Waste management firm Sen Yue eyes smelting business with S$4m plant

CATALIST-LISTED Sen Yue is planning to set up a smelting facility in Singapore that will cost some S$4 million to expand the group's waste management and processing capabilities, it said in a bourse filing on Thursday morning.

The smelting process will use a high-pressure, high-heat technique to extract and recover metal and materials from waste materials and metal scraps.

This will expand Sen Yue's waste management and processing capabilities to a wider range of metals, such as cobalt and nickel, in addition to lithium. Its current electronic-waste management solutions in Singapore use proprietary technology to recycle lithium-ion batteries.

"By extracting metals and materials with higher purity, the group will be able to sell and export these recovered resources as raw materials, instead of waste, which in turn command higher selling prices," Sen Yue said on Thursday.

The project is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2020.

It will be built at the group's premises at 3 Jalan Pesawat.

The total estimated cost of S$4 million will be funded using the group's internal resources and working capital.

The project is not expected to have a material impact on the consolidated net tangible assets or earnings per share of the group for the current financial year ending Sept 30.

"Our new smelting facility will be a major step towards our environmentally friendly strategy, where materials are used in a closed-loop system, with little or no waste ending up in landfills," said Koh Mia Seng, executive chairman of Sen Yue.

Sen Yue said it had in 2016 obtained shareholders' approval to diversify into the waste management business. This includes waste management solutions; the collection, transport, handling, treatment, management and disposal of commercial, hazardous, electronic waste and metal scraps; the recycling and trading of metal scraps and electronic waste; and materials recovery.

Shares of Sen Yue had surged 21.21 per cent on Wednesday to close at S$0.04, up 0.7 cent.

About 29.5 million shares of Sen Yue changed hands during the day, making it one of the most heavily traded securities on the Singapore bourse.