Parkway Corporate is ready to scale up its technology as it sees an opportunity to address upstream wastewater challenges facing the Queensland coal seam gas (CSG) sector.

Parkway Corporate (ASX:PWN) has unveiled in a recently released corporate presentation that it sees near-term opportunities for its subsidiary Queensland Brine Solutions (QBS) to roll-out a solution, initially based on its upstream technology.

PWN says QBS could potentially build up to 24 systems to provide an industry wide upstream solution on a toll-treatment basis for the Queensland CSG sector.

The company says its upstream tech package enables the more efficient concentration and processing of CSG waste brines, which also reduces waste brine storage pond requirements.

PWN says modular design provides an opportunity for the staged and cost-effective deployment to align with project requirements and significantly lower costs compared to conventional projects.

Indicative financial metrics per system include:

  • CAPEX of $8-12 million (project specific)
  • Low OPEX, <70% less than main alternative
  • High revenue despite QBS charging <50% of cost of alternative
  • >$5 million/year estimated operating margin

Furthermore, PWN says its fast and effective upstream solution for concentrating waste CSG brine, also provides an opportunity to integrate with downstream QBS tech in the future to convert concentrated waste brine into industrial chemical products.

Solving CSG wastewater challenges upstream and downstream

PWN is on a mission to build an advanced industrial wastewater treatment technology company, focused on cutting-edge solutions for complex wastewater and process streams, such as the Queensland CSG sector.

The CSG extraction process generates large volumes of highly saline water, known as brine.

PWN’s proprietary technologies recover fresh water from the waste brines and convert waste salts into valuable industrial chemicals for use in the Queensland market.

The company recently released its master plan, aligning with Queensland Government legislation, emphasizing waste conversion to reduce disposal needs. The master plan also aligns with several government priorities including in relation to developing local supply chains as part of the Critical Minerals Strategy.

Over the life of current CSG projects in Queensland ~6 million tonnes of waste salts are expected.

Many of these salts are already stored as waste brine, awaiting a long-term disposal or processing solution.

PWN is systematically developing proprietary process tech to address the waste brine and salt challenges in the CSG industry.

This involves process optimization, piloting, and techno-economic evaluations, offering a compelling alternative to the industry’s planned approach.

PWN established QBS to drive commercialisation efforts and advance objectives of its master plan.

In-house and collaborations for state-of-the-art capabilities

PWN has an experienced in-house engineering team with extensive process engineering and tech commercialisation capabilities.

It has also developed strategic partnerships including with Victoria University’s Institute for Sustainable Industries & Liveable Cities (ISILC), recognised as global leaders in water and wastewater research areas relevant to PWN.

PWN has been collaborating with Victoria University since 2015 and acquired a broad portfolio of intellectual property.

Jointly they have secured competitive funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) under various grant schemes.

PWN has co-located piloting and research facilities, including its research staff, at the nearby ISILC campus.

Several PWN staff have honorary research status with ISILC, Victoria University with MD Bahay Ozcakmak and Adjunct Associate Professor since May 2020.

The company recently announced plans to establish a Centre for Brine Technologies to support its tech commercialisation journey.

Energy & mining key target markets

High-value large projects with well-resourced tier-1 clients are PWN’s target market, specifically in the energy and mining market.

PWN is targeting companies with an urgency to act based on financial, strategic and ESG related drivers.

The company sees technology licensing as a key monetisation pathway with a 10 – 20% technology licensing fee to be embedded into proprietary process solutions on large projects.

PWN says there is a potential to toll-treat or build-own-operate (BOO).

In May 2020 PWN entered a global strategic partnership with  major global engineering company Worley to commercialise its key technologies.

Worley operates in 46 countries and has more than 25,000 current projects, providing engineering, procurement & construction, management (EPCM) related services to a diverse range of clients, many of which are Parkway’s target clients.

In February 2022, the partnership extended to incorporate additional technologies, targeting the CSG industry.

PWN has also established relationships with leading global OEMs supplying key equipment for water and wastewater treatment.

Exciting opportunity for PWN and CSG sector

PWN has just published its June quarterly report, revealing a significant increase in cash receipts for FY23.

The company indicated that is continues to successfully acquire new clients from various industries seeking industrial water treatment products, services, and solutions. This trend further bolsters the company’s sustained sales growth.

Ozcakmak says the indicative numbers the company is working-up for the upstream phase of its master plan, are very exciting.

“We are looking to provide the industry with a faster and more cost-effective option to concentrate brine production, which presents a range of advantages for the client.,” he says.

“In addition to not having to stump up the more than $250 million to build a brine concentrator for each project, in some instances, the clients will also save themselves the need to build additional brine storage ponds, which is also a significant benefit.”

He says whilst the company has presented an ambitious vision in its master plan which has been warmly embraced, the scale of the nearer-term opportunity is enormous in its own right, particularly for a company the size of PWN.

“We are working to seize the opportunity, by leveraging our proprietary technology based solution, as we genuinely believe this provides us with a near-term multi-year runway, to build a very substantial business.”

This article was developed in collaboration with Parkway Corporate, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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