Kraken Awarded $0.6 Million Contract for Subsea Battery Solution for Military Customer
6:00 AM ET 4/24/19 | GlobeNewswire
Kraken Awarded $0.6 Million Contract for Subsea Battery Solution for Military Customer
Recent Warrant Exercise Adds $0.9 Million to Cash
ST. JOHN'S, Newfoundland, April 24, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX-V: PNG) (OTCQB: KRKNF) ("Kraken" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce that its wholly owned subsidiary, Kraken Robotic Systems Inc., has been awarded a contract for approximately $600,000 by a military customer to provide a high capacity battery solution for an underwater robotics application. For confidentiality reasons, the customer name will not be disclosed. Product delivery is anticipated in Q2, 2019.
In addition, Kraken is pleased to announce that since the beginning of February, the Company has received approximately $935,000 from the exercise of warrants. These represent the remaining unexercised warrants that were part of a total of 5,903,330 warrants issued in connection with the Company's private placement of units in April 2017. The warrants expired on April 10, 2019 and had an exercise price of $0.30. All of these warrants have now been exercised.
CEO Comments
Karl Kenny, Kraken's President & CEO said, "We are finding that our military customers appreciate Kraken's ability to rapidly deliver advanced subsea power solutions for new and existing underwater vehicles at honest pricing. We see a viable market in replacing OEM batteries, which have reached the end of their useful life, with our next generation SeaPower(TM) batteries that provide significantly increased capacity at a lower cost. Increased capacity directly correlates to increased mission duration, which is paramount, especially to deep-sea rated vehicles. Most batteries in today's underwater vehicles were designed over 10 years ago and are larger and heavier than modern day technology. Kraken has leveraged the rapid growth of the global electric vehicle market to bring safe, efficient, and affordable subsea power solutions to the maritime industry."
About Kraken's SeaPower(TM) Batteries
Kraken's batteries are pressure-tolerant systems in which the individual components are embedded in flexible polymers. The assemblies are cast with a proprietary vacuum technology enabling the components to work in a deep-sea environment. In deep water, undersea systems are exposed to extremely high pressures. Conventional systems with components housed in pressure chambers are typically large, heavy and expensive for any depths past a few hundred metres due to the requirements of strength, seal tightness, and corrosion resistance.
Kraken Power GmbH has developed an alternative to traditional pressure housings with its own pressure-tolerant technology. Pressure-tolerant systems work in a manner similar to pressure-compensated systems in which the components are exposed to hydrostatic pressure. However, the compensation liquid is replaced by incompressible elastomers such as silicone or polyurethane. As a result, the volume compensation requirement by liquid is no longer necessary, i.e. an oil compensator is no longer required. A proprietary vacuum technique enables the encapsulating polymers to be used at depths to 6000 metres.
Pressure-tolerant systems have a lower specific weight and a smaller volume in comparison to pressure or oil-compensated systems. They are corrosion resistant, require less maintenance and are thus cheaper to maintain.
Kraken Power GmbH has been working with this technology for many years, and through its acquired know-how, can now offer a variety of pressure-tolerant products and solutions for deep-sea applications and vehicles.
