For anyone who doesn't know what really happened w
Post# of 43064
In 2009, John Bordynuik purchased controlling interest in the shell stock, which was ultimately renamed plastic2oil or PTOI, for $80,000. Mr. Bordynuik claimed to have stumbled across a decades-old recipe for a catalyst which he said allowed him to turn waste plastic into crude oil and diesel. He claimed he found the recipe on an old tape drive but that the catalyst wasn't worthwhile decades ago because oil was cheap, but with higher oil prices today he claimed it was extremely valuable.
Mr. Bordynuik then went on to say he tested the process and catalyst and it worked remarkably. He said he scaled the process up to one-ton and it worked. He purchased a commercial processor from Donghe, tested the process and said the $80,000 commercial processor could process 20 tons of plastic per day to make 115 barrels of crude per day. In late 2009 he told investors he was planning for 2,500 sites in the "next few years."
Mr. Bordynuik then announced in late 2010 that he commenced full commercial production of the commercial processor. He stuck to that story like glue. He stuck to his claims like glue. Couple that with a low number of shares in the hands of retail investors and that's why PTOI shot up to a high of $7/share.
Under the structure of that fake story, Mr. Bordynuik did PIPE after PIPE offerings of shares and pulled in millions and millions of dollars which he used, in part, to pay himself a generous salary. As soon as he was legally able to do so, he dumped shares onto the heads of investors.
A year and a half after the fake full commercial production story, he even reiterated in the 2011 10-K:
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Feedstock
Our P2O process primarily uses post-commercial and industrial waste plastic that might otherwise be sent to a landfill by the commercial and industrial producers of such waste plastic. This can be costly due to the large volume of plastic waste that is generated by these businesses. As such, our business model is premised on our ability to accept waste plastics from such sources at no cost. We believe that our ability to accept unwashed, mixed waste plastics and metals is a significant advantage of our P2O process compared to similar operations in our industry.
We receive free waste plastic for our Plastic2Oil processor(s) from Chrysler, General Motors, major food packagers, dairy companies, agricultural plastics, and many other sources. We are recycling thousands of gas tanks, bales of plastic film and many other free plastics that are usually sent to landfill. We do not pay for any plastic. None of the plastic that we have received to date at the P2O factory has required sorting. We continue to receive large supplies of plastic feedstock at both our Niagara Falls, NY and Thorold, Ontario facilities. We also retain a significant backlog of feedstock.
Fuel Products
The P2O process makes both light and heavy fuel products which are; specifically naphtha, Fuel Oil No 2 and Fuel Oil No 6, as defined by ASTM International. Our process also generates by-products of an off-gas similar to natural gas and a carbon residue known as petcoke.
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PTOI stuck steadfast to its fraudulent claims.
Years later the "free feedstock" gave way to paying for feedstock, motor oil ("heat transfer fluid" was added so the processor could work, a supposedly much improved "flagship" processor two iterations later sits idle and, after switching to processor sales two years ago, not a single processor has been sold...although an LLC called EcoNavigation LLC did step forward and promise to buy six processors, pending the results of a pilot run. Then when the pilot run didn't happen during the time frame, EcoNav shifted its own business plan to become a selling agent of PTOI's and found two additional *secret* potential customers willing to buy an additional 27 processors.
So what happened since the time when processor #1, which cost $80,000 and could, per the numbers, clear $10,000 per day?? Nobody knows. PTOI isn't talking. PTOI even stays silent about what goes into the processor and what comes out.
What should be obvious is that the low initial shares in the hands of retail staring in 2009 investors coupled with the grandiose, however fake, story...is why the stock initially hit $7. Now years of "bad luck" in operations and other company-sponsored delays certainly can explain why the stock has been sinking over the years. Most investors have figured out that something isn't right with PTOI and that's why half a billion in market cap evaporated, leaving the true believers who still hold the stock scrambling for any alternate explanation for why the stock took a 99% hit over years. Now the low number of shares in the hands of retail has shifted and retail is flush with PTOI shares held by patient, trusting investors.
What's worse is that PTOI's story isn't unique in penny stocks. The story plays out over and over in scam after scam. PTOI is a little unique in that Mr. Bordynuik was so careless in weaving grand fictional tales that he was busted for securities fraud with the media credits...but it was also his grand fictional tales which got the stock up in the first place.
...and of course no long will refute any of this...but they will try to attack my credibility because they don't like what I say.