December 2, 2024 • 45 mins
Eric Appleman, Chief Revenue Officer, and Ofer Vicus, CEO and Co-founder of Aduro Clean Technologies join Robert this week to talk about Plastics in the Petroleum Industry.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix radio show produced
by the Energy Network Media Group. The Energy Mix Radio
show will give you an inside look at the energy
industry and how it affects you by talking with industry leaders, experts,
and government officials on the Energy Mix Radio Show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to the Energy Mix. I'm your host, Robert ray Pierre,
also editor in chief of Shale Magazine and senior energy
contributor for Forbes. Today we're going to have a conversation
about the role of plastics as a fit in the
petrochemical supply chain, with a focus on why plastic recycling
is becoming such an important topic. Today's guests are Eric
(00:38):
Appleman and Ofer Vikas, who are respectively, the chief revenue
officer and chief executive officer of Aduro Clean Technologies, a
duro is working with several major companies to integrate its
solution for chemical plastic recycling into the supply chain. Eric
and offer, welcome to the show. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Hurst.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So those listeners who may not know you, could you
take a minute and give us some information about your
background and your company. Eric will start with you.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Okay, Eric Kaplman, I'm from the Netherlands, and I'm also
speaking to you from the Netherlands. I'm sixty years old,
chemical engineer by training and I have had a very
rewarding career across the chemical industry with companies like Unilever, Ici,
Sigma Codings now PPG and mostly recently in the corporate
life as a member of the board of directors of
(01:31):
Swedish multinational pur Story. After that, I became one of
the directors of a very exciting spot, the Brightons Camel Campus,
where we have been assembling a collection of young entrepreneurial
companies for the future of the chemical industry. One of
them was a Duro and when it became time to
do something else, I decided to give a call to
(01:52):
offer and the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I actually called him, but that's okay.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
From Canada over. You're in Canada today.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
Right, I am in Toronto, Canada.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yes, okay, So tell us a little bit about yourself
and how you came to be where you are right.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
My name is of A Vicus. Thank you for having me.
I'm the co founder and CEO of the Clean Technologies
formerly today previously a Duro Energy. I was a was
conceived ad Energy was conceived in the late twenty twenty eleven,
so twenty eleven, and we started. Our genesis was upgrading
(02:34):
of heavy oil, so the world hydrothermal equidification is coming
into mind. At the time I was ready to engage
after one company that I was working with engage with
another technology and it was always in the process. And
then the energy sector, I came across this conceptual idea
(02:57):
of a duo energy which was at the time, as
I said mentioned just hydrothermal deiqualification. I partnered with a
very smart guy named Mark Trixted, which is the was
the co fund. He is the co founder and was
acting CTO for many many years and the journey of
ADUA was born. Then. I'm of a background of mechanical engineer,
(03:22):
industrial engineer and a business master degree. I spent most
of my career with a DURO right now, but before
that I spent some time in the energy sector and
a little bit previously that many many years ago in
the communications sector. Overall, from that day we took a duro.
(03:46):
Adua was public for several years and become public in
twenty eleven, twenty twenty twenty one EPRI twenty twenty one.
But was private for most of the time, and we
can go on and talk about the journey of a
door as you will ask questions.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
If you will, yes, okay, So let's start to get
into the meat of the problem you're trying to solve here. Eric,
first question is for you, let's talk about where plastics
fit in the petrochemical cycle and why major oil companies
are interested in your technology. Can you give us an
overview of how plastic spit.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
In this ecosystem?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yeah, well, I think we all know what plastics are,
and I think sometimes we do not even realize enough
how much they contribute to actually sustainable life, in preserving food,
in lightweighting goods, saving fuel, insulating our homes. But of
course in the fantastic durability, they do have the drawback
(04:45):
that they don't go away, so once their usual life
has ended, they're just lying around literally. Now that is
of course not good, and people are becoming increasingly aware
of the negative effects. If you burn the you make
ce you two, if you just put them into the land,
they're going to be there in a million years time,
and probably as microplastics. Those are not good things, and
(05:09):
that is why there's a strong push for circularity. That
may actually not sound that much as an interest for
the big petrochemical companies, but in many countries now you
see movements that say we shall at least have like
twenty or thirty percent of circular carbon in any carbon
article read plastics. And that is also why big petrochemical
(05:32):
houses are now also working to secure their supply of
circular carbon. Needless to say that that should not be
much more expensive than anything they currently derive from fossil
and that is why our solution is going to be
a very good one. Happy to explain a bit more later.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Okay, there is anything to the regulation that you want
to add or is it just you're going to stop there?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Well, that's yeah. As I said, there is going to
be that regulation of the minimum recycled content in packaging
and that is probably going to be the driver for this.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah. The next question I had was about that, about
how you see the role of plastics evolving and what
shifts you're observing. So that's one an the others you'd
like to add. I think that is the.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
It is the push for using search as a common
that is convincing people to participate. That another one that
is not insignificant is the extended producer responsibility, which seems
to become a cornerstone of the whole circularity. Thinking there
will be the big un driven plastics negotiation in Busan
(06:45):
this week, and whereas parties disagree about almost everything, one
thing that comes forward is extended producer responsibility, which means
that companies like what my old house Unilever, when they
bring about shampoo to the market, they will have to
pay some money to take care of that bottle after
the shampoo has gone, and with that money collection will
(07:08):
be paid, and also finding a home for that old
piece of bottle. So these two and the minimum recycled
content and the extended producer responsibility, combined with local things
like in my country which is too small a ban
a landfill, but also in Europe that see you two
(07:29):
emissions from incineration plans are going to be text that
all sorts of conspires to make plastics much more circular
in their use.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
So one of the things I think we've all seen
plastic bottles, picture plastic bottles on remote beaches around the world.
We know about the big garbage dump and the Pacific
Ocean full of plastics. But one of the things I've
read a lot about in the past few years is
microplastics and being detected in people's body. So you know,
(08:03):
this is a problem that affects us everybody. It's cited
as one of the most significant environmental challenges we have today.
Can you provide some context on just how severe this
issue is and why it has to be addressed.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Well, I think a lot of negative consequences of microplastics
are not clear yet, but to give a few illustrations,
if you buy a bottle of spring water, there's going
to be microplastics in there. Microplastics are very much everywhere,
and they are very small. It starts from several tens
(08:37):
of a millimeters that it goes are much much smaller,
and especially the small ones, you can expect it will
interfere with with organisms, including human metabolism and other health aspects.
Even though the images of a piece of plastic wrapped
around the turtles neckcase are very dramatic, and I think
(09:01):
these microplastics are pretty much hidden things and and a
lot of their consequences are not known yet, but it
is there can be no no question we shall avoid
those things because they're going to be hanging around. They
are in the deepest ocean troughs, they're in the most
remote eye scaps, they are everywhere.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I think the fact that they're showing up in people's
bodies are going to get a lot more attention than
somebody who absolutely maybe be affected, Like you say, plastics
around a turtle's neck, but then it's kind of out
of side and out of mind. But if you know
it's in your body, that's a bit. It is everywhere.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah, as we know from nanoparticles, which are very hot
a few years back, you things get really small and
their effects are becoming really unpredictable.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So what do you think are the main obstacles the
petrochemical industry faces in tackling this waste and where does
there responsibility lie in production, consumption or waste management.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
I think it is everywhere, and wres management can be done.
I'm actually I'm from Holed. As I said, I just
put my paper container outside until tomorrow morning. I bring
my plastic container outside. And as a matter of fact,
if you do a decent collection of stuff, you can
reduce whatever goes into the mother nature to a very
(10:22):
large part. But then of course you're stuck with that
stuff and you have to do something with it. You
can burn it and then it's no longer plastic, but
then it is CEO two and that is typically fossil
c you two and I don't think that is a
brilliant idea. But then you have to find decent ways
to bring it back to something useful that generates the value,
(10:45):
because everything that has to do with circularity is not
paid for by good intentions. It should be as much
as possible paid for by the value of the products
that you generate. I think that is where we have
a challenge right now, so much that we do not
find waste to make a product of it, but the
whole cost and those costs already start at the moment
(11:07):
that you start to pick it up and they then
separate it, and that is actually pretty pretty difficult, because
just hitting a hole in the desert and then pumping
crude oil in a giant tank and bring it to
use them to have it refined or to rotter them.
That is all wonderfully large, kaled and very optimized. Plastic
(11:29):
waste is just everywhere. You have to pick it up
back by back, you have to sort it with your
bare hands. Then you end up with things that are
very mixed and unpredictable. That is I believe where the
biggest challenge is to close the loop. Once it is
in petrochemicals hands and in a petrochemical installation, we can
(11:50):
take advantage of that same big scale and long learning
curve that we already have behind us.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, I think a lot of people they'll see that
big plastic whirlpool out in the Pacific Ocean and thing, well,
this should be easy to go, scoop up and process.
But it's it's mixed plastics of salt water, and there's
a lot of different issues there that makes it difficult.
So we need to take a quick commercial break. After
(12:16):
the break, I want to start to dive into what
you're doing and why you're approaching different I'm Robert with
my guest Eric Appleman and Hofer Bikus. We'll be right
back after the break.
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Speaker 2 (13:00):
H Welcome back to the Energy Next Radio. I'm Robert
ray Pier with this week's guest, Eric Appleman and Ora
Vicus offer. Your company is developing innovative chemical recycling technologies
to convert waste plastics into fuel and raw materials. But
(13:22):
you also do bitchumin upgrading and that may be a
significant interest to our audience. Can you tell us more
about your overall mission.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
I would would be happy to thank you, Robert, just
to echo a minute about things that Eric says before,
I'd like to say and to remind the audience that
really in the space that we are with us stick recycling,
there's not really a free launch. Everything is at cost
at emission. If you collect something in the ocean and
you drive it all the way to the shore, then
(13:55):
you're you're you're producing a lot of co two doing
it his penalties for everything, and I think the common
sense the dictator that we will do what's reasonable within time,
and I think that's the journey that the petrochemical organization
will take, that will give up on some and they'll
do others, which makes sense, but us as a community,
(14:16):
that would be probably the you know, however we conduct ourselves.
We respected the mission of a duro so adural developed
what we call chemical platform technology that could be directed
to different applications in our case, and we're very fortunate
and lucky that every application is almost the company making.
(14:37):
We start our genesis with converting bitomen heavy bitumen and
turn it into a lighter bitumen, and then we moved
on and did some work on renewable oil and that
seems to have grounds to continue and develop it. And
then we have lessons learned from one to the other.
(14:58):
We've turned ourselves towards a chemical recycling of plastic and
basically our work, our journey led us. Lessons lens from
the bit demand and lessons learns from the renewable led
us to the understanding that whatever we are doing right
now is extremely novel and unique, and there is not
a lot many of applications or approaches to process a
(15:23):
vast amount of waste. Plastic parosis is one of the
names that you know that come across immediately, but process
is about seventy eight years old. And basically the uniqueness
of a duro is that we are doing something completely
different and Eric could elaborate later about it if you want,
(15:44):
but that give us flexibility to act in ways that
before was not could not imagine. So our ability to
work in low energy mode, our ability to leave a
little bit more with contamination, our ability to have higher yield,
(16:05):
and our ability to operate on small scale and modul
our unit help us build our mission, and our mission
is really to be part of this group that spearhead
and develop technologies that can provide solutions. And we do
not think that we will be the only smart cookie
in town that the other cookies around us that will work.
(16:26):
We as a company, basically, it tis fair to say
that in the plastic realm, we want to be able
to produce to process more waste plastic that it is
happening today, and more waste plastic means much more contaminated
plastic that right now is ignored. So the majority of
the plastic, if you look at what is happening today,
(16:47):
then we could elaborate a little bit. Basically, the competing
or the traditional approach are forcing to take the best
of the best or whatever they have, and they're forced
to work with a lot of cleanup, pre treatment processing.
That's okay. They may build a business model, but they
don't bring viable solution to help society. I think Aduro
(17:10):
has this enormous opportunity to actually do that, but also
help in many ways to process more contaminated waste plastic,
which in return reduce that type of contamination, that type
of effect holistically around the world. That's basically a very
important mission to us. I should immediately say that we
(17:32):
aim to do all of that and earn money. So
it's not about we are a for profit organization. We
have investors that believes in what we've been doing. Sometimes
we work near regulations, sometimes we don't think that we
need regulations. Actually we can earn our business model allow
us to make sure that we could take approaches that
(17:55):
are first and foremost provide revenue to the company. But
auding the vision that I mentioned, Eric, do you want
to go in and maybe Bogino that that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
That actually leads right into the next question for Eric,
which was can you walk us through how the technology works.
We've got two minutes left in the segment, so I'll
try to do that real quick.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Two.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Like to begin with, we are talking about polyolephants. That
is the lion's share of all the plastic and that
is what we can recycle well. And what we do
is we do not too dissimilar to many other technologies.
We apply and elevate the temperature to break it to pieces,
but we do that with a catalysts so that we
(18:39):
can make that temperature just a little bit lower, that
very lower. That very little lower temperature is just useful
because then we can trigger off another reaction which generates
an ability to stabilize the pieces that we have just
generated with breaking up these hydrocom and as a consequence
(19:01):
of that, we are making a stable hydrocarbon product. For
those that have a chemistry degree, it is a saturated
product that could go straight back the thirteen and that
is a gift because we do use a little bit
of water in that whole thing. We do hydrolyze, and
that is break up under the influence of water, things
like pt leftovers we can then separate out of a
(19:25):
monomers and as a result we get a very clean
hydro carbon product of relatively high value, which is stable,
which is stable, which can be fed a bit of
luck straight into the major petrochemical processes.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Which is at the higher yield as well.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Okay, well, let's let's take a quick break because I've
got a couple more questions on that. So we'll take
a break here and I'll be right back with Eric
Appleman and over Vicus on Energy Mix Radio show.
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Speaker 2 (21:33):
Welcome back to the Energy Mix Radio. I'm Robert ray
Pier with this week's guest, Eric Appleman and Alfravikus. Before
the break, we were talking about how the technology works.
Can you tell me how it actually contributes to reducing
plastic pollution and what are the environmental benefits of this process.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
I said, we break down the main constituent of plastic waste, polyolephans,
polyetal employees properly in the stuff that you have in
packaging into something that can be fed back to the
chemical industry as a feedstock. And that is all very
nice and good. Now everybody knows that a part of
(22:14):
the plastic we just that we collect, we just remelt
and put it back into something useful. We call it
mechanical recycling, and from an energy perspective, it is the
most attractive thing. But with a bit of luck, we
can recycle about twenty five percent or something like that
of all plastics that way. The rest is an ugly mix.
(22:36):
It contains different plastics, it contains food residues and everything else.
And what we really need is something that can take
care of that. Now, partly because of the reason that
I just gave, and that we can also break up
these polyesters and others and make them sort of harmless,
(22:57):
and we are able to be very much more tolerant
to what we take in. As a matter of fact,
we could take the leftovers of that mechanical recycling, and
that is what we need because that helps to grow
the percentage of all the plastic that we just have
(23:18):
and that can be recycled. Competing technologies actually tend to
ask for the same high purity that we use for
the mechanical recycling, and that's where they then sort of
end up competing for that twenty five percent, leaving the
other seventy five percent to bury or to burn or
to whatever else. And our strength is that we take
(23:40):
care of that remainder seventy five.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Percent, so you can handle mixed plastics whereas they cannot. Absolutely, So,
how scalable is the solution? And what challenges do you
foresee in scaling up?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
If you all tell me to a little bit nerdish,
If you try to do something with the solid stuff,
you end up in the problems that you face at home.
When you cook porridge, it is very viscous. You're trying
to heat it up, and what happens. It just sticks
to the bottom and it sticks to the walls because
you cannot really eat it very well. And when you
(24:22):
boil water that never happens because water is thin. Now,
that is typically a scaling problem because the bigger your
porridge PAM becomes, the bigger the problem is to get
the middle of the pot wall and the outside unburned
precisely the same. It is now what we have discovered
at a duro is not only a very clever chemical mechanism,
(24:44):
but also a very clever reactor setup that overcomes that.
And the very fact that we can control that regardless
of the volume we do gives us pretty good up scalability.
We can make it bigger, but we can and also
make it smaller because our process is relatively simple. We
(25:04):
do not have complex recycle loops, we do not have
complex recovery operations of our catalyst. And as a rule
of thumb, you can say the smaller and simpler process
is the smaller you can build it and still make
a profit. And that is actually relevant because if you're
living in Houston or in Phoenix, you've got plenty of
plastics to play with and you can scale up like
(25:26):
now tomorrow. But if you're somewhere in North Dakota, and
you might actually not have access to so much plastics,
and still you don't want to ship that stuff to
use them. So that is why it is imperative to
not only being able to scale it up, but also
to scale it down to make sure that you can
deal with the plastics in a in financially via way,
(25:48):
not encourring too much cost and the logistics.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
So we're recording us a couple of days before Thanksgiving
here in the US. And I always used an analogy
to blame the scale up problem to people. I said,
you know, you know what it takes to cook a turkey. Yes,
Now imagine cooking ten or one hundred turkeys an hour
or every three hours. So now you've got the problem
(26:15):
of you've got wall effects in there, you've got temperature corents,
you got all those things that make it more challenging now,
and that helps people understand because everybody knows how to
cook a turkey or how exactly.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
You don't have to heart to be frozen the outside
to be bummed, which is touch Bobby cue you.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
That's in a nutshelle. That's the scale problem. So we
need to take another quick break there. Afterwards, I'd like
to get into the partnerships that you're having with industry
and NGOs and so forth, and how that fits into
your mission. I'm Robert ray Pierre will be right back
with this week's guest, Eric Appleman and Offer Vikas.
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Speaker 2 (27:36):
Welcome back to the Energy Mix Radio. I'm Robert Ray
Pierre with this week's guest, Eric Appleman, coming from the
Netherlands and O for Vicus from Canada. Previously, Eric, I
think it was you that made references to the circular economy.
Can you explain that concept for listeners. It is about.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
An economy where where we do not lineally dig something
up from other Earth or harvest it, use it once
and then just dump it back in mother Earth, which.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
It's all right, is not a bad idea, but.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
When it is persistent or toxic or anything else, it
is not a good idea. And the aim of the
circular economy is that in anything that is depletable and
that is scarce or maybe dangerous in the waste stage,
you find a way back to deal with it responsibly.
And the first thing I ever heard about circularity is
(28:35):
that we pass on a world to our kids where
they are not limited by what we took out. And
I think that is for me, the first principle of circularity.
It makes me sure that whatever is depletable, whatever is scarce,
is returned, and that whatever is toxic that we make
(28:55):
or unpleasant, that that is made harmless. That is for
me what's circular economy or society is.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
And a durero's role in that circular economy would be
taking the plastics that currently end up in the landfills
or end up as trash and injecting it back into
the petrochemical plastics.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Precisely, Yeah, chat precisely because as a matter of fact,
while they're in use, plastics are great for circularity. As
I said in my opening statement, it keeps your food
for longer, it insulates your house, It helps us to
be a circular. But once that job is done and
we have to bring it back, maybe not even so
(29:39):
much about scarcity arguments because I think if we just
used fossil resources for all, we have probably a few
millennia to go for us, but especially to leave nothing
behind that will restrict the world and the life of
our kids.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Okay, so let's shift gears and jump into the business
at respect to this, what role do partnerships with governments,
industry NGO's play. Are there any particular stakeholders that you
can discuss that you're involved with.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah, Well, what we do as a DURO, and that
is what I like very much about the DURO is
that we do reach out early. We are a small company.
We do of course not have all the power and
the money and the resources, but we do have a
solution for problems that very large institutions and companies sometimes
(30:35):
can't deal with. And that is why it is so
good that we work with large companies especially. It is
also useful because it keeps us honest and it keeps
us right on the ball about what is really required.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
To give you a.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Little example, when people started to recycle chemically the plastics
of the world, we were all under the assumption that
you could have very good feedstock for free. Well, meanwhile
that world has changed. It is very good and you
only learn it by talking to whatever happens in the
world and whoever is relevant over there. So we do
(31:12):
work with big stakeholders. Now, what are the stakeholders in
this value circle. They are the petrochemical industry because they
are going to be asked to supply circular carbon. It
is the big owners of brands and the supermarkets because
they have that extended producer responsibility that they have to
(31:33):
deal with. It is also the ways management companies because
they get all that trash in their house and they
have to do something with it that is clever and
make sure that they are left with as little as
possible and with as little cost as possible. And then
it is of course, in the end also the consumer,
because in the end of the day, whatever happens, it
is the consumer that pays. Nowtheless he or she has
(31:57):
to pay, and the better the solution is or that person,
the better it is. So that is how we engage
around the value circle. Now, if you ask me with
whom are you working every day, it is very much
that petrochemical industry, of which I have met none that
(32:17):
was not interested in what we did, and which is
an actually increasingly so it is the waste management scene,
because those people start to realize that, Okay, everybody wants
a twenty five percent that is really nice, but what
are we going to do with a seventy five percent
that is left?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Are there any specific companies you can mention that you're
working with that have been publicly announced I can work with.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
I can mention two companies, and we have been already
for a year in Whichshell and Shall has a unique
scheme where they pay a little money, as they say,
they pay you to fail quickly. It is money that
is available to a small company to answer some tough
questions that they have. We've been with them for a year.
We have not failed yet. We are proud of that,
(33:06):
and we are still working on and that is a
very very interesting development. I can obviously not comment on
what is talked about between us and the other one
is with another petrochemical major. It is Total Energies, with
whom we have signed after quite a bit of dating,
with preliminary experimenting, a collaboration agreement where we are really
(33:30):
trying to find out how we can harness our technology
to make precisely this sort of feedstock that they need.
Very interactive thing, very well, learning ongoing all the time
to both ways and precisely what you actually expect. We
know a lot of stuff when we pull it together.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
So when you're working I mentioned opener as well, or
we'll live go ahead often.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Yeah, that is a smaller conting thank you offer to
bring that up Upnor is actually a quite difficult different story.
It is a company that manufactures something an article. They
make the water pipes, the plastic water pipes that are
more and more used in houses these days, and they
have waste, they have wasted from the production and maybe
in the future there will be waste that is coming
(34:20):
back from houses being demolished. And that is a very
particular kind of polyolphin. It is called a cross link polyolophine,
which makes it really difficult to recycle. Now what we did,
we did some initial work with them as well, and
we show that we could do something meaningful with that product.
And that is of course important because hey, any waste
(34:41):
that you have to send out for burning represents a
lot of money and a lot of value. And they
have now decided, actually interestingly, after they became a bigger
company and merging with a North American affiliate, to dig
deeper and to work closer and for a longer period
of time to find solutions.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
In all right, we need to take one more quick
break before we go into our last segment here. I
will be right back with Eric Appleman and O for
Vicus on the Energy Mix radio show, and we will
get into some more specifics about your recent listing on
the Stock Exchange and to your vision for the future.
So right back after the break, I'm Robert rap Here.
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Speaker 2 (36:31):
Welcome back to the Energy Mix Radio. I'm Robert ray
Pier with this week's guest, Eric Appleman and ophra Vicus.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
For a.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Duro has been listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange, but
was also recently listed on the Nasdaq. Can you tell
us about that experience?
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Sure do. I I'd like to just to comment on
Erics on Eric's Eric mentioned opener, because it's related to
what we're doing in our busines a smaller a field.
So the open case represent a specific case which speaks
a little bit about the ability of the company to
do modular, modular, smaller scale, modular, limited in scope, which
(37:14):
in return, you know, those things were not really available
beforehand when we in the general and so that is
part of the capability that the company is building. Before
I go to the listing, I'll say I would like
to also mention something about how we are operating, you know,
as a general term our goals because that also I
(37:37):
can back it up with the listing immediately after and
make the connection. As a company, we are moving basically
in three directions. One of them was the customer engagement.
We really wanted we know that the journey of the
company was is unique, but we wanted to make sure
that the audience, the audience and the customers understand this
(38:01):
uniqueness as early as we can because we didn't want
to wake with the you know, late system and something
that is absolutely second thing that we were doing was
the design of the pilot, the work of the pilot
that we've been doing. And the third one was creating
more intellectual property, more IP. So why do I say that,
because lessons learns from one goes to the other goes
(38:24):
to the other. And as a company, every time we
are making progress in one of those access we're adding
value to the company. So we're de risking the company,
we're adding value to the company, and we're making sure
that the company could move ahead with its vision. Now
all of that, of course is the day to day
that we are doing, and the up listing really support
(38:48):
that type of vision. So if you can notice the
robot that we are moving ahead as a company, and
you know, we're trying very hard, working very hard to
achieve our goals. And of course, in order to do so,
we could stay and remain a private company, but then
that means access to cash would be a little bit harder,
would be a little bit different. And so in April
(39:12):
twenty twenty one, I made a decision to take the
company through a reverse takeover to the public sector. And
for me, I really thought, and you know, for the
last ten fifteen years, I knew that the technology is very,
very unique. What I wanted to make sure is that
other people will listen and see that. And so through that,
(39:34):
from April twenty twenty one and until the Atlistic current
up listing, we were listed in the Canadian Stockage Change,
which is a smaller stocking change. But every year we
created certain goals and milestones that you know, with the
aim to create options at value, make sure that the
company is deal risk, and every year we met them.
(39:55):
And now that we're getting closer to our commercial realization
and we have a really aggressive commercialization program. Up listing
to the NAZDAK to the billboard means that we can
allow ourselves a larger audience, a larger pool of investors
to look at what we've been doing. And now we
(40:16):
also have the record of the last few years of performing,
and we perform very well both on the technology development
and both on the uplisting. The stock has done quite
well thanks to our investors and thanks to the hard
work that the team has been doing, and we could
have put it out there for everyone to see. And
now making sure that you know, our next two years,
(40:39):
let's say, are a little bit more secured, or you know,
we have access to a larger pool of investors that
we listen to our unique story and be able to
make their mind if what we're doing makes sense or not.
And within the next let's say, twenty twenty five and
twenty twenty six, this is where we are now aiming
(40:59):
to build. The pilot has been you know, in the news,
and this is where we are immediately after looking about
building our commercial demonstration. We feel this is exactly the
right time to be on the big board and to
have investors coming in and look at it. When we
would want to raise money, it's a little bit easier
(41:23):
to do so. With the help of Eric, for example,
we have we see partners and investors that listen. And
here that we have partners that are involved, it's always
easier to bring money. And we aim to work with
some grants and we have to work with you know,
with the funds of investors. So all of this is
coming together and could be very much presented when when
(41:43):
doing working on the app list. I guess there is
another you you wanted also to ask it to ask
about my experience on an app listing as a company
as a listed company?
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah, how how did that process go?
Speaker 5 (41:58):
So it's it's a very consuming I guess the process
a time consuming process. It's very very intense. There is
a it took a well beyond the year in several
stages and as Eric mentioned, may mention, oh remind me
before running listed companies like running actually two companies. There
(42:19):
is the one section which is the financial sector, which
has a bunch of people that are always thinking ahead
and to support of our goals and that the goal
of that organization really within a duro is to make
sure that we're you know, enable us to get the
funds to do what we want. And then there is
(42:40):
the technology development company and sometimes you have to work
your way between those or two organizations. Sometimes you have
issues where you need to pull more capital towards the operation.
Sometimes the operation is a little bit let's say delay,
and then you have to go to the investor community
and tell a storytell them where where we are today,
(43:01):
so that we'd not lose the track and we know
where we are. It's a very exciting time in general,
but it's very busy. It's been you know, we've been
working around the clock twenty four to seven both organization
to make it happen. But overall, I think all of
us are very very happy with the outcome and the
(43:22):
performance of the company, both internally for development and externally
for the price of the share and the investors, the
community of loyal investors that every time that we raise
money came again about thirty percent of them came again
and invest in and build a position in a Duro,
which is really really remarkable for us. I mean, thank
(43:44):
you for both for the investors and for the team
that is doing it.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So your labs located in Canada, correct.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
Yes, we have a four thousand square feet of lab
in London, Ontario, and then we have a technology demonstrations
site in Sonia. Both of them are operation and we
aim to build our pilot right now in our lab
in London, Ontario. That will be a ten kttle grand
per hour unit which will build all of industrial components,
(44:17):
which will allow us to show a continuous like fashion
process that is catered to specification of each customer and
so will allow us to make fast changes, but also
allow us to demonstrate an industrial like equipment in this lab.
So we're very happy with that.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Okay, thank you. As we wind down, I'll let readers
know our listeners know that you've got a website. They
can go there, they can see what it is you're
all about. You explain your technology there, and you know
this has been an enlightening interview. I appreciate you guys
stopping by and that's all our time. But I want
to thank you for joining us. My guest Eric Appleman,
(44:59):
who aim to us from the Netherlands, and Oil for
Vikas who joined us today from Canada. Thank you for
being on the Energy Mix Radio.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
The Energy Mix radio show is where we explore topics
that affect us all in the oil and gas industry.
Every week, our host will interview the movers and shakers
in this fast paced industry. You'll hear from industry experts,
elected officials, and many more on the Energy Mix radio
show
Welcome to the nationally syndicated Energy Mix radio show produced
by the Energy Network Media Group. The Energy Mix Radio
show will give you an inside look at the energy
industry and how it affects you by talking with industry leaders, experts,
and government officials on the Energy Mix Radio Show.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to the Energy Mix. I'm your host, Robert ray Pierre,
also editor in chief of Shale Magazine and senior energy
contributor for Forbes. Today we're going to have a conversation
about the role of plastics as a fit in the
petrochemical supply chain, with a focus on why plastic recycling
is becoming such an important topic. Today's guests are Eric
(00:38):
Appleman and Ofer Vikas, who are respectively, the chief revenue
officer and chief executive officer of Aduro Clean Technologies, a
duro is working with several major companies to integrate its
solution for chemical plastic recycling into the supply chain. Eric
and offer, welcome to the show. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Hurst.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So those listeners who may not know you, could you
take a minute and give us some information about your
background and your company. Eric will start with you.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Okay, Eric Kaplman, I'm from the Netherlands, and I'm also
speaking to you from the Netherlands. I'm sixty years old,
chemical engineer by training and I have had a very
rewarding career across the chemical industry with companies like Unilever, Ici,
Sigma Codings now PPG and mostly recently in the corporate
life as a member of the board of directors of
(01:31):
Swedish multinational pur Story. After that, I became one of
the directors of a very exciting spot, the Brightons Camel Campus,
where we have been assembling a collection of young entrepreneurial
companies for the future of the chemical industry. One of
them was a Duro and when it became time to
do something else, I decided to give a call to
(01:52):
offer and the rest is history.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
I actually called him, but that's okay.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
From Canada over. You're in Canada today.
Speaker 5 (02:04):
Right, I am in Toronto, Canada.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yes, okay, So tell us a little bit about yourself
and how you came to be where you are right.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
My name is of A Vicus. Thank you for having me.
I'm the co founder and CEO of the Clean Technologies
formerly today previously a Duro Energy. I was a was
conceived ad Energy was conceived in the late twenty twenty eleven,
so twenty eleven, and we started. Our genesis was upgrading
(02:34):
of heavy oil, so the world hydrothermal equidification is coming
into mind. At the time I was ready to engage
after one company that I was working with engage with
another technology and it was always in the process. And
then the energy sector, I came across this conceptual idea
(02:57):
of a duo energy which was at the time, as
I said mentioned just hydrothermal deiqualification. I partnered with a
very smart guy named Mark Trixted, which is the was
the co fund. He is the co founder and was
acting CTO for many many years and the journey of
ADUA was born. Then. I'm of a background of mechanical engineer,
(03:22):
industrial engineer and a business master degree. I spent most
of my career with a DURO right now, but before
that I spent some time in the energy sector and
a little bit previously that many many years ago in
the communications sector. Overall, from that day we took a duro.
(03:46):
Adua was public for several years and become public in
twenty eleven, twenty twenty twenty one EPRI twenty twenty one.
But was private for most of the time, and we
can go on and talk about the journey of a
door as you will ask questions.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
If you will, yes, okay, So let's start to get
into the meat of the problem you're trying to solve here. Eric,
first question is for you, let's talk about where plastics
fit in the petrochemical cycle and why major oil companies
are interested in your technology. Can you give us an
overview of how plastic spit.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
In this ecosystem?
Speaker 4 (04:23):
Yeah, well, I think we all know what plastics are,
and I think sometimes we do not even realize enough
how much they contribute to actually sustainable life, in preserving food,
in lightweighting goods, saving fuel, insulating our homes. But of
course in the fantastic durability, they do have the drawback
(04:45):
that they don't go away, so once their usual life
has ended, they're just lying around literally. Now that is
of course not good, and people are becoming increasingly aware
of the negative effects. If you burn the you make
ce you two, if you just put them into the land,
they're going to be there in a million years time,
and probably as microplastics. Those are not good things, and
(05:09):
that is why there's a strong push for circularity. That
may actually not sound that much as an interest for
the big petrochemical companies, but in many countries now you
see movements that say we shall at least have like
twenty or thirty percent of circular carbon in any carbon
article read plastics. And that is also why big petrochemical
(05:32):
houses are now also working to secure their supply of
circular carbon. Needless to say that that should not be
much more expensive than anything they currently derive from fossil
and that is why our solution is going to be
a very good one. Happy to explain a bit more later.
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Okay, there is anything to the regulation that you want
to add or is it just you're going to stop there?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Well, that's yeah. As I said, there is going to
be that regulation of the minimum recycled content in packaging
and that is probably going to be the driver for this.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah. The next question I had was about that, about
how you see the role of plastics evolving and what
shifts you're observing. So that's one an the others you'd
like to add. I think that is the.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
It is the push for using search as a common
that is convincing people to participate. That another one that
is not insignificant is the extended producer responsibility, which seems
to become a cornerstone of the whole circularity. Thinking there
will be the big un driven plastics negotiation in Busan
(06:45):
this week, and whereas parties disagree about almost everything, one
thing that comes forward is extended producer responsibility, which means
that companies like what my old house Unilever, when they
bring about shampoo to the market, they will have to
pay some money to take care of that bottle after
the shampoo has gone, and with that money collection will
(07:08):
be paid, and also finding a home for that old
piece of bottle. So these two and the minimum recycled
content and the extended producer responsibility, combined with local things
like in my country which is too small a ban
a landfill, but also in Europe that see you two
(07:29):
emissions from incineration plans are going to be text that
all sorts of conspires to make plastics much more circular
in their use.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
So one of the things I think we've all seen
plastic bottles, picture plastic bottles on remote beaches around the world.
We know about the big garbage dump and the Pacific
Ocean full of plastics. But one of the things I've
read a lot about in the past few years is
microplastics and being detected in people's body. So you know,
(08:03):
this is a problem that affects us everybody. It's cited
as one of the most significant environmental challenges we have today.
Can you provide some context on just how severe this
issue is and why it has to be addressed.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
Well, I think a lot of negative consequences of microplastics
are not clear yet, but to give a few illustrations,
if you buy a bottle of spring water, there's going
to be microplastics in there. Microplastics are very much everywhere,
and they are very small. It starts from several tens
(08:37):
of a millimeters that it goes are much much smaller,
and especially the small ones, you can expect it will
interfere with with organisms, including human metabolism and other health aspects.
Even though the images of a piece of plastic wrapped
around the turtles neckcase are very dramatic, and I think
(09:01):
these microplastics are pretty much hidden things and and a
lot of their consequences are not known yet, but it
is there can be no no question we shall avoid
those things because they're going to be hanging around. They
are in the deepest ocean troughs, they're in the most
remote eye scaps, they are everywhere.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
I think the fact that they're showing up in people's
bodies are going to get a lot more attention than
somebody who absolutely maybe be affected, Like you say, plastics
around a turtle's neck, but then it's kind of out
of side and out of mind. But if you know
it's in your body, that's a bit. It is everywhere.
Speaker 4 (09:38):
Yeah, as we know from nanoparticles, which are very hot
a few years back, you things get really small and
their effects are becoming really unpredictable.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So what do you think are the main obstacles the
petrochemical industry faces in tackling this waste and where does
there responsibility lie in production, consumption or waste management.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
I think it is everywhere, and wres management can be done.
I'm actually I'm from Holed. As I said, I just
put my paper container outside until tomorrow morning. I bring
my plastic container outside. And as a matter of fact,
if you do a decent collection of stuff, you can
reduce whatever goes into the mother nature to a very
(10:22):
large part. But then of course you're stuck with that
stuff and you have to do something with it. You
can burn it and then it's no longer plastic, but
then it is CEO two and that is typically fossil
c you two and I don't think that is a
brilliant idea. But then you have to find decent ways
to bring it back to something useful that generates the value,
(10:45):
because everything that has to do with circularity is not
paid for by good intentions. It should be as much
as possible paid for by the value of the products
that you generate. I think that is where we have
a challenge right now, so much that we do not
find waste to make a product of it, but the
whole cost and those costs already start at the moment
(11:07):
that you start to pick it up and they then
separate it, and that is actually pretty pretty difficult, because
just hitting a hole in the desert and then pumping
crude oil in a giant tank and bring it to
use them to have it refined or to rotter them.
That is all wonderfully large, kaled and very optimized. Plastic
(11:29):
waste is just everywhere. You have to pick it up
back by back, you have to sort it with your
bare hands. Then you end up with things that are
very mixed and unpredictable. That is I believe where the
biggest challenge is to close the loop. Once it is
in petrochemicals hands and in a petrochemical installation, we can
(11:50):
take advantage of that same big scale and long learning
curve that we already have behind us.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, I think a lot of people they'll see that
big plastic whirlpool out in the Pacific Ocean and thing, well,
this should be easy to go, scoop up and process.
But it's it's mixed plastics of salt water, and there's
a lot of different issues there that makes it difficult.
So we need to take a quick commercial break. After
(12:16):
the break, I want to start to dive into what
you're doing and why you're approaching different I'm Robert with
my guest Eric Appleman and Hofer Bikus. We'll be right
back after the break.
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Speaker 2 (13:00):
H Welcome back to the Energy Next Radio. I'm Robert
ray Pier with this week's guest, Eric Appleman and Ora
Vicus offer. Your company is developing innovative chemical recycling technologies
to convert waste plastics into fuel and raw materials. But
(13:22):
you also do bitchumin upgrading and that may be a
significant interest to our audience. Can you tell us more
about your overall mission.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
I would would be happy to thank you, Robert, just
to echo a minute about things that Eric says before,
I'd like to say and to remind the audience that
really in the space that we are with us stick recycling,
there's not really a free launch. Everything is at cost
at emission. If you collect something in the ocean and
you drive it all the way to the shore, then
(13:55):
you're you're you're producing a lot of co two doing
it his penalties for everything, and I think the common
sense the dictator that we will do what's reasonable within time,
and I think that's the journey that the petrochemical organization
will take, that will give up on some and they'll
do others, which makes sense, but us as a community,
(14:16):
that would be probably the you know, however we conduct ourselves.
We respected the mission of a duro so adural developed
what we call chemical platform technology that could be directed
to different applications in our case, and we're very fortunate
and lucky that every application is almost the company making.
(14:37):
We start our genesis with converting bitomen heavy bitumen and
turn it into a lighter bitumen, and then we moved
on and did some work on renewable oil and that
seems to have grounds to continue and develop it. And
then we have lessons learned from one to the other.
(14:58):
We've turned ourselves towards a chemical recycling of plastic and
basically our work, our journey led us. Lessons lens from
the bit demand and lessons learns from the renewable led
us to the understanding that whatever we are doing right
now is extremely novel and unique, and there is not
a lot many of applications or approaches to process a
(15:23):
vast amount of waste. Plastic parosis is one of the
names that you know that come across immediately, but process
is about seventy eight years old. And basically the uniqueness
of a duro is that we are doing something completely
different and Eric could elaborate later about it if you want,
(15:44):
but that give us flexibility to act in ways that
before was not could not imagine. So our ability to
work in low energy mode, our ability to leave a
little bit more with contamination, our ability to have higher yield,
(16:05):
and our ability to operate on small scale and modul
our unit help us build our mission, and our mission
is really to be part of this group that spearhead
and develop technologies that can provide solutions. And we do
not think that we will be the only smart cookie
in town that the other cookies around us that will work.
(16:26):
We as a company, basically, it tis fair to say
that in the plastic realm, we want to be able
to produce to process more waste plastic that it is
happening today, and more waste plastic means much more contaminated
plastic that right now is ignored. So the majority of
the plastic, if you look at what is happening today,
(16:47):
then we could elaborate a little bit. Basically, the competing
or the traditional approach are forcing to take the best
of the best or whatever they have, and they're forced
to work with a lot of cleanup, pre treatment processing.
That's okay. They may build a business model, but they
don't bring viable solution to help society. I think Aduro
(17:10):
has this enormous opportunity to actually do that, but also
help in many ways to process more contaminated waste plastic,
which in return reduce that type of contamination, that type
of effect holistically around the world. That's basically a very
important mission to us. I should immediately say that we
(17:32):
aim to do all of that and earn money. So
it's not about we are a for profit organization. We
have investors that believes in what we've been doing. Sometimes
we work near regulations, sometimes we don't think that we
need regulations. Actually we can earn our business model allow
us to make sure that we could take approaches that
(17:55):
are first and foremost provide revenue to the company. But
auding the vision that I mentioned, Eric, do you want
to go in and maybe Bogino that that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
That actually leads right into the next question for Eric,
which was can you walk us through how the technology works.
We've got two minutes left in the segment, so I'll
try to do that real quick.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
Two.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Like to begin with, we are talking about polyolephants. That
is the lion's share of all the plastic and that
is what we can recycle well. And what we do
is we do not too dissimilar to many other technologies.
We apply and elevate the temperature to break it to pieces,
but we do that with a catalysts so that we
(18:39):
can make that temperature just a little bit lower, that
very lower. That very little lower temperature is just useful
because then we can trigger off another reaction which generates
an ability to stabilize the pieces that we have just
generated with breaking up these hydrocom and as a consequence
(19:01):
of that, we are making a stable hydrocarbon product. For
those that have a chemistry degree, it is a saturated
product that could go straight back the thirteen and that
is a gift because we do use a little bit
of water in that whole thing. We do hydrolyze, and
that is break up under the influence of water, things
like pt leftovers we can then separate out of a
(19:25):
monomers and as a result we get a very clean
hydro carbon product of relatively high value, which is stable,
which is stable, which can be fed a bit of
luck straight into the major petrochemical processes.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Which is at the higher yield as well.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Okay, well, let's let's take a quick break because I've
got a couple more questions on that. So we'll take
a break here and I'll be right back with Eric
Appleman and over Vicus on Energy Mix Radio show.
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Speaker 2 (21:33):
Welcome back to the Energy Mix Radio. I'm Robert ray
Pier with this week's guest, Eric Appleman and Alfravikus. Before
the break, we were talking about how the technology works.
Can you tell me how it actually contributes to reducing
plastic pollution and what are the environmental benefits of this process.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
I said, we break down the main constituent of plastic waste, polyolephans,
polyetal employees properly in the stuff that you have in
packaging into something that can be fed back to the
chemical industry as a feedstock. And that is all very
nice and good. Now everybody knows that a part of
(22:14):
the plastic we just that we collect, we just remelt
and put it back into something useful. We call it
mechanical recycling, and from an energy perspective, it is the
most attractive thing. But with a bit of luck, we
can recycle about twenty five percent or something like that
of all plastics that way. The rest is an ugly mix.
(22:36):
It contains different plastics, it contains food residues and everything else.
And what we really need is something that can take
care of that. Now, partly because of the reason that
I just gave, and that we can also break up
these polyesters and others and make them sort of harmless,
(22:57):
and we are able to be very much more tolerant
to what we take in. As a matter of fact,
we could take the leftovers of that mechanical recycling, and
that is what we need because that helps to grow
the percentage of all the plastic that we just have
(23:18):
and that can be recycled. Competing technologies actually tend to
ask for the same high purity that we use for
the mechanical recycling, and that's where they then sort of
end up competing for that twenty five percent, leaving the
other seventy five percent to bury or to burn or
to whatever else. And our strength is that we take
(23:40):
care of that remainder seventy five.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Percent, so you can handle mixed plastics whereas they cannot. Absolutely, So,
how scalable is the solution? And what challenges do you
foresee in scaling up?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
If you all tell me to a little bit nerdish,
If you try to do something with the solid stuff,
you end up in the problems that you face at home.
When you cook porridge, it is very viscous. You're trying
to heat it up, and what happens. It just sticks
to the bottom and it sticks to the walls because
you cannot really eat it very well. And when you
(24:22):
boil water that never happens because water is thin. Now,
that is typically a scaling problem because the bigger your
porridge PAM becomes, the bigger the problem is to get
the middle of the pot wall and the outside unburned
precisely the same. It is now what we have discovered
at a duro is not only a very clever chemical mechanism,
(24:44):
but also a very clever reactor setup that overcomes that.
And the very fact that we can control that regardless
of the volume we do gives us pretty good up scalability.
We can make it bigger, but we can and also
make it smaller because our process is relatively simple. We
(25:04):
do not have complex recycle loops, we do not have
complex recovery operations of our catalyst. And as a rule
of thumb, you can say the smaller and simpler process
is the smaller you can build it and still make
a profit. And that is actually relevant because if you're
living in Houston or in Phoenix, you've got plenty of
plastics to play with and you can scale up like
(25:26):
now tomorrow. But if you're somewhere in North Dakota, and
you might actually not have access to so much plastics,
and still you don't want to ship that stuff to
use them. So that is why it is imperative to
not only being able to scale it up, but also
to scale it down to make sure that you can
deal with the plastics in a in financially via way,
(25:48):
not encourring too much cost and the logistics.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
So we're recording us a couple of days before Thanksgiving
here in the US. And I always used an analogy
to blame the scale up problem to people. I said,
you know, you know what it takes to cook a turkey. Yes,
Now imagine cooking ten or one hundred turkeys an hour
or every three hours. So now you've got the problem
(26:15):
of you've got wall effects in there, you've got temperature corents,
you got all those things that make it more challenging now,
and that helps people understand because everybody knows how to
cook a turkey or how exactly.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
You don't have to heart to be frozen the outside
to be bummed, which is touch Bobby cue you.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
That's in a nutshelle. That's the scale problem. So we
need to take another quick break there. Afterwards, I'd like
to get into the partnerships that you're having with industry
and NGOs and so forth, and how that fits into
your mission. I'm Robert ray Pierre will be right back
with this week's guest, Eric Appleman and Offer Vikas.
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Speaker 2 (27:36):
Welcome back to the Energy Mix Radio. I'm Robert Ray
Pierre with this week's guest, Eric Appleman, coming from the
Netherlands and O for Vicus from Canada. Previously, Eric, I
think it was you that made references to the circular economy.
Can you explain that concept for listeners. It is about.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
An economy where where we do not lineally dig something
up from other Earth or harvest it, use it once
and then just dump it back in mother Earth, which.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
It's all right, is not a bad idea, but.
Speaker 4 (28:13):
When it is persistent or toxic or anything else, it
is not a good idea. And the aim of the
circular economy is that in anything that is depletable and
that is scarce or maybe dangerous in the waste stage,
you find a way back to deal with it responsibly.
And the first thing I ever heard about circularity is
(28:35):
that we pass on a world to our kids where
they are not limited by what we took out. And
I think that is for me, the first principle of circularity.
It makes me sure that whatever is depletable, whatever is scarce,
is returned, and that whatever is toxic that we make
(28:55):
or unpleasant, that that is made harmless. That is for
me what's circular economy or society is.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
And a durero's role in that circular economy would be
taking the plastics that currently end up in the landfills
or end up as trash and injecting it back into
the petrochemical plastics.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Precisely, Yeah, chat precisely because as a matter of fact,
while they're in use, plastics are great for circularity. As
I said in my opening statement, it keeps your food
for longer, it insulates your house, It helps us to
be a circular. But once that job is done and
we have to bring it back, maybe not even so
(29:39):
much about scarcity arguments because I think if we just
used fossil resources for all, we have probably a few
millennia to go for us, but especially to leave nothing
behind that will restrict the world and the life of
our kids.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Okay, so let's shift gears and jump into the business
at respect to this, what role do partnerships with governments,
industry NGO's play. Are there any particular stakeholders that you
can discuss that you're involved with.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
Yeah, Well, what we do as a DURO, and that
is what I like very much about the DURO is
that we do reach out early. We are a small company.
We do of course not have all the power and
the money and the resources, but we do have a
solution for problems that very large institutions and companies sometimes
(30:35):
can't deal with. And that is why it is so
good that we work with large companies especially. It is
also useful because it keeps us honest and it keeps
us right on the ball about what is really required.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
To give you a.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Little example, when people started to recycle chemically the plastics
of the world, we were all under the assumption that
you could have very good feedstock for free. Well, meanwhile
that world has changed. It is very good and you
only learn it by talking to whatever happens in the
world and whoever is relevant over there. So we do
(31:12):
work with big stakeholders. Now, what are the stakeholders in
this value circle. They are the petrochemical industry because they
are going to be asked to supply circular carbon. It
is the big owners of brands and the supermarkets because
they have that extended producer responsibility that they have to
(31:33):
deal with. It is also the ways management companies because
they get all that trash in their house and they
have to do something with it that is clever and
make sure that they are left with as little as
possible and with as little cost as possible. And then
it is of course, in the end also the consumer,
because in the end of the day, whatever happens, it
is the consumer that pays. Nowtheless he or she has
(31:57):
to pay, and the better the solution is or that person,
the better it is. So that is how we engage
around the value circle. Now, if you ask me with
whom are you working every day, it is very much
that petrochemical industry, of which I have met none that
(32:17):
was not interested in what we did, and which is
an actually increasingly so it is the waste management scene,
because those people start to realize that, Okay, everybody wants
a twenty five percent that is really nice, but what
are we going to do with a seventy five percent
that is left?
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Are there any specific companies you can mention that you're
working with that have been publicly announced I can work with.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
I can mention two companies, and we have been already
for a year in Whichshell and Shall has a unique
scheme where they pay a little money, as they say,
they pay you to fail quickly. It is money that
is available to a small company to answer some tough
questions that they have. We've been with them for a year.
We have not failed yet. We are proud of that,
(33:06):
and we are still working on and that is a
very very interesting development. I can obviously not comment on
what is talked about between us and the other one
is with another petrochemical major. It is Total Energies, with
whom we have signed after quite a bit of dating,
with preliminary experimenting, a collaboration agreement where we are really
(33:30):
trying to find out how we can harness our technology
to make precisely this sort of feedstock that they need.
Very interactive thing, very well, learning ongoing all the time
to both ways and precisely what you actually expect. We
know a lot of stuff when we pull it together.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
So when you're working I mentioned opener as well, or
we'll live go ahead often.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
Yeah, that is a smaller conting thank you offer to
bring that up Upnor is actually a quite difficult different story.
It is a company that manufactures something an article. They
make the water pipes, the plastic water pipes that are
more and more used in houses these days, and they
have waste, they have wasted from the production and maybe
in the future there will be waste that is coming
(34:20):
back from houses being demolished. And that is a very
particular kind of polyolphin. It is called a cross link polyolophine,
which makes it really difficult to recycle. Now what we did,
we did some initial work with them as well, and
we show that we could do something meaningful with that product.
And that is of course important because hey, any waste
(34:41):
that you have to send out for burning represents a
lot of money and a lot of value. And they
have now decided, actually interestingly, after they became a bigger
company and merging with a North American affiliate, to dig
deeper and to work closer and for a longer period
of time to find solutions.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
In all right, we need to take one more quick
break before we go into our last segment here. I
will be right back with Eric Appleman and O for
Vicus on the Energy Mix radio show, and we will
get into some more specifics about your recent listing on
the Stock Exchange and to your vision for the future.
So right back after the break, I'm Robert rap Here.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
In the oil and gas industries, you don't just need
a worker's comp provider, you need a worker's comp provider
who understands your business. That's Texas Mutual Insurance Company. At
Texas Mutual, they've created the Texas Oil and Gas Association
Safety Group exclusively for businesses involved with exploration and production.
That means you'll have access to information and safety resources
(35:44):
that fit the way you work. But the advantages don't
stop there. As a Safety Group member, you'll receive a
premium discount on your worker's comp Plus you can qualify
for double dividends. You heard that right, Members can earn
an additional dividend on top of the one you receive
as a policy holder. It's all part of Texas Mutual's
commitment to working as a partner with the businesses that
(36:06):
keep our state running. Texas Mutual and the Texas Oil
and Gas Association two great organizations that are even better together.
To see if you qualified to become a Safety Group member,
go to Texas Mutual dot com slash t xog A.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Welcome back to the Energy Mix Radio. I'm Robert ray
Pier with this week's guest, Eric Appleman and ophra Vicus.
Speaker 5 (36:38):
For a.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
Duro has been listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange, but
was also recently listed on the Nasdaq. Can you tell
us about that experience?
Speaker 5 (36:49):
Sure do. I I'd like to just to comment on
Erics on Eric's Eric mentioned opener, because it's related to
what we're doing in our busines a smaller a field.
So the open case represent a specific case which speaks
a little bit about the ability of the company to
do modular, modular, smaller scale, modular, limited in scope, which
(37:14):
in return, you know, those things were not really available
beforehand when we in the general and so that is
part of the capability that the company is building. Before
I go to the listing, I'll say I would like
to also mention something about how we are operating, you know,
as a general term our goals because that also I
(37:37):
can back it up with the listing immediately after and
make the connection. As a company, we are moving basically
in three directions. One of them was the customer engagement.
We really wanted we know that the journey of the
company was is unique, but we wanted to make sure
that the audience, the audience and the customers understand this
(38:01):
uniqueness as early as we can because we didn't want
to wake with the you know, late system and something
that is absolutely second thing that we were doing was
the design of the pilot, the work of the pilot
that we've been doing. And the third one was creating
more intellectual property, more IP. So why do I say that,
because lessons learns from one goes to the other goes
(38:24):
to the other. And as a company, every time we
are making progress in one of those access we're adding
value to the company. So we're de risking the company,
we're adding value to the company, and we're making sure
that the company could move ahead with its vision. Now
all of that, of course is the day to day
that we are doing, and the up listing really support
(38:48):
that type of vision. So if you can notice the
robot that we are moving ahead as a company, and
you know, we're trying very hard, working very hard to
achieve our goals. And of course, in order to do so,
we could stay and remain a private company, but then
that means access to cash would be a little bit harder,
would be a little bit different. And so in April
(39:12):
twenty twenty one, I made a decision to take the
company through a reverse takeover to the public sector. And
for me, I really thought, and you know, for the
last ten fifteen years, I knew that the technology is very,
very unique. What I wanted to make sure is that
other people will listen and see that. And so through that,
(39:34):
from April twenty twenty one and until the Atlistic current
up listing, we were listed in the Canadian Stockage Change,
which is a smaller stocking change. But every year we
created certain goals and milestones that you know, with the
aim to create options at value, make sure that the
company is deal risk, and every year we met them.
(39:55):
And now that we're getting closer to our commercial realization
and we have a really aggressive commercialization program. Up listing
to the NAZDAK to the billboard means that we can
allow ourselves a larger audience, a larger pool of investors
to look at what we've been doing. And now we
(40:16):
also have the record of the last few years of performing,
and we perform very well both on the technology development
and both on the uplisting. The stock has done quite
well thanks to our investors and thanks to the hard
work that the team has been doing, and we could
have put it out there for everyone to see. And
now making sure that you know, our next two years,
(40:39):
let's say, are a little bit more secured, or you know,
we have access to a larger pool of investors that
we listen to our unique story and be able to
make their mind if what we're doing makes sense or not.
And within the next let's say, twenty twenty five and
twenty twenty six, this is where we are now aiming
(40:59):
to build. The pilot has been you know, in the news,
and this is where we are immediately after looking about
building our commercial demonstration. We feel this is exactly the
right time to be on the big board and to
have investors coming in and look at it. When we
would want to raise money, it's a little bit easier
(41:23):
to do so. With the help of Eric, for example,
we have we see partners and investors that listen. And
here that we have partners that are involved, it's always
easier to bring money. And we aim to work with
some grants and we have to work with you know,
with the funds of investors. So all of this is
coming together and could be very much presented when when
(41:43):
doing working on the app list. I guess there is
another you you wanted also to ask it to ask
about my experience on an app listing as a company
as a listed company?
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Yeah, how how did that process go?
Speaker 5 (41:58):
So it's it's a very consuming I guess the process
a time consuming process. It's very very intense. There is
a it took a well beyond the year in several
stages and as Eric mentioned, may mention, oh remind me
before running listed companies like running actually two companies. There
(42:19):
is the one section which is the financial sector, which
has a bunch of people that are always thinking ahead
and to support of our goals and that the goal
of that organization really within a duro is to make
sure that we're you know, enable us to get the
funds to do what we want. And then there is
(42:40):
the technology development company and sometimes you have to work
your way between those or two organizations. Sometimes you have
issues where you need to pull more capital towards the operation.
Sometimes the operation is a little bit let's say delay,
and then you have to go to the investor community
and tell a storytell them where where we are today,
(43:01):
so that we'd not lose the track and we know
where we are. It's a very exciting time in general,
but it's very busy. It's been you know, we've been
working around the clock twenty four to seven both organization
to make it happen. But overall, I think all of
us are very very happy with the outcome and the
(43:22):
performance of the company, both internally for development and externally
for the price of the share and the investors, the
community of loyal investors that every time that we raise
money came again about thirty percent of them came again
and invest in and build a position in a Duro,
which is really really remarkable for us. I mean, thank
(43:44):
you for both for the investors and for the team
that is doing it.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
So your labs located in Canada, correct.
Speaker 5 (43:52):
Yes, we have a four thousand square feet of lab
in London, Ontario, and then we have a technology demonstrations
site in Sonia. Both of them are operation and we
aim to build our pilot right now in our lab
in London, Ontario. That will be a ten kttle grand
per hour unit which will build all of industrial components,
(44:17):
which will allow us to show a continuous like fashion
process that is catered to specification of each customer and
so will allow us to make fast changes, but also
allow us to demonstrate an industrial like equipment in this lab.
So we're very happy with that.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Okay, thank you. As we wind down, I'll let readers
know our listeners know that you've got a website. They
can go there, they can see what it is you're
all about. You explain your technology there, and you know
this has been an enlightening interview. I appreciate you guys
stopping by and that's all our time. But I want
to thank you for joining us. My guest Eric Appleman,
(44:59):
who aim to us from the Netherlands, and Oil for
Vikas who joined us today from Canada. Thank you for
being on the Energy Mix Radio.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
The Energy Mix radio show is where we explore topics
that affect us all in the oil and gas industry.
Every week, our host will interview the movers and shakers
in this fast paced industry. You'll hear from industry experts,
elected officials, and many more on the Energy Mix radio
show
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