SulNOx [AQSE:SNOX], the Aquis-listed, green technology company operating from London is showing no signs of slowing down in 2025 after a storming 2024.
The last time we covered SulNOx, The Armchair Trader reported that the company had seen a near 300% return over the last year. Since then, the shares have put on another 163%, opening the week (20th January) at 95p, after peaking at an early year high the week before of 104.5p.
The company started the year with a flurry of announcements, signing an agreement with EPS (Eastern Pacific Shipping). EPS is a private Singaporean marine logistics firm; one of the biggest shipping companies in the world. The agreement will see a quarter-of-a-million litres of SulNOx products used on 30 of EPS’ container ships, tankers, bulk and gas carriers for a minimum of 18-months after an extensive eight-month trial of SulNOx’s demulsifying products. EPS also became a strategic shareholder in SulNOx, taking 8.5% of the issued share capital, with an option for a further 3.3% share.
The company then followed this up earlier this week (21st January) with an annoucement that SulNOx had secured a patent in Nigeria for fuel oil reclamation – its first significant contract in the sub-sector. SulNOx’s technology will be used to separate spilled oil from water, clearing up ‘ship slops’ generated from tank cleaning, fuel purification and ballast water use.
Speeding-up ship slop treatment in Nigeria
Traditionally ship slops hare a 70:30 water-to-oil mix but have usually been treated mechanically by heating and gravity separation, which need specific discrete facili
ties. Even after this process the recovered heavy fuel oil still contains a significant amount of water, which limits its resale value. However, with SulNOx’ chemical solutions the whole process is accelerated from around 12-hours to three-hours, allowing the facility to run four-times the volumes of ship slops through the facilities. SulNOx also works at lower temperatures, cutting the facility’s running costs, and the water recovered is cleaner; allowing for simpler disposal.
All shipping hubs globally have to deal with ship slops, and it’s hoped that a successful utilisation of SulNOx in Nigerian fuel oil reclamation will create new commercial opportunities in other locations, and the company believes that the market will grow to USD3.2bn worldwide by 2031.
Volume shipped up 400% y-o-y
As 2024 waved goodbye, SulNox published its six-month update to end-September, announcing significant growth in sales and revenue, with sales up nearly 225% year-on-year to £440,300 and increased volumes by 400% y-o-y. The company also successfully raised £1.8m in two fundraising events in December, which will be used to expand the company’s distribution network and has focussed on cash generation in the last year, targeting new clients in Africa, Europe and Asia, hiring new faces and securing partnerships to make an attempt to break into the North American market.
Chairman, Radu Florescu said: “Heading into the New Year, we will continue to maintain the flexibility to change and adapt as both global demands and changing legislation will certainly have an impact on fuel consumption. We are confident that with the existing and expanded team, we are well placed to meet these challenges moving forward.”
As previously reported, SulNOX was founded in 2013 and listed on Aquis five-years ago, and develops fuel-additives that it says improve the operational and environmental performance of traditional hydrocarbons-driven combustion engines and has applied its technologies in road and marine transport.
Improving efficiency, saving money
The company’s technology improves the combustion efficiency of a range of fuels, including gasoline, regular diesel, Marine diesel oil (MDO), Marine gas oil (MGO) and biofuels including hydrotreated vegetable oils (HVO) and kerosene. However, most additives are also hydrocarbons-based, often using waste products like xylene or naphthalene that are left over in the refining process as an accelerant to combustion, making the engine burn its fuel harder and brighter and avoiding some noxious emissions.
Nevertheless, in the bigger picture traditional additives don’t do very much to reduce overall greenhouse emissions, as being based on hydrocarbons, you are still burning hydrocarbons which release greenhouse gases. Instead SulNOx decided to reinvent the concept, and instead of using naphthalene, xylene or other waste chemicals derived from the refining process, instead use natural, biodegradable ingredients.
This takes excess hydrocarbons emissions out of the fuel products, and SulNOx has designed a formula that make fuels combust cleaner and more efficiently through a unique combination of mechanisms including the emulsification of residual water in fuel, increasing oxygen availability, cleaning actions and increasing lubricity. The company claims that the formula is a lot more stable than other water-in-diesel emulsions and it has added it to HFO (Heavy Fuel Oil) to create, in the company’s own words: “[…] a remarkably stable new emulsified fuel, which is a vast improvement on the water-in-diesel emulsions of yesteryear.”
SulNOx has positioned itself as a leader in green technology, with a strong start to 2025 following its remarkable 2024 performance. By securing significant agreements, like the one with EPS, and expanding its global footprint with new patents and projects, the company is gaining traction in the environmentally-conscious fuel industry. As SulNOx continues to scale its operations and develop innovative solutions for fuel oil reclamation and emissions reduction, it is well-poised to capitalise on the growing demand for sustainable technologies in both the marine and transport sectors.
