Shares were issued at $1.00 in the IPO and opened trading at $1.10. They went as high as $1.15, but by close of business the shares – trading under the code ABJ – had dropped to $1.01. This morning they opened at $1.05.

The funds raised in the IPO will be mainly used to build a new production facility in Queensland and ramp up production at Australian Biodiesel’s existing Berkeley Vale production facility on the Central Coast of New South Wales.

The manufacturing plant currently produces 75% of its capacity of around 40 million litres of biodiesel per year. It is expected that this plant will be operating at 100% capacity by July 2006, according to ABG.

Some of the funds raised in the IPO ($9m) will be used to build a second, bigger biodiesel plant at Narangba near Brisbane, which will have a capacity of 160 megalitres per year.

The funds will also finance the $4.2 million acquisition of Scanline, the largest cooking oil aggregator in New South Wales, and the company's intellectual property program with Sydney University.

ABG has agreements with three fuel wholesalers and its commercial product, advanced biodiesel, is also being trialled by Sydney Ferries and several local councils.

Caltex is trial marketing the product in central NSW while other companies are blind-marketing the product, ABG said. Australian Biodiesel was established in 2001 and has been producing biodiesel from its Berkeley Vale plant since 2002. Its new Queensland facility is expected to come online in the second quarter of 2006.

Once both plants are running at full capacity, Australian Biodiesel will be one of Australia’s largest biodiesel producers.

The company has forecast revenues of $54.2 million and net profit of $8.17 million for the 2006 calendar year.