O₂Diesel Shifts to Amex

30 June 2004

O₂Diesel, an e-diesel provider, is shifting tomorrow to the American Stock Exchange from being an Over The Counter bulletin board stock. Upgrading its profile, in other words.

Alan Rae, President and CEO of O₂Diesel Corp., said, “Our move to the Amex is a significant step in the Company’s evolution from a development-stage company to one focused on the full commercialization of our clean-burning diesel fuel technology throughout the U.S., Brazil and other key global markets. As we move forward, our commercialization strategy will include leveraging key partnerships with industry leaders for marketing, distribution and manufacturing of our O₂Diesel™ product for use by centrally fueled vehicle fleets such as truck and bus fleet operators, as well as the U.S. military, construction equipment and railroads.

“Our listing on the Amex will help increase our visibility in the U.S. investment community, and we look forward to building broad awareness of the O₂Diesel investment story among fund managers and analysts as we begin to execute on our strategic goals.”

The move reflects the growing business awareness around ethanol as a fuel and as an additive.

E-diesel refers to a blend of standard #2 Diesel (petroleum-based) with up to 15% ethanol and up to 5% special additives. The special additives are necessary to overcome issues with solubility(ethanol has limited solubility in diesel), cetane number (standard ethanol has a cetane number of 8, diesel of 42-50), and lubricity issues. More on this from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory here. E-diesel has to be handled more like gasoline than standard diesel -- it has a lower flashpoint, for example.

But E-diesel offers significant benefits, particularly in reducing Particulate Matter (PM). Because ethanol is much more plentiful than biodiesel, E-diesel offers a more scalable way to reduce emissions and reduce petroleum usage.

O₂Diesel uses a 7.7% ethanol blend, with up to 1% proprietary additive and a cetane improver. Cetane is a measure of a fuel’s ignition delay -- the period between the start of injection and start of combustion of the fuel. Higher cetane fuels will have shorter ignition delay periods than lower cetane fuels, and shorter delay is better.

Further technical information on e-diesel: the E-diesel Consortium