Midwest Energy Emissions Corp—ME2C Environmental (OTCQB:MEEC)—has reported a strong rise in fourth-quarter and full-year 2021 revenue due to increased supply demands in the coal-fired market for sorbents and an expanding customer base.
The environmental technologies company increased revenue by 17.4% to $2.7 million for the three months to December 31, 2021, and trimmed total costs and expenses by 9% to $4 million, resulting in a reduced net loss of $1.3 million, down from $2 million in 4Q 2020.
"The fourth quarter marked a strong close to the year for ME2C and demonstrated the ongoing success of our comprehensive growth strategy," the company’s CEO Richard MacPherson said in a statement.
”Favorable market dynamics and increasing demand from new and existing customers for our patented mercury emissions technologies drove our performance.”
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Full-year 2021 revenue increased by 59.5% to $13 million, with sales of sorbent products jumping to about $11 million compared to $7.4 million in 2020. Additionally, the company said licensing revenues improved to about $1.7 million from $546,000 a year earlier due to agreements entered into with certain of the defendants in the patent litigation that commenced in 2019.
Total costs and expenses for the year increased to $16.6 million compared to $14 million in 2020, resulting in a net loss of $3.6 million, or $0.04 per diluted share, compared to a loss of $5.8 million, or $0.07 per diluted share in 2020.
Adjusted underlying earnings (EBITDA) rose to $297,000, compared to a $735,000 EBITDA loss in 2020, a year-over-year improvement of more than $1 million.
"We have gained momentum in all of our key areas," continued MacPherson, "and we expect our strong organic growth to continue as we move through 2022. With our core business for mercury emissions capture fueling our new technologies involving rare earth elements, we believe ME2C Environmental is truly transitioning into a diverse environmental technology firm.”
FY 2021 and subsequent highlights
- Announced expected 2022 revenue growth of approximately 60% year over year.
- Eliminated all convertible debt in 2021.
- Entered into a debt repayment agreement with Alterna Capital.
- Announced new license agreements and renewed supply contracts with multiple coal-fired utilities for mercury emissions capture.
- Gained additional direct product new supply business from licensees of its patented technologies.
- Initiated outreach to multiple new utilities believed to be infringing its patented technologies in order to secure new license and/or product supply agreements.
- Received approval from the District Judge to continue its lawsuit against 16 refined coal entities with discovery now well underway.
- Completed Phase 1 and began Phase 2 of lab testing through Penn State University's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences to validate the initial lab results (2019-2021). The second phase introduced real-world environmental samples (acid mine drainage sludge and coal ash) to the sorbent testing focused on wastewater and coal ash pond remediation and processing captured rare earth elements.
- During late 1Q 2022, identified in-field testing partners for the new REE sorbent technology in preparation of commercialization efforts, planned for 2022.
"We made meaningful progress on the commitments we set a number of years ago to strengthen the foundation of the business and position it for long-term sustainable growth,” MacPherson concluded. “We have robust new customer activity continuing into our first quarter, our ongoing discovery related to our lawsuit against certain refined coal entities is on track, and our efforts to accelerate our growth as we move forward with our rare earth element extraction and processing technologies gives us a great deal of excitement about our future prospects as an evolving environmental technologies firm.”
ME2C Environmental is a leading environmental technologies company developing and delivering patented and proprietary solutions to the global power industry.
The company's leading-edge mercury emissions services have been shown to achieve emissions removal at a significantly lower cost and with less operational impact than currently used methods while maintaining and/or increasing power plant output and preserving the marketability of byproducts for beneficial use.
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com