Alto Ingredients, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Aalto Ingredients, Inc. first quarter 2021 financial results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After this speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this time, you will need to press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. and if you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mariah Shilton. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Elaine, and thank you all for joining us today for the Alto Ingredients First Quarter 2021 Results Conference Call. On the call today are Mike Kandris, CEO, and Bryon McGregor, CFO. Mike will begin with a review of business highlights. Brian will provide a summary of the financial and operational results, and then Mike will return to discuss Alto Ingredients Outlook and open the call for questions. Alto Ingredients issued a press release after the market closed today, providing details of the company's quarterly results. The company also prepared a presentation for today's call that is available on the company's website at altoingredients.com. A telephone replay of today's call will be available through May 19th. the details of which are included in today's earnings press release. A webcast replay will also be available at Aalto Ingredients' website. Please note that the information in this call speaks only as of today, May 12th. You are advised that time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate at the time of any replay. Please refer to the company's Safe Harbor Statement on slide 2 of the presentation available online which states that some of the comments in this presentation constitute forward-looking statements and considerations that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The actual future results of ALTO Ingredients could differ materially from those statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include but are not limited to events, risks, and other factors previously and from time to time disclosed in ALTO Ingredients filings with the SEC. Except as required by applicable law, The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. In management's prepared remarks, non-GAAP measures will be referenced. Management uses these non-GAAP measures to monitor the financial performance of operations and believes these measures will assist investors in assessing the company's performance for the periods being reported. The company defines adjusted EBITDA as unaudited net income or loss attributed to ALTO's ingredients before interest expense provision or Benefit for Income Taxes, Asset Impairments, Loss on Distinguishment of Debt, Purchase Accounting Adjustments, Fair Value Adjustments, and Depreciation and Amortization Expenses. To support the company's review of non-GAAP information later in this call, the reconciling table was included in today's press release. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mike Kandrith, CEO. Mike?

Thank you, Mariah, and thank you everyone for joining us today. We had a solid first quarter to start the year as we sold 19 million gallons of specialty alcohol through a combination of contracted volumes, spot sales, and exports. It also was our fourth consecutive quarter of gross profit and positive adjusted EBITDA, reflecting the benefits of focusing on our strengths, selling specialty alcohols, and Essential Ingredients. This is a more sustainable and profitable business model than fuel-grade ethanol alone. We generated net income of $4.4 million and adjusted EBITDA of $13.6 million. These results represent an approximate $30 million improvement in net income year-over-year, a further testament to the benefit of our transformation efforts. We remain on track for our specialty alcohol contracted sales to contribute a minimum $60 million in gross profit for 2021, and we remain optimistic for adding additional contracted specialty alcohol volumes in 2022 and beyond, thereby improving utilization over time from our expanded production capacity and enhanced certifications. As we announced on April 28th, we have signed a definitive agreement with Seaboard Energy California to sell our fuel-grade ethanol production facility in Madera for a total consideration of $28.3 million. We expect the sale of this 40 million gallon per year facility to close in the second quarter of 2021, and most of the cash proceeds will be used to retire company debt. This will save approximately $700,000 per quarter in interest expense and an additional $400,000 per quarter in negative EVA-DA carrying costs for this idle facility. We are on track on our $18 million in announced capital improvement projects in 2021 that are expected to expand revenue and increase efficiencies and plant reliability. One example is a project underway that will increase the annual production capacity of our yeast facility by approximately 15%, and another example is a project to upgrade the feed dryers at our Pekin facility to produce even higher value feed in addition to improving overall plant efficiency and reliability. These two projects alone are scheduled to be completed and fully operational on or before the end of Q3 and are expected to contribute approximately $5 million annually in EBITDA, a payback in less than two years. Turning to a topic that is top of mind for many of our investors, the role carbon capture and sequestration can have on the decarbonization of our environment. As we discussed on our last call, Alto will be an active player in the carbon capture space as our Pekin campus sits atop the Mount Simon Sandstone Formation, considered to be one of the most significant potential carbon storage resources in the United States. We are actively engaged in discussions to develop a carbon capture and sequestration program at the Pekin site, which generates over 600,000 Thank you for joining us today. While it is too early to provide specific details, we believe the economics are compelling. We will provide greater details on these projects over the coming months once contractual arrangements are finalized. With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Bryon for a discussion of our financials. Bryon? Thank you, Mike.