Tribute ‘puzzled’ over Tocardo’s bankruptcy case

 
Canadian company Tribute Resources has informed of an ‘unclear status’ of its 46.5% share ownership in tidal energy company Tocardo which entered into bankruptcy proceedings in the Netherlands earlier in 2018.

Tribute said it made inquires without response, leaving the company unclear to both the share ownership status, and the process which will be undertaken for the bankruptcy proceedings.

As reported earlier, Tribute and Tocardo failed to reach final share swap agreement in January 2018 under which Tocardo was to become fully-owned subsidiary of Tribute.

After the share swap deal sunk, Tocardo filed for bankruptcy, and received an approval from Dutch authorities for the ‘automatic stay’ – a legal provision that enables the debtor to temporarily prevent creditors from collecting amounts owed.

Beforehand, Tribute said that it will continue to hold the shares in Tocardo, with the possibility that the Dutch developer could be chosen as the turbine supplier for the Minas Tidal Project under an engineer, procure, construct (EPC) arrangement.

The short-term objective of the re-organized corporation was planned to be a first deployment of Tocardo’s Universal Foundation System (UFS) equipped with 5 turbines in late 2018.

However, in a statement made on March 28, 2018, Tribute said it had selected an alternate technology for Nova Scotian tidal projects and that it is moving forward with the project development activities, without offering any additional details.

In the meantime, Tocardo managed to secure a funding rescue package through the investment from a fund owned by Noord-Holland province, which was followed by another deal with DELTA power utility company which agreed to buy the clean electricity generated by Tocardo’s 1.2MW tidal energy array located in the in the province of Zeeland.

Noteworthy is the fact that the Minas Tidal Project has a 15-year power purchase contract with Nova Scotia Power Inc. to sell tidal power at a price of $0.53 per kilowatt hour.