Haydale Graphene Industries PLC (LON:HAYD) Chief Executive Officer Ray Gibbs caught up with DirectorsTalk to discuss their agreement with Huntsman Advanced Materials
Q1: Ray, you announced a joint development agreement with Huntsman in September last year, what’s the significance of this new agreement?
A1: Well this is the formally legally-binding agreement that’s building on the letter of intent which we signed back in 2015 and effectively it cements the relationship between the 2 companies. You should note, of course, that we’re in partnership now with one of the leading multi-national resin companies that has got a trusted worldwide brand, the Araldite brand is well recognised around the world and that’s the point of our strategy to be with the best in the country, in territory, in class.
Q2: So why has it taken so long to get to this next stage?
A2: Well Huntsman have got this product known as Araldite, they wanted to make sure that is was good and that what we were doing was the right thing. What we have achieved is a massive key technical challenge of improving the properties of fracture toughness and thermal conductivity but maintaining the process ability of the resins i.e. we’re not changing anything that they have to do to make this resin attractive to the market and that, in the industry that we’re in today, is a massive upside. I can’t over-emphasise how crucial maintaining the process ability is for commercialisation.
Q3: Can you explain how Haydale Graphene Industries’ relationship with Huntsman will work?
A3: Yes, sure. They’re our route to market, we’ve announced that they’re our route to market, we’ve got an industrial partner that’s going to produce the volumes of masterbatch and that’s the AMG Mining guys, they’re NASDAQ quoted and they’re based in Hauzenberg in Germany. We’ll do the proof of prints for which we already have, we’ll put the first test material into the marketplace with Huntsman, get the feedback and then any volumes will be done under arrangement with our industrialisation partner, AMG and they’ll supply the masterbatch to Huntsman who will then sell it to their customers.
Q4: Are you able to give any indication of the markets that Huntsman are targeting with these resins?
A4: Yes, the thermal conductivity enables tools, moulding tools, which is the part that makes the composite material to heat up and cool down quicker because we’re managing the thermal conductivity of the material and that increases capacity of an alter clay which is a well-known bottleneck. Now that market itself is approximately $1.25 billion per annum and Huntsman, we understand, have got about 20% of that market and that’s one particular aspect of the industrial base that we’re targeting and of course it’s a non-regulated market so routes into that are quite quick.
