"We plan to apply the IPO proceeds to immediately commercialising our technology, with an early focus on maritime infrastructure, shipping and oil and gas rig repair opportunities in Australia and Singapore," Neptune's Executive Director, Andrew Harrison, said today.

"The serious at-sea shipping incidents globally in the past 18 months are indicative of the potential market for our welding technology to be used by shipping and maritime structure owners as an accredited, safe and cost effective repair or preventative solution to metal fatigue," Harrison said.

Neptune's technology produces a "dry" weld underwater and in-situ to the same standards achievable through normal dry welding on land, significantly reducing the time and cost of underwater repairs to ships, oil and gas platforms and other marine structures.

The technology has already been successfully used in Australia on ships and on a hydro-electric project in the Philippines and has been approved by international class societies including the American Bureau of Shipping.

The welding method reduces the need to dry dock ships for some hull repairs, alleviates the time and cost of building special dry welding chambers around cracked hulls, and achieves certifiable standards comparable with dry weld and not able to be met by conventional underwater wet welding.

Neptune, which has 490 shareholders, will list with 13.5 million tradable ordinary 20 cent shares and 5.9 million 20 cent options, exercisable before 31 December, 2010.

The company has a total of more than 29 million ordinary shares on issue.