Yes an engineer but lets call it a TECH Engineer. Compressed air technology is its main business, develops industrial air compressors and Gas seals and whats more it provides them for the OIL and GAS industry.
Very close to commercialisation now with its compressors and seals and todays deal ( see below ) should bring that very close.

Charges upfront payments, continuing royalties and development contracts so revenues are not lumpy.

It as a market cap circa off the top of my head 20 million(hope my calculator is now working) and as circa of 5 million cash on the books, very nice.

Some very big names as customers.

Heres todays announcement...........

Corac Group Plc
26 May 2004


For Immediate Release 26 May 2004


Corac Group plc ('Corac')

Joint Industry Programme for Downhole Gas Compression

Corac, the intellectual property and licensing company specialising in
compressor technology, is pleased to announce the signature today of a Joint
Industry Programme ('JIP') for the development of its unique, patented downhole
gas compression technology.

Following the recent successful completion of a Shell funded feasibility study
which evaluated both the technical and economic viability of the technology,
considerable industry interest has been generated, culminating in the addition
of a further four major international oil and gas operators to the project.

The participants of the JIP comprise ConocoPhillips, ENI, Husky Energy,
Repsol-YPF as well as Shell, all of whom have gas assets worldwide which they
believe could benefit from this game changing technology. As well as covering
the development costs for the next phase, the participants will also make
substantial resource available to ensure the final product specification meets
the requirements of the industry.

Corac's downhole gas compression concept involves the coupling together of a
number of axial compressor modules in a single compression train for
installation in the well bore in close proximity to a gas reservoir. In this
location, a modest uplift in pressure results in a very significant increase in
gas production compared with conventional methods using surface compression,
thereby accelerating gas production and cash flow from a producing asset.
Potential production rate enhancement of up to 40% has been demonstrated through
the application of downhole gas compression during a number of gas field case
studies carried out over recent months.

Placing the compressor downhole could also have the effect of being able to
lower the reservoir abandonment pressure which in turn would materially increase
the ultimate recovery from a gas field, thereby further enhancing the economic
benefit from the installation of this novel application of existing technology.

Phase 1 of the JIP is scheduled for completion by the end of 2004, with further
engineering and development work leading to the manufacture and testing of a
prototype downhole in a producing gas well within the following two years.

Commenting on the JIP, Professor Gerry Musgrave, Chairman, said:

'The support from such eminent oil and gas companies vindicates Corac's
development to date of the downhole gas compression project and gives the Group
another product line to bring to the market using its core technologies. It is
the start of a major business development opportunity which is expected to have
significant international ramifications throughout the upstream natural gas
industry.'ENDS.

Although loss making at the moment it shouldnt be very long before this one turns the corner.

Outlook

The Company has a loyal, talented workforce dedicated to the innovation and
exploitation of the technology. Successful trials have demonstrated the
commercial performance in Corac's industrial air compressor and its seals. The
Board is striving to deliver the right manufacturing and sales licences which
will yield the best returns in the long term.

We are confident that a number of deals, which have been subject to recent
intensive negotiation, will be successfully concluded in the near term.

Short to medium term investment, and anyone interested should DYOR and please remember you are responsible for the timing of your buying and selling actions.

cheers GF.

perhaps IG are just at their internal limit, or even a screen error .... anyway, more than happy to see sp +10% though + a lot more would be better!

Maybe - I'd expect the offer to move up (probably to 27p) when cenkos catch up.

Am expecting this one to rise on expectation of the forthcoming trial in Italy soon, only question is when??? was factoring in the turn of the year, but of course it is so oversold on potential that it could rise for any number of reasons... Doesn't get the coverage on this board, but the sheer potential cant be ignored by the market for much longer... I dont think Baker Hughes would have gone to all the trouble of signing and paying for a joint marketing agreement if they thought they would only be installing the one string of units in Italy and not selling multiples of units in the near future... A successful trial and the way that gas is extracted will have been changed for good - Corac are already working on much larger units capable of handling much higher temperatures than the current (low risk) gas well in Italy - with the view that the machines will half (or less) the number of wells needed to drain a field, add the savings together with the massive increases of reserves that majors will be able to book and it wont take long for the names of Exxon and BP to be added to the list of names enquiring about becoming a JIP, dont forget the market for ESP's in oil wells is massive but shared between many suppliers - CRA's patended air bearing DGC has no competitor... 8years of R&D and you can buy them now at the business end for about the same as they were 4 years ago, trial in Q1 next year - best risk/reward on the market bar none... imo

No news since October, sp drifting down further is anything happening to make shareholders feel less like mushrooms?

Still slipping, no news is.......?

Halifax, chill man, its all going on in the background - if you need reminding, ask yourself why Baker hughes would have signed a joint marketing agreement with corac, on top of agreeing to adapt the power electronics from their ESP's to do the installations, if they thought they would only ever deploy the one string of machines in Italy... relax, 2009 will be the year of recognition...

BT hope you are right but surely CRA should manage their newsflow better presumably they are paying an agency to do this?

.

looks like down the plughole though have not read the grim news yet .... glad my holding was never large

This is the crucial bit:

"Trading update
Downhole Gas Compressor ('DGC')
In June 2008, the Company announced that ENI SpA ('ENI'), a Joint Industry Programme ('JIP') partner, had committed to the first field trial downhole gas compressor ('DGC') unit to be deployed in one of their gas wells in Italy. The Company was aiming for deployment of the DGC field trial unit in Q1 2009.

Corac has been working closely with contractors engaged by ENI. These specialist suppliers have highlighted the need for additional safety equipment which will be delivered by third parties. This, unfortunately, will increase lead times. Corac is modifying its control systems to facilitate this and the combined impact will be a delay in deployment from Q1 2009 to a target of Q4 2009. The Company will use the time for continued testing at Spadeadam in Cumbria to improve reliability and reduce deployment risk.

The other JIP partners Conoco Phillips and Repsol continue to be involved in this programme."

another share disaster..

Not surprised, really. This has been far too slow to be real and in the final analysis I don't think it offers anything that has been available before. However, many posters are very excited by the co announcements and it is this that has supported a high sp.
+Let's hope it returns, so no-one loses out.

Can anyone say what their cash-position is?

Estimated to be 2.5m at 31st Dec 08.
2517

Basicly this is now "dead money" till at least Qtr 4 2009 unless there is a bid.

So who is this Hoot then..?

Ok so i know ive been a bull at the wrong time in this company, but although i dont see any rush, i still expect things to happen way earlier than Q4 09, it was at 94p in July on expectation, and a year is a long time on the markets - no we wont see a sky high rating until its proven but a couple of IA orders in pipeline from Fu-sheng, new Jips that could sign at any time and of course possible further developments at any time possible from the current Jips all indicate very minimal downside now and plenty of upside - a market cap of 10m is chicken feed for whats on offer and nice to see the IA side starting to get a (small) foothold in the market as people have disregarded its potential... the story hasn't changed but the time scale has imo...

BT keep hoping at the moment "the pie in the sky" has moved further away.

good post from the other side by The Prophet this morning, seems the situation has been slightly blown up out of all proportion?


I have done further checks with the company since my initial brief talk with them on Tuesday.

-as ever, dyor, but this is the situation, which, imo, is very very far from the one some like to paint on here. In fact, the situation is pretty damn reasonable.


Cash.

There is no problem with cash. Corac have no need to raise funds in 2009, the plans call to have net cash at the end of 2009, and that is WITHOUT any further funds from the likes of new JIP members, further income from field trials or any other sources of income not curently contracted/planned.. To be absolutely clear here, they will end 2009 on a worst basis with sufficient cash to enable them to go into 2010 and raise at a time of their choosing.(ie 2010).
It is likely that the real position will be substantially better than this, as , for example, new JIP member(s) is a very good possibility and that would add 1m straight into the coffers.

DGC.

Some have asked, including myself, how could a situation arise where further equipment/modifications where needed? Could this have not be foreseen?

This is the situation, and as you will see, it was no-ones fault, least of all Coracs.

The operating systems for the DGC trial were all agreed with the main partners. Lets not forget we are talking about some of the biggest and best in the oil/gas industry in ENI, Halliburton and Baker Hughes. There is a precedent here, in the esp (electric submersible pumps) market, where down-hole pumping and equipment is used to improve extraction rates in the oil industry. Coracs DGC is the same, but for the gas industry. In the case of esp, there is a requirement for their to be two barriers between the esp and atmosphere. Therefore the DGC operating and safety systems were designed along the same lines. All the partners involved were satisfied with this. As part of the trial process, a plan had to be submitted to the Italian regulatory authorities. They took the view that as this was something that had not been done before, they would require four barriers to atmosphere. A discussion ensued , after all, lets not forget that ENI is something like 40% owned by the Italian Govt. The bottom line was that four barriers was required, so that is what would be done. The extra barriers require specialised valving. The lead time on this is around 24 weeks. Efforts were made to reduce this time, but it is a lead time of 24 weeks and that is the situation.

The trial was planned to take place in March, I dont think anyone would be surprised with a bit of slippage, given the complexity and that this is a first time for DGC, so things always take a little longer. The situation now is the valves should be available shortly after the mid-year, July, with a good chance of going ahead in Q3. The statement Corac put out with the Q4 timetable paints a worst case scenario.

So, as you can see, there is no problem with the DGC unit itself, no-one could have reasonably foreseen the situation and the current situation is one where we have a bit of a delay, but it is hardly the end of the world.

To repeat what I said the other day, ENI have recently witnessed the completed DGC machine running and are delighted with all aspects and performance of it.

The situation does not affect the Baker Hughes deal in any way, indeed Baker Hughes have been very active so far in introducing Corac to the right people in major oil and gas companies. A major initiative will be undertaken early next year, and includes things like a conference where Corac/baker Hughes will be presenting DGC to interested parties.

There is very strong interest from a number of major oil/gas companies about joining the JIP, the discussion is active and a positive outcome is expected.



Lastly, Industrial Air.

In the furore over Tuesdays release, it was very pleasing to see a further order from LMF for four machines. Whilst LMF does not have the same potential as , say, Fu Sheng, it does help on a number of fronts. Its additional revenue, it is a further validation of the technology, which is the same base technology as DGC btw, it gets machines out to a major global end-user. In short, it helps build value in Industrial Air.

The situation with Fu Sheng is that we now have two machines running 24 x 7 at end users.The machines are delivering the expected efficiencies, which is around 18% improvement in energy consumption, plus there are other advantages, such as smaller footprint, lower maintenance etc etc.Whilst the general global economic situation has affected some of Fu Shengs other development projects, it has not affected the one with Corac, because the machines basically pay for themselves in a year, the drivers are very very strong. Fu Sheng wish to see a number of running hours on the clock before going to the next stage, which is further orders. The machines had something like 1,000 hours running in November. 4,000 hours should be sufficient, which will be early next year, March or so. So it is reasonable to expect further orders from Fu Sheng in the first half of next year, and quite possible march/April time.



I hope that helps Corac holders.

The share price right now is, quite frankly, a joke.

The situation is that Corac, in conjunction with major global oil and gas companies are pressing ahead and will make DGC a reality. Success here is worth billions of pounds to the oil/gas companies.
You dont get the likes of Baker Hughes signing up with Corac and putting the resources they are into this project unless the opportunity is very substantial.

Tis interesting that a few companies are now delisting from AIM because they are so fed-up with the low rating of their sp.

ITIS Holdings was the latest to confirm this morning. I wonder how many others will do the same in the next few mnths. Apparently you can exchange your shares privately. It would be interesting if anyone has any experience of this.

FWIT I don't hold.

Exchanging shares privately does not create a market.