TAMPA, Fla., March 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- MagneGas Corporation ("MagneGas" or the "Company") (NASDAQ: MNGA), a technology company that counts among its inventions a patented process that converts liquid waste into MagneGas2® fuel, today announced financial results and provided a business update for the year ended December 31, 2015.
2015 Year End Financial Highlights
- Revenue for 2015 increased 138% to $2.4 million compared to $1.0 million for 2014;
- Gross margin for 2015 improved 521 basis points to 39% compared to 34% 2014;
- The Company had an ending cash balance of $5,319,869 on December 31, 2015.
Ermanno Santilli, Chief Executive Officer of MagneGas stated, "Revenue for the year ended December 31, 2015 more than doubled to $2.4 million versus the same period last year. We have experienced a rapid increase in new customers and distributors due to the superiority of our MagneGas2® fuel, with proven faster cutting speed and smaller heat affected zone, demonstrated safety attributes and the eco-friendly attributes. It has now been a full year since the acquisition of ESSI and we continue to see top line growth, validating our strategy of acquiring regional distributors. In addition, we recently sold a 100kw Plasma-Arc Gasification system for $775,000 and will receive recurring, high-margin royalty payments that equate to approximately 6% of gross sales.
This represents our first domestic equipment sale in the in the United States and we look forward to additional sales, which will allow us to scale rapidly. This equipment sale also allows us to cost-effectively expand into Louisiana, Texas and the Gulf Coast Region. Internationally, we signed an MOU with Masada Waste Management Company, a major waste collection and management company based in the Republic of Sierra Leone to import fuel and equipment.
This is a strategic collaboration aimed to expand MagneGas' technology in West Africa. Through this collaboration, MagneGas will work with Masada to try to provide a sustainable solution to the nation's sanitation, waste management, health and safety challenges."
"In December, we announced that our fuel was selected to be part of a $100 millionNASA project for the Kennedy Space Center by S&R Enterprises LLC, a lead sub-contractor. This contract will last approximately two years and our fuel will be used for the metal cutting portion of the project, which is anticipated to be significant.
Just last month, we announced that our joint venture partner, Suwannee Ironworks, Inc. is now the second sub-contractor at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to use MagneGas2® as their fuel of choice. We are pleased to have two sub-contractors now using MagneGas as their fuel of choice. The Kennedy Space Center is a great addition to our military, fire and rescue, and other marquis corporate customers, and opens up new opportunities in aerospace."
"In January, we announced that two major utilities expanded the use of MagneGas into multiple facilities. These marquis energy customers selected our fuel above all other cutting fuels on the market. At the end of January, we announced that a major international bridge builder, Condotte America, Inc., selected MagneGas2® fuel as its fuel of choice for metal cutting.
Condotte conducted extensive testing of MagneGas2® under various conditions and, since placing their initial orders, have indicated their intention to switch all metal cutting operations to MagneGas2®."
"To accommodate the growing demand for MagneGas2®, we are purchasing 2,000 additional fuel cylinders. In addition, ESSI, the Company's wholly owned gas distribution company, has put an additional 400 cylinders into service to help accommodate ancillary gas demand. We look forward to seeing the impact of these new cylinders on revenue in the coming months as we continue to expand nationwide. As we move into our new headquarters, we will be able to bring our third unit on-line to further increase our production capacity."
"At the end of last year, we announced that we have advanced the testing of our fuel for co-combustion. Once again, we achieved significant reductions of certain key coal flue gas emissions including CO2 with a dramatic increase in heat without a corresponding increase in carbon footprint.
We have also filed provisional patents related to proprietary characteristics of the new MagneGas® fuel, as part of our on-going development of a co-combustion technology to substantially reduce coal emissions and improve coal burning efficiency. We are working towards obtaining independent validation of these results from a leading coal technology research center that is associated with one of the nation's largest utilities. We anticipate this validation will be received in mid-2016.
The renewable energy landscape has become much more favorable for this project with the Paris Climate Agreement reached at the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP21). This historic agreement was signed by 186 countries and is the beginning of a worldwide and legally binding effort to reduce emissions by embracing, funding and monitoring renewable technology's impact on carbon emissions.
We believe the COP21 agreement is the start of a more robust market for renewable technologies such as our co-combustion solution and we look forward to continued advancements throughout 2016."
2015 Year End Financial Results
Revenues for the year ended December 31, 2015 were $2.4 million as compared to $1.0 million for the same period last year. Revenue from the industrial gas segment was $2.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2015 as compared to $875,373 for the same period last year. This was primarily due to an increase in MagneGas® fuel sales and a full year of revenue received from the acquisition of ESSI, Inc.
Gross margins increased to 39% from 34% for the year ended December 31, 2015 versus December 31, 2014. This was primarily due to reduced product costs associated with the vendor agreements through ESSI, Inc.
General operating expenses increased $3.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2015 to $7.0 million from $4.0 million for the same period last year. The additional expenses were primarily due to the operating expenses associated with the ESSI, Inc. acquisition as well as additional regulatory and other expenses related to the incident on April 16th