Clean TeQ Holdings (ASX:CLQ) has witnessed a massive 276 per cent jump in its revenue, but still booked a bigger loss for the second half of 2018.

Revenue climbed to nearly $3m from $786,000 in the second half of 2017, but its loss widened to $9.1m from $7.8m.

Clean TeQ, which is backed by one of the mining world’s richest investors in Robert Friedland, put the loss down to a $22.5m spend on the development of its Sunrise nickel and cobalt project in western NSW.

The company also incurred expenses from its operating activities of $9.3m, which the company says was financed largely from its existing cash reserves.

On the flipside, its water business is doing really well and was the reason for the higher revenue.

The revenue hike helped shares up more than 8 per cent this morning to an intraday peak of 33c. But shares are still a far cry from the high of $1.38 they were trading at in early March last year.

Clean TeQ (ASX:CLQ) shares over the past year.
Clean TeQ (ASX:CLQ) shares over the past year.

The company adapted its water filtration tech to filtering minute traces of pricey metals from slurries at mining sites.

Clean TeQ says its JV company was awarded an initial contract to build, own and operate a water treatment plant, using the technology to treat up to 13,000 tonnes of effluent per day.

The contract runs for 20 years and will provide a minimum payment of 9000 Chinese yuan renminbi ($1884) per day.

Clean TeQ has also secured two contracts with Multotec Process Equipment worth $400,000 and $2m respectively, as well as Kirkland Lake Gold (ASX:KLA) for the Fosterville gold mine.

But the loss has seen its cash reserves dip to $117.4m at the end of December, from nearly $153m a year earlier.

Clean TeQ still needs to lock in $1.5 billion to fund the development of its Sunrise project and it also needs metal prices to improve to meet feasibility-study targets.

Cobalt has been the worst performing commodity over the past year, sliding 57.8 per cent.

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