Curcas Energy

The Company's business is the profitable and socially constructive production of nonfood oil for conversion to second generation biodiesel and jet aviation fuels. The Company is planting Jatropha curcas in rural Thailand and Philippines for the production of Jatropha oil - the widely acknowledged premium oil source for biodiesel and jet aviation fuel. Over the next four years Curcas Energy plans to plant more than one billion trees which will, at full production, produce nearly three million barrels of oil per year on a sustained basis. In Thailand the Company operates by contract growing Jatropha through local companies. When fully implemented there will be more than two hundred thousand growers planting hedges around fields or in small areas of land mostly unsuitable for food crops. Over the past few months the Company has planted over 10 million trees. It has now established an extensive organisation with over one hundred trained advisers, which will rise to more than three hundred by 2009, who are engaged in contracting many thousands of growers in North and East Thailand. The Company has 10 hectares of industrial land at Khon Kaen as the site of its first oil extraction complex and Jatropha research station. In Philippines the Company is entering long-term leases over idle land. Initially it has created a joint venture with a Tribal Federation over 100,000 hectares of ancestral domain land which has been idle for very many years. The outcome will be substantial employment and other socio-economic benefits for very poor rural communities. Curcas Energy Ltd is a public company which plans to list on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2009. It has raised and substantially spent A$4.8 million establishing the business, and is currently seeking about A$1.5 million in further seed capital to maintain the immediate momentum of the planting programme. A proposal for funding of the first oil extraction press for the Thai operation has been independently assessed by the Finnish engineering group Poyry for Finnfund, a Development Fund sponsored by the government of Finland. The proposal will be submitted for approval at the October meeting of the Finnfund Board. The implementation of the full plan is projected to require capital in the order of A$200 million over five years. This will include multiple processing plants and the extensive planting programme. The return on capital will be strongly leveraged to the international oil price. Next stage funding of about A$15 million is being sought from a cornerstone investor, prior to an IPO in 2009 expected to raise A$30 – 50 million The company is operating among some of the poorest rural communities in Asia and the impact of the successful development of the business plan will have very significant economic and social benefits to large numbers of families.