Versarien PLC (LON:VRS) has signed a memorandum of understanding with China Tiesiju Civil Engineering Group Co (CTCE) to explore the potential applications for graphene and to jointly establish a manufacturing capability for graphene products in China.
CTCE, a subsidiary of China Railway Group Limited, said on Wednesday that the agreement would also include the research and development of applications for graphene within heat conductive and heating materials; sensors for the mechanical monitoring of engineering structures; special engineering plastics and rubbers and asphalt.
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CRG is one of the world's largest construction and engineering contractors and is listed on the Shanghai and Hong Kong Stock Exchanges. CTCE is specifically focused on railway, bridge, tunnel and highway infrastructure engineering and has over 23,000 employees.
The company is active in China and overseas, including in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
Versarien said the agreement was subject to the satisfactory completion of negotiations with CTCE, which will provide funding for any manufacturing venture in a structure to be agreed.
"This relationship with CTCE is complimentary to those we have already entered into in China and others that we are in discussions with,” Versarien CEO Neill Ricketts said in a statement.
“We have a strategy to develop a number of relationships with industry leading partners in China across the wide variety of sectors where the application of graphene can prove beneficial. I look forward to reporting on progress with our ever growing number of collaboration partners and entering into further relationships to aid the commercialisation of Versarien's graphene."
Shares in Varsarien were 1.7% up at 122.04p in early trade.