of the EBITDA generated by the overall Uskmouth project could be £120m to £125m by 2025.

This is what I think the wider market is missing.

Beyond Uskmouth however, the upside is almost unquantifiable. It has the knowhow for coal plant conversions - there are..12/14

almost 2,500 plants in operation worldwide. And via the new JV, #SAE now has a proprietary fuel that it is itself going to be manufacturing.

The fuel's emissions are ~60% less than coal - and it also rids the world of vast amounts of non-recyclable plastic waste.

13/14

I expect there to be a global rollout of #SAE's integrated tech (waste purchase all the way through to energy generation) in the coming years.

The big question is, will it build a huge proprietary estate of plants (the ultimate goal), or focus on provision of services? 14/14