Arq, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARQ) (the "Company" or "Arq"), a producer of activated carbon and other environmentally efficient carbon products for use in purification and sustainable materials, today announced that it has successfully completed commissioning of its first Granular Activated Carbon ("GAC") production line at the Company's Red River Plant, marking a major milestone in Arq's ongoing business transformation.
Initial production of GAC at the Red River facility was successfully achieved in recent weeks. With this milestone successfully achieved, the facility has now completed its commissioning phase and formally commenced ramp-up. Arq's operations team is now focused on optimizing production processes to achieve targeted nameplate capacity. Management anticipates that the plant should reach its full nameplate capacity of 25 million pounds within the next six months.
With today's announcement, Arq confirms successful commercial-scale GAC production at Red River and reports first sales revenue from initial GAC shipments to customers for previously announced testing programs. As production increases, the Company will begin fulfilling its existing supply agreements while finalizing contract negotiations for the remaining production capacity.
"This is an exciting milestone for Arq, and I'm proud to celebrate this achievement with our entire team," said Bob Rasmus, Chief Executive Officer of Arq. "This success reflects the incredible skill, dedication and perseverance demonstrated by everyone involved, especially our operational team who have worked tirelessly over the last few months. We've successfully transformed a promising concept into a compelling reality that will drive economic and strategic value to our shareholders. With strong demand and constrained supply in the GAC market, we see significant growth opportunities from which Arq remains uniquely positioned to benefit."
Mr. Rasmus continued, "We look forward to ramping the facility, and our immediate focus will be on steadily increasing production to reach nameplate capacity, positioning us to fully capture the opportunity ahead. As we do this, we anticipate completing contract negotiations which will fully allocate Phase One of our GAC expansion capacity. Upon achieving these ramp-up and contracting milestones, we'll be well prepared to develop the next stage of our GAC expansion as previously outlined."
