Bad weather hits Augean

The Wetherby-based group said the outlook for the new year had remained challenging since its December 31 year-end but it was anticipating a pick-up in trading as the economy improves.

Augean, which is keen to enter lucrative new markets such as waste from nuclear decommissioning and the oil, gas and drilling markets, last year raised 13m through a share placing.

Today the firm said it had been hit by the poor weather in the first two weeks of the year.

This year, within the treatment division, it has implemented a new business business model at the Cannock process facility and resolved its "development issues", it said.

In a statement Augean said: "We anticipate not carrying any further cost impacts through into the New Year.

"The key asset development projects have now been completed with a challenging commissioning timetable for the Indirect Thermal Desorption (ITD) facility.

"The commissioning is now complete and the operation has moved to 24 hour production. We therefore enter 2010 with the facility fully online and our sales teams working hard to further develop the client base."

Good progress has been made on the gasification project, it added.

The landfill division continues to suffer from the market conditions and was hit by the poor weather in December.

Land remediation and construction is showing little sign of recovery in the short term, it added, with a full year hazardous landfill volume of 196,000 tonnes compared to 324,000 tonnes in 2008.

Augean added: "We have continued our policy of public engagement on the low level waste application.

"Ongoing communications actions include a planned site visit and presentation to the planning committee and continued engagement with the local communities.

"The timing of any decision is at this stage uncertain with a General Election due, although your Board is doing all it can to ensure a positive outcome for shareholders. It is the Board's expectation that a further update will be provided in March 2010."

Discussions with HMRC about the refund of landfill tax are "now well advanced" with a "positive update" expected when the annual results are published in March.