SYNCOAL PARTNERS ANNOUNCES $2.15 MILLION IN SERIES B FUNDING
Aurum Venture Partners and Potomac Energy Fund Participate in Series B Financing
DENVER - June 24, 2008 - SynCoal Partners LLC, the developer of a point of use clean coal upgrading technology, today announced the closing of a $2.15 million Series Bround of financing with new and existing investors. The Company will use the funds to expand its marketing efforts, grow its sales organization and continue its leading-edge product development. This round of funding, combined with the previous funding round and prior investment in the project by Montana Power Company, Northern States Power and the US Department of Energy (DOE), under its clean coal technology program, brings the total investment in the technology to over $110 million.
Aurum Venture Partners led the Series B round and was joined by Potomac Energy Fund (PEF).
"Technologies that can economically increase the efficiency of existing coal power plants and simultaneously reduce the release of dangerous pollutants are essential to ensuring a sustainable future," said Dr. Irving Mintzer, Senior Advisor to the Potomac Energy Fund. "We are excited to support the commercial advancement of SynCoal Partners’ unique and powerful new technology for upgrading America’s coal resources. The SynCoal technology represents a major breakthrough in national efforts to ensure energy independence, strengthen America’s electric power industry, and protect the environment."
Ray Sheldon, President and Chief Executive Officer of SynCoal Partners, said, "Aurum’s leadership in driving the Series B round and bringing in PEF as an investor enables us to focus our efforts on marketing the compelling environmental and efficiency benefits of the SynCoal Gen2 coal upgrading technology to the utility and industrial sectors."
About Aurum Venture Partners
Aurum Venture Partners is a privately held investment company focused on multi-stage investments in natural resource development and related technologies.
About Potomac Energy Fund
The Potomac Energy Fund is a multi-stage investor in alternative fuel processing, strategic natural resource and clean technology companies. The fund sponsor, Potomac Asset Management Company, has over 25 years of experience in restructuring, sponsoring and managing private equity investments and mezzanine debt on behalf of institutional investors.
About SynCoal
SynCoal Partners LLC is a clean coal company formed to develop the second generation of Western SynCoal LLC’s patented coal upgrading technology. Western SynCoal LLC successfully operated the first generation SynCoal facility (Gen1) at Colstrip, Montana between 1992 and 2001 and sold 1.9 million tons of upgraded coal (SynCoal®) to several industrial and utility users. The SynCoal Gen2 technology is designed to operate at the point of use and addresses the most difficult issues of spontaneous combustion, moisture reabsorption, and fugitive dust that occur at all points during the transportation of a dried and upgraded coal from a coal mine to the point of use. Locating SynCoal production at the point of use has the added advantages of energy efficiency and lower operating costs, as the energy required to dry the coals can be extracted from the end user’s waste heat and the process temperatures are low enough that no VOC's are produced. The SynCoal Gen2 System can physically and chemically transform coal with a lower heat value into an engineered cleaner coal with a higher heat value. This is accomplished by a process of moisture reduction, which is followed by removal of ash, pyrite and other mineral impurities by dry mechanical separation. This improves combustion characteristics and thermal efficiency, while simultaneously reducing the emissions of particulate, SOx, NOx, CO, CO2 and air toxics, including mercury, when the upgraded fuel is burned.
For more information, contact:
SynCoal Partners Ray Sheldon
President & Chief Executive
406-855-5008
ray.sheldon@syncoalpartners.com
www.syncoalpartners.com
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