Aurora Cannabis to Build ''Aurora Sun'', 1.2 Million Square Foot Facility in Medicine Hat, Alberta
BY Canada NewsWire
— 10:30 PM ET 04/16/2018
150,000+ kg Per Year, High-Technology, Ultra Efficient, Low-Cost Facility Designed and Engineered by Aurora Larssen Projects (ALPS)
TSX: ACB
EDMONTON, April 16, 2018 /CNW/ - Aurora Cannabis Inc. ("Aurora" or the "Company") today announced it is acquiring approximately 71 acres of land in Medicine Hat, Alberta, where the Company intends shortly to commence construction on a new high-technology hybrid greenhouse cannabis production facility. To this end, the Company has signed a memorandum of understanding with the City of Medicine Hat, concerning terms and a general understanding of potential transactions, including a prospective 10-year, 42 MW energy supply agreement.
The new facility, to be designed and engineered by the Company's wholly owned Aurora Larssen Projects Inc. division, will be named "Aurora Sun" in recognition of Medicine Hat's status as the sunniest city in Canada, with more than 2,500 hours of sunshine per year. At 1,200,000 square foot, or over 21 football fields, the footprint of Aurora Sun will be 50% larger than Aurora's Sky, a 100,000+ kg per year Health Canada licensed facility the Company is completing at Edmonton International Airport.
To date, Aurora has approximately 280,000 kg per year of funded capacity. With the addition of Aurora Sun, total capacity will increase to over 430,000 kg per year. In addition to the domestic medical cannabis market, in which the Company already services approximately 45,000 patients, the new facility is intended to serve both the pending legal Canadian adult consumer market, and the quickly expanding international market.
The global market is experiencing a massive excess of demand over supply for legal, regulated medical cannabis, with extremely rapid growth. This situation is expected to continue for a number of years, and only a small number of producers around the world have the experience in regulated cultivation, the production capacity and the access to capital to successfully exploit this opportunity. Aurora, currently exporting to Germany and Italy, with a combined population in excess of 140 million, intends to supply additional European medical cannabis markets now coming online, and will devote a significant proportion of its increasing production capacity to export the Company's high-quality cannabis products into these undersupplied high-margin markets.
Facility Characteristics
Like Aurora Sky, currently the world's most advanced cannabis production facility, and Aurora Nordic, soon to begin construction in Denmark, Aurora Sun will be a high-technology, highly automated facility designed to deliver massive capacity, high production
