In its IPO, sold 53.34 million shares at $1.50 per share and the proceeds will be used build biodiesel plants in Singapore and Houston.

Managing director Dick Selwood said the company’s expanded shareholder base was evenly split between retail and domestic and offshore institutional investors.

“We’ll be pressing ahead with our plans to become one of the world’s biggest biodiesel producers with production facilities servicing every major market,” he said.

The Perth-based company, chaired by former Australian opposition leader John Hewson, is in the process of commissioning a 147 million litre Darwin biorefinery.

Constructed in Perth, then shipped to Darwin, the modular refinery was built in partnership with Babcock & Brown Environmental Investments. The two companies have plans to build an even bigger plant at Port Botany, Sydney. Government approval is expected within the next couple of months.

Production from Natural Fuel's Darwin plant is expected in January. The $78 million refinery will produce biodiesel from palm oil, which will be blended with mineral diesel and distributed in the Northern Territory, Queensland and northern Western Australia.

The first phase of Natural Fuel's $130 million Singapore-based plant is scheduled to come onstream by the end of next year and is expected to produce about 600,000 tonnes of biodiesel.

A second and third phase would raise output to 1.8 million tonnes per year.

Selwood has preciously said Natural Fuel was uniquely positioned to be a global producer of biodiesel, with strategically located assets in Australia and Singapore.

It also has operations planned for the United States and eventually Europe. It is currently considering developing additional facilities in Sydney, Rotterdam or Antwerp.

Selwood said the IPO was the company’s next major step in an international roll-out that aims to propel Natural Fuel to the forefront of the biodiesel industry.

Natural Fuels is forecasting earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $129.4 million and net profit of $119 million in 2007-08.

The company focuses on the production of biodiesel in Australia, Singapore and the US and supplies biofuels locally, regionally and globally.

Natural Fuels has previously said the float would be the biggest biodiesel IPO in Australia to date. It plans to list on the ASX on Thursday under the ticker NFL.