Comstock Inc.

Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to Comstock's fourth quarter stakeholder perception analysis report. I'm Trevor Brucato with RBMG, Comstock's investor relations firm. From the time of the company's Q3 earnings call on October 26th, 2023, to the end of Q4 being December 31st, my team has collected feedback from Comstock stakeholders in an investor sentiment survey covering the strengths, weaknesses, and milestones. Today, I am pleased to have with me again, Comstock's Executive Chairman and CEO, Corrado De Gasparis, who will be addressing the results from the report, which is now live on the company's website at comstock.inc slash investors. For those new to the story, Comstock is an innovator of decarbonizing technologies that enable the energy transition by efficiently converting underutilized natural resources into renewable energy products through three dedicated businesses, Comstock Fuels, which converts woody biomass into carbon-neutral renewable fuels, Comstock Metals, which recycles e-waste and critical metals using end-of-life solar panels as its initial feedstock, and Comstock Mining, which holds significant gold and silver resources in a historic, world-class, and target-rich district in Nevada and plans to dramatically expand its precious metal resources and reserves through its investment in GENMAT, which is the physics-based generative AI-enabled mineral discovery technology. Comstock Inc. is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LODE, trading at about 56 cents as of yesterday, January 2nd, and has an average daily volume of about a half a million shares with a $65 million U.S. market cap. Before digging into the report with Corrado, please note this discussion may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may be out of the control of the company and should not be construed as a recommendation or a solicitation to buy or sell any security. For Comstock's full disclaimer, please visit their website at comstock.inc. Lastly, RBMG is not a registered investment advisor or broker-dealer. For more information on us, please visit rbmilestone.com. Now with housekeeping behind us, Corrado, welcome. Happy New Year.

Thanks, Trevor. Happy New Year to you. And thanks again to you and the RBMG team for compiling the results throughout the holiday season for our quarterly investor sentiment report. We appreciate it very well.

You are very welcome, Corrado. Just sharing my screen here of the reports. We can kick off. As you can see, there were a total of 101 stakeholders involved. who participated in the Q4 survey, including over 90%, which you can see here, current shareholders, and diversified types of stakeholders, including individual retail investors, accredited investors, brokers, among others. Let's first discuss Comstock's perceived weaknesses and how stakeholders' sentiment has changed from Q3 to Q4.

Thanks, Trevor. I mean, one of the most productive aspects, I believe, of the perception report is focusing on the perceived weaknesses. So we were pleased during the fourth quarter when we announced our first revenue orders for solar panels. We are effectively entering into revenue agreements with strong suppliers of end-of-life solar panels across the whole of the southwest region of the United States. And we already have enough for our initial facility and are already looking forward to larger scale, longer term arrangements. Separately, we also received over $2 million in revenue in our mining business. Although we understand that the biggest achievement and what people were most interested in hearing about was closing on our first commercial fuels agreement with our world-class technology partner, Renfuel, and one of the leading biorefiners in Europe. These are exactly the type of deals that we are crafting throughout the Americas as well. So we have started to address both weakness of revenue and the question on commercial adoption of our technologies. And this will continue, if not quicken, in and throughout 2024. Thanks, Corrado.

Now let's chat about the perceived strengths Let me zoom out a little bit here. All right. So Comstock's disruptive portfolio of technologies remains a top strength while we're starting to see an increase in positive sentiment around your mining assets and the team.

Yeah, excellent. I mean, it's gratifying to see the recognition of our technology portfolio. as we view it as not only disruptive, but transformative, especially when you consider the dramatic impact it's about to have on the energy markets, and not even to mention GenMAT's disruptive AI, which is gonna be unlocking value across industries, including our mining and our metals industries, and frankly, many, many other material applications. When we think about the mining assets, we own and control a historic world-class mining district. There's not very many districts in the world that actually produced over 8 million ounces of gold, let alone almost 200 million ounces of silver. What we in GEMIN are working on now is going to redefine industry standards for mining from a number of different perspectives, and not just technologically, With gold breaking through 2000 and now seemingly consolidating support at that level with tremendous headroom to rise, we're not really that surprised by the increasing interest in the gold and silver resources. And we remain incredibly bullish on gold. The other point I guess to highlight, and I guess it's not surprising to see partnerships continuing as a strength, although we know that it's declining in that context. We haven't really started emphasizing our partnerships until late in 2023. Fundamentally, we operate systemically with speed and acceleration being the critical tenants of our goal. which is to accelerate the commercialization of decarbonizing technologies. It stands to reason that partnerships are and will continue to be an extension of our system. And the way we think of that is any time that we can partner with an enterprise, partner with a technology, partner with the university, partner with the jurisdiction, and it accelerates the rate that we generate units of the goal, we're keen to do that. I feel like the most recently announced partnership, like Renfuel and Preem, a leading European biorefiner in Europe, or previously when we announced Xylone, Marathon, and Topso in our U.S. Department of Energy grant, Or not yet announced, but just thinking about some of the leaders in the AI industry that Gen Mat is working on and collaborating with. or the leaders even in the energy space and the solar energy generation space that Comstock Metals is working on collaborating with. I think those achievements, those continued conversations, those continued transactions, agreements, supply chains, partnerships will strengthen our system of course, but also our investors recognition of what we believe is going to be a continuously growing differentiator. It's in our systemic DNA.

And Corrado, that speaks to the team behind you. You're, of course, overlooking all the business units here, but it's not a one-man shop. And I think that based on the Q3 results, experienced operating teams with past success bringing technologies to market was the lowest trending strength in Q3 and management and board was, you know, almost second to that. Now you're seeing this a little higher on the trending scale here. So it does speak to, you know, one, you know, how we are portraying the team and presentations and webinars and so on and the press releases. But there's obviously some recognition from the stakeholders. So good to see on that front.

I appreciate you saying that. I just would add that, you know, you can have a great strategy You can have remarkably disruptive technologies. You can even have a good scheduled plan. But unless the teams are executing on those objectives, we really don't have anything. So it is gratifying to hear that, and I thank you for highlighting it.

On to the milestones here. Zoom in a little bit. So your stakeholders remain most interested in CompSoc unlocking value for its fuels business. Your announcement last week was very timely and hitting your milestone on time as indicated. So can you speak to that a little bit?

Yeah, thanks for saying that. I mean, the Renfield Cream JV is really a watershed event for us. It already had all the logistical and supply chain aspects of what we were already collaborating on and constructing in the Americas. So in many ways, Europe was a natural progression for us. Craft lignin alone, which is the waste from the pulp and paper mills, can provide the feedstocks to produce billions of gallons of biofuels per year. So it's a tremendous source of fuels, tremendous source of feedstock for fuel. But what was truly gratifying was how quickly it accelerated and the discussions with Renfuel accelerated. When the partners better understood the impact of biolium and how it so dramatically expands the feedstock and the economics above and beyond the numbers that I just mentioned. Ultimately, the existing partners, engineering, site selection, and approvals of that JV that we are now stepping right into could accelerate our commercial production plans of bio intermediaries by more than a year.

Prada, there was also an increased level of interest in your mining business and side investment assets. Can you talk to that a little bit?

Yeah, I mean, regarding the investment assets, we're just seeing very significant and tangible increases in interest, especially in our properties in Silver Springs, Nevada, where actual transactions by others and specific interests and inquiries and letters of interest for other Silver Springs properties has absolutely empirically, certifiably increased dramatically. This increases our expectation for the sales of our existing properties to about $40 million in terms of what people are willing to pay in terms of dollars per square foot. And none of that includes the potential sale of our green line shares, which would only add to that total.

To that point, it's also worthwhile mentioning that Comstock has about $218 million in tax loss carry forward, which should be quite helpful as the company ramps up revenues across its businesses and the anticipated sale of these side investment assets. And Corrado, I think it would be also worthwhile mentioning the bottom option here, which is the pilot plan permits and launch of initial production for metals. If you can just reiterate the current status on that and why this should be perhaps higher in your opinion.

Absolutely. The metals facility is preparing for readiness. Equipment has arrived. Final pieces of equipment are arriving as we speak, literally. The air quality permit is due to finish public comment this week, literally January 5th, and it would be published soon, if not hopefully immediately thereafter. And then we're just waiting for the one last solid waste permit, which we believe continues on track. So that all sets up for being permitted in January, commissioning in February, being up and running by the end of March. It's what we've been speaking all along about first quarter operationalizing. The announcement in December that we started getting contracts, I can't tell you how impactful that was to us internally. you know, having everything in place, having the system deployed, getting the permits lined up and crossing the finish line, obviously all prerequisites. But once you start engaging in cash revenue, producing contracts that, um, that are, you know, at or above what we were expecting, um, was really the last piece as far as, um, you know, the work that we had laid out for us this year. So it was timely. It's been on schedule, and it's incredibly exciting what's about to happen in this space. The amount of solar panels that are coming out of the market today is really significant. But the amount that's projected annually just over the next two, three, four, five, six, seven, and 20 years is staggering. So we're very, very excited about having positioned ourselves as leaders, you know, in this space. And frankly, leaders meaning we feel like we were ahead of the curve with these materials and we're excited to get going.

Thanks, Corrado. And any final comments you'd like to end off with?

No, I'd just like to say thank you and the whole RBMG team again for this quantitative approach. I mean, it's extremely helpful to us internally and I hope that our shareholders and stakeholders really feel the same. You know, that our shareholder base is growing and I think this is also a wonderful way for them not only to be introduced to the company, but to be introduced to how other people are perceiving the company And I'd certainly like to personally thank the stakeholders who participated in the survey. We really do look forward to hearing from more of you following our 2023 annual earnings call and upload 24, which are combined and planned to be just about the end of February. And then after that, sharing the Q1 perception analysis report in April.

Well, thank you, Corrado. And to all Comstock followers, we do look forward to keeping you posted on the company's upcoming news, investor events, sentiment reports throughout what we all anticipate will be an active and exciting 2024. If you do have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us at ir.comstockinc.com or at the bottom of the report, you'll notice a scheduling module. Feel free to schedule a call with us if you have any questions or comments. Thanks again, and Happy New Year to you all.

Outstanding. Happy New Year to everyone. Thank you.