The AIM-quoted company says SGC Energia, which backs renewable energy ventures for leading Portuguese entrepreneur Joao Pereira Coutinho, will provide this funding to help demonstrate and establish commercial uses for Fischer-Tropsch in biomass-to-liquid, waste-to-liquid and coal-to-liquids synthetic fuel applications.

The joint development agreement between the two companies will include funding for a 190,000-gallons-a-year demonstration plant to be shipped to Güssing in Austria early next year.

For Oxford Catalysts, which lost a nearly trebled interim £3.7 million on turnover up thirty-fold to £3.5 million, backing from an arm of Coutinho’s SGC Group, with annual turnover of nearly £1 billion, is particularly welcome. The two companies have been working together since 2007.

Roy Lipski, Oxford Catalysts’ chief executive officer, says ‘successful demonstration at Gussing will be a significant step towards being ready to take commercial orders for full-scale plants’.