Late yesterday, AlumiFuel Power Corporation announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, AlumiFuel Power, Inc., had completed technical and field training with an undisclosed military customer on its Portable Balloon Inflation System, “PBIS-1000.”
AlumiFuel anticipates that this training is the beginning of additional orders for their system as it gains recognition in the $200 million per year weather balloon industry. Potential customers include not only the military, but also civil government meteorological users across the world. To assist in the marketing of its product, AlumiFuel has partnered with Kaymont Consolidated of Long Island, New York. Kaymont is the world’s largest distributor of weather balloons and believe the PBIS-1000 can become the field standard and product of choice within the industry.
API’s President and CEO, Mr. David Cade, stated, “We are extremely gratified that our unique PBIS-1000/AlumiFuel cartridge system has generated such widespread interest. Our partner, Kaymont, has been contacted by many other potential customers around the world desirous of procuring the system, and is in the process of arranging demonstrations. The ease of launching weather balloons with the PBIS-1000 will serve to expand the market into remote locations which cannot be served by present hydrogen generation methods.”
In April of this year, AlumiFuel and Kaymont delivered three of the PBIS-1000 portable hydrogen generators to the military customer which were followed in May by the filling of a purchase order for AlumiFuel cartridges to fuel the PBIS -1000 systems. The PBIS-1000 uses two 32 oz. cartridges packed with customized AlumiFuel powder which is then infused with water to generate 1,000 liters of hydrogen in 20 minutes to launch a 5-foot weather balloon. This initial training phase was conducted at the customer’s training facility and consisted of 8 separate balloon launches (using 16 cartridges), all successful as the system and cartridges performed flawlessly.
Following the training launches, the customer requested that several additional features be incorporated into the PBIS-1000 and has earmarked funds for completing the requested modifications and for purchasing additional PBIS-1000 units as soon as the modifications can be incorporated, which is expected to be within 60 days. In addition, potential customers from another military organization, and from a meteorological service, attended the training sessions and expressed keen interest in purchasing the unit. The meteorological representative revealed that the use of the PBIS-1000 and AlumiFuel cartridges for the launching of two weather balloons daily from each of its sites would be only one-third the cost of hydrogen K-Cylinders delivered to various launching sites. This would result in a savings of over $120,000 per site over a one year period. For AlumiFuel, revenues would be perpetually generated once the PBIS-1000 system is purchased as the fuel cells are continuously required to provide the lift fuel for the balloons.
The cartridges are manufactured to AlumiFuel Power (based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) specifications by ActionPak, Inc. of Bristol, Pennsylvania. API’s packaging is then delivered to the customer using packaging and labeling specifically developed for API’s cartridges according to Department of Transportation specifications.
More information about AlumiFuel can found on the Company’s website at www.alumifuelpowerinc.com.
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