Rice Acquisition Corp. II (NYSE: RONI) today announced an additional $50 million to its PIPE in connection to its business combination with clean natural gas producer NET Power, bringing the total committed capital to approximately $560 million.
The PIPE commitment comes from SK Group, which also announced its intent to establish a NET Power-SK joint venture to pursue the origination and development of utility-scale NET Power plants across Asia.
As part of the joint venture, SK will utilize NET Power’s patented oxy-combustion supercritical CO2 power cycle with SK’s regional footprint and project development expertise to deploy clean, reliable, low-cost power across key markets. The parties expect to each own a 50% stake in the common equity of the joint venture, which is subject to negotiation and execution of definitive documentation.
Following today’s new commitments, Rice II now expects the business combination to provide NET Power with $895 million in gross proceeds. But, the company anticipates that it will only need $200 million from the business combination and the PIPE to fully fund corporate operations through commercialization of SN1, which is expected to be operational in 2026. The anticipated net proceeds above $200 million are expected to support SN1 capital needs and future commercial origination efforts.
Rice II originally brought about $335 million into the deal from its current trust and supplemented this with a $100 million investment by the Rice family and affiliates and $135 million from OXY Investment and others all at $10 per share. The SPAC then announced in April that it had secured an additional $275 million in PIPE financing as Occidental (NYSE: OXY) increased its commitment by $250 million, bringing its total investment to $350 million, and the Rice family committed an additional $25 million to the PIPE, bringing their total investment to $125 million.
Assuming no redemptions, the combined company is expected to have a market capitalization in excess of $2 billion.
The SPAC announced its $1.5 billion business combination with NET Power in December 2022. Durham, North Carolina-based NET Power has developed technology to create natural gas-fired plants that capture nearly 100% of their potential CO2 emissions.
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