Gevo, Inc.

Welcome to the GVO's third quarter 2020 earnings conference call. My name is Catherine, and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the call over to Jeffrey Williams, GVO's Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary. Please go ahead, Mr. Williams.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining GEVO's third quarter 2020 earnings conference call. I would like to start by introducing today's participants from the company. With us today is Patrick Gruber, GEVO's chief executive officer, Lynn Small, GEVO's chief financial officer, and Carolyn Romero, GEVO's vice president and controller. Earlier today, we issued a press release that outlines the topics we plan to discuss today. A copy of this press release is available on our website at www.jivo.com. I would like to remind our listeners that this conference call is open to the media and that we are providing a simultaneous webcast of this call to the public. A replay of today's call will be available on Jivo's website. On the call today and on this webcast, you will hear discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is contained in the press release distributed today, which is posted on our website. We will also make certain forward-looking statements about events and circumstances that have not yet occurred, including but not limited to projections about JIVA's business development plans, and operating activities for the remainder of 2020 and beyond. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current beliefs, expectations and assumptions and are subject to certain or significant risks and uncertainties, including those disclosed in GEVO's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2019 that was filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and in subsequent reports and other filings made with the SEC by Jivo, including Jivo's quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements speak only as of today's date, and Jivo disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements, whether it is a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. On today's call, Pat will begin with a discussion of Jivo's business developments, Lynn will discuss the status of the Citigroup financing process, and Carolyn will then review JIVA's financial results for the third quarter of 2020. Following the presentation, we'll open up the call for questions. I'll now turn the call over to Pat.

Thanks, Jeff. This past quarter was extremely significant for us. We now have about 48 million gallons per year of take or pay offtake agreements in place representing approximately $1.5 billion across the life of those contracts, which would run about six to seven years from the start of full-scale production. These take-or-pay contracts are being used to secure the funding to build plants. Not that long ago, we were working hard just to sell out the capacity of our La Verne facility. Our business has now changed. We now have demand for our products and and with contracts that justify more than one production facility. La Verne is not big enough to service the contracts we already have signed. The increased demand is significant because it shows potential investors that our plant projects offer significant growth potential beyond just La Verne. That's important because people want to see platforms of projects. Not only that, potential investors in the project see clearly that we have the funds to fully pay off Whitebox. Before we raised money this past quarter, there had been a real question of how we deal with Whitebox. Whitebox, from a potential investor point of view, complicated future deals because Whitebox, by the way, has been an outstanding partner over the last seven years, has a senior secured position in all of GEVO assets, the physical and intellectual property. Well, now we have the money in the bank to pay off white box and remove the liens. Being able to pay them off clearly is a big deal. Nothing can prevent that from happening by year end. We also now have the money to do the required project engineering and development work necessary to secure project financing. In fact, we've already started to move forward on this. We are in the midst of choosing additional plant sites. Our choice of plant sites is impacted by the ideas of our potential equity investors. Yeah, you heard me right. While we haven't announced who our potential equity investors are, we are working with several potential partners. Lynn will talk more about the Citigroup financing project in a couple minutes. On the business development front, we are expecting to secure additional large offtake agreements. Negotiations are progressing, albeit not fast enough for my taste. I would prefer to announce them already, but they aren't inked yet. We have more players in the mix wanting more volume, and that's great. But we need the details pinned down, the contract signed, so that we can then pin down additional plant sites as well as the total number of plants. In the meantime, we are getting on with the engineering for the 48 million gallons per year of plant projects that are already under the contracts. I expect that in the near future we will announce the names of the engineering firms that we'll be using to engineer and build the projects. So for the first time in many years, and this is a big deal, we aren't in the mode of having to raise money just simply to stay alive. Now it's all about project execution and growth. It's about leveraging our technology, the marketplace development that we already have in place, and getting the project financing secured to build multiple projects. With that, I will turn the call over to Lynn to provide more details on the project finance process with Citigroup. Lynn? Thank you, Pat.