Origin Materials, Inc.

thank you for standing by this is the conference operator welcome to the origin materials first quarter 2022 earnings conference call as a reminder all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded after the presentation there'll be an opportunity to ask questions to join the question queue you may press star then one on your telephone keypad should you need assistance during the conference call You may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ashish Gupta, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome everyone to Origin Materials' first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. Joining the call today from Origin Materials are co-CEO Rich Riley, co-CEO and co-founder John Bissell, and CFO Nate Whaley. Ahead of this call, Origin issued its first quarter press release and presentation, which we will refer to today. This can be found on the investor relations section of our website at originmaterials.com. Please note, on this call, we will be making forward-looking statements based on current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements reflect our views as of today, should not be relied upon as representative about views of any subsequent date, and we undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to these forward-looking statements in light of new information or future events. These statements... are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. For further discussion of the material risks and other important factors that can affect our financial results, please refer to our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K, filed on March 1, 2022. In addition, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful as supplemental measures of origin materials performance. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to and not as a substitute for or in isolation from GAAP results. You will find additional disclosures regarding the non-GAAP financial measures discussed on today's call and our press release issued this afternoon and our filings with the SEC, each of which is posted on our website. The webcast of this call will also be available on the investor relations section of our company website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rich.

Thank you, Ashish, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. For today's presentation, we will be referring to the slides that were posted to the investor relations section of our website earlier this afternoon. I will start by reviewing Q1 highlights, then discuss important industry announcements, and provide a commercial update. I will then turn it over to John, who will discuss construction progress on Origin 1 and Origin 2. Nate will wrap up with a financial overview. We will begin on slide three. We continue to execute on our plan and make progress on our mission to enable the world's transition to sustainable materials. First, we've seen a more than seven-fold increase in our customer demand since our announcement to become a public company in February of last year, with offtake and capacity reservations increasing by approximately 1.8 billion since the fourth quarter call in February to 7.4 billion today. Second, we remain well capitalized and on track for completion of Origin 1 by the end of 2022. Due to rising inflation and a more challenging supply chain delivery environment, we have updated our capital budget for Origin 1 and now expect a $15 million to $20 million increase from our prior outlook. The total capital budget for Origin 1 is now expected to be in the range of $125 million to $130 million, up from $110 million when we first announced our go public transaction in February 2021. The additional capital budget will be fully funded from our cash on hand. For Origin 2, the previously disclosed capital budget, construction timeline, and financing assumptions are unchanged. As reported previously, the state of Louisiana, pending finalization, is expected to award a private activity bond volume cap allocation to Origin in the amount of $400 million. We also expect to receive more than $100 million in pending state and local incentives. As John will discuss in more detail, front end design of Origin 2 is underway, with detailed engineering set to begin in 2023. And third, we remain well capitalized with approximately $427.7 million in cash and cash equivalents on hand. We maintain our expectation that the capital projects for Origin 1 and Origin 2 can be fully funded from our existing cash on hand and previously indicated traditional project financing sources. Now, as I have done on prior earnings calls, I'd like to give a brief overview of Origin for those who are new to the story. Origin was founded with the mission to help solve climate change by enabling the world's transition to sustainable materials. Our patented drop-in core technology, unit economics, and carbon impact have gained the support of a growing list of major global brands and investors, including Danone, Nestle Waters, PepsiCo, Ford Motor Company, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical, Cologne Industries, Primaloft, Solvay, Mitsui & Co., and Minifin Group. Building on these successes, we were pleased to announce new strategic partnerships with LVMH and Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group. These partnerships will further increase our exposure to consumer and industrial end markets, including perfumes and cosmetics, packaging and automotive, and expand our international footprint in Asia and Europe. Our CPG partners have publicly disclosed their intent to migrate 100% of their current petroleum-based PET consumption to decarbonized and recycled materials. After extensively evaluating our technology and testing our products, these market leaders have made significant financial contributions to Origin, both as investors and customers, demonstrating their environmental commitment and confidence in our technology and products. They have signed multi-year off-dig contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars. We continue to see strong favorable tailwinds for our technology and business model with some of the world's largest public companies committing to zero carbon mandates to help tackle climate change. We were encouraged by a late March rule proposal by the SEC that would enhance the climate related disclosures required by companies in their public filings. These disclosures would include information pertaining to climate related risks that are reasonably likely to have a material impact on their business, including information related to scope one and two greenhouse gas, GHG emissions, all of which aligns with our view that the decarbonization momentum that we are seeing globally is only likely to accelerate from here. The proposed rule would also require companies which have set GHG goals that include Scope 3 to disclose Scope 3 emissions. According to one report cited by SEC Chairman Gary Gensler in recent prepared remarks, 70% of companies in the Russell 1000 Index and approximately 90% of the 500 largest companies by market capitalization in that index published sustainability reports in 2020. using various third-party standards, which include information about climate risks. The surge in energy prices that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine provides another reminder of the world's need to migrate to more sustainable and less volatile solutions. With more than 99% of plastics made from fossil fuels, the industry is under both considerable environmental and economic pressure to dramatically transform the way it produces and uses plastic. With our first product, Origin offers an entirely circular plastic solution, 100% zero carbon recyclable PET, which the world's plastic recycling infrastructure is already designed to collect, sort, and reuse, with the critical added benefit of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Beyond that, while there's been some progress made from shifts to renewable energy sources and electric vehicles, it is clear that reducing emissions from energy use alone is insufficient to achieve the goals and commitments established by companies and governments. As a result, in the near term, We believe that these companies will need to integrate decarbonized materials into their supply chains. As such, we expect demand to remain ahead of our projected supplies for the foreseeable future. Turning to slide four, we continue to make steady progress commercializing the business and have grown customer demand by approximately $1.8 billion since our fourth quarter earnings call, for a total of $7.4 billion today, made up of off-take agreements and capacity reservations. This represents a more than seven-fold increase since we announced our intent to go public in February 2021. We continue to expand the breadth of industries we serve from global CPG brands like Pepsi, Tonon, and Nestle Waters to automotive leaders like Ford and specialty chemical innovators like Solvay and Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group to ultra luxury brands like LVMH. Moving to slide five and six, we recently announced a strategic partnership with LVMH Beauty, the perfume and cosmetics division of LVMH to bring sustainable low carbon footprint packaging to the perfumes and cosmetic industry. As part of the strategic partnership, LVMH has signed a multi-year capacity reservation agreement to purchase sustainable carbon-negative PET from Origin for use in packaging for perfumes and cosmetics. LVMH is a great example of how our wood residue-based carbon-negative PET can help our customers achieve their sustainability goals while maintaining premium quality and making no compromises on performance. In addition to being a new category expansion, this partnership will provide origin with further access to European and international markets as we continue to collaborate with LVMH Beauty on sustainable packaging solutions across its family of renowned brands, including Christian Dior, Givenchy, Guerlain, and others. Moving to slide seven, we were also pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group to develop advanced carbon-negative materials for tires by converting hydrothermal carbon into high-performance analogs of specialty carbon black materials. The partnership will leverage Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Group's technical innovation capabilities, integrated global supply chain strength, and access to Japanese and international markets. It is also notable as it is our first announced carbon black partnership, representing a significant opportunity in a new product category for Origin. According to Grandview Research, the global market for carbon black is projected to reach $26 billion by 2025, and approximately 70% of the world's carbon black is used as a reinforcing filler in tires. This is a great example of the sustainable materials that our patented technology platform can make beyond PET and plastics, including carbon black for tires, inks, and toners. Finally, we are excited to tell you about a new strategic relationship with a major global toy company. We continue to see considerable opportunities to expand into new markets and applications, and we look forward to providing more detail about this partnership, as well as others, when appropriate. In addition to these partnership announcements, Origin was named a Fast Company's prestigious annual list of the world's most innovative companies for 2022 in manufacturing, recognizing our patented platform for turning the carbon found in sustainable wood residue into useful materials, including clothing, textiles, plastics, packaging, car parts, tires, carpeting, toys, and more, while capturing carbon in the process. This year's list honors businesses that Fast Company determined are making the biggest impact on their industries and culture as a whole, ultimately thriving in today's ever-changing world. Finally, I'm pleased to announce that we have further strengthened our leadership team. Dr. Tanya Gruber, PhD, joined as Origins VP of R&D, with Origins' former VP of R&D, Marco Massuno, taking the role of Chief Scientist. Dr. Gruber brings over 20 years of experience in academia and the biochemical industry, including leadership positions at DuPont and IFF. Chris Williams-Campbell joined as Origins VP of Human Resources and brings over 25 years of leadership experience in positions with emerging technology-based companies, both public and private. in the biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device industries. At Origin, we believe our team is a critical differentiating factor that will enable our success in the execution of our vision, and we are thrilled to welcome Tanya and Chris to Origin. With that, I would like to turn it over to John, who will provide an update on Origin 1 and Origin 2.