Montauk Renewables, Inc.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call. I'd like to turn the call over to Mr. John Cerulli as he provides some important cautions regarding forward-looking statements contained in the earnings material or made on this call. John, please proceed.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Montauk Renewable's earnings conference call to review first quarter 2022 financial and operating results. and business developments. I'm John Sorolli, Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary at Montauk. Joining me today are Sean McClain, Montauk's President and Chief Executive Officer, to discuss business developments, and Kevin Van Asselen, Chief Financial Officer, to discuss our first quarter 2022 financial and operating results. During this call, certain statements will be made which will be forward-looking and based on management's beliefs and assumptions and information currently available to management at this time, including, without limitation, statements relating to the company's future results of operations and financial condition, as well as our expectations and plans for the company, such as with our Montauk Ag Renewables Project in North Carolina, the PICO Improvement Project and PICO CI Score, and market volatility and fluctuations in commodity prices. The market prices of environmental attributes and future environmental attribute commitments. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which may be beyond our control, including those set forth in our safe harbor provision for forward-looking statements that can be found in our first quarter 2022 earnings press release, in our Form 10-Q for the first quarter of 2022, in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K, and in other reports on file with the SEC, which provide further detail about the risks associated with our business. Additionally, please note that the company's actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. And except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement. Our remarks today may also include non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. Additional details regarding these non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, can be found in our slide presentation and in our first quarter 2022 earnings press release and form 10Q issued and filed this morning. Those are available on our website at ir.montagrenewables.com. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call to questions. We ask that you please keep to one question to accommodate as many questions as possible. And with that, I will turn the call over to Sean. Thank you, John.

Good day, everyone, and thanks for joining our call. I will begin with an update on the development progress at the PECO facility, our dairy cluster RNG project in Idaho. Our PECO facility continues to meet our expectations after the improvements to the existing digestion process. Production has more than doubled in the first quarter of 2022 as compared to production volumes in the first quarter of 2021. We continue to anticipate The California Air Resource Board will complete their review of our CI score pathway, and we will expect to receive approval of our score during the second half of 2022. While we continue to store gas in 2022, we expect to begin to release gas from storage in the third quarter of 2022. And while we do not expect to recognize LCFS credit revenue on 2022 production until 2023, we do anticipate recognizing revenues on RINs generated from gas released from storage over the second half of 2022. Related to our feedstock amendments, we expect the dairy to begin to deliver the first tranche of increased feedstock volumes in the second half of 2022. The improved efficiencies of our existing digestion process have provided the opportunity to pursue additional process changes related to water management. The volume of water in the existing digestion process limits the capacity available for feedstock. We expect that our water management improvements will enable us to process the increased feedstock volumes expected from the dairy in the second half of 2022. Our improved water management has also allowed us to work with the dairy to meet their needs and interests related to enhanced water purification. Changes to the water purification process benefits the dairy by improving the quality of water that's being sent to their lagoons and may reduce our operating costs, though the improvements naturally elongate the timeline of the overall capacity expansion at the PECO facility. We expect the final design phase for our digestion capacity to be completed during the third quarter of 2022, incorporating both these water management and water purification improvements. I also want to update on the Montauk Ag Renewables Development Project in North Carolina. We continue to work with our engineer of record to optimize improvements to the now patented reactor technology, which is operating at pilot scale at our Magnolia, North Carolina location. We have not yet, however, completed the the full improvement programs and have not yet reached commercial operations at this location. The improvements to the reactor technology are intended to be deployed at our Turkey, North Carolina location. While these improvements continue, we're in various stages of discussion with regulatory agencies in North Carolina related to the resulting power generation derived from swine waste to ensure its eligibility for renewable energy credits under North Carolina's renewable energy portfolio standards. Our Magnolia, North Carolina location has an existing electricity interconnection which can be reactivated based on the outcome of those discussions. We are also in varying stages of corresponding negotiations with power purchasers related to our Magnolia, North Carolina electric production. And while Kevin will discuss in greater detail, I will note that we made a strategic decision to not commit a significant amount of 2022 vintage RINs during the first quarter, which had an impact on our revenues and profitability. This decision was made due to the D3 RIN index price generally declining during the first quarter of 2022, which we viewed as a temporary event. With the rebound in the D3 RIN index pricing in the second quarter of 2022, we We have since entered into commitments to sell all of our RINs generated but unsold as of the end of the first quarter. And with that, I will turn the call over to Kevin.