REX American Resources Corporation

Good morning, and welcome to the RECS American Resources Fiscal First Quarter 2024 Conference Call. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded, and at this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Doug Bruggemann, Chief Financial Officer of RECS American. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining RECS American Resources Q1 2024 conference call. We'll get to our presentation and comments momentarily, as well as your questions. But first, I will review the Safe Harbor Disclosure. In addition to historical facts or statements of current conditions, today's conference call contains forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements reflect the company's current expectations and beliefs, but are not guarantees of future performance. As such, actual results may vary materially from expectations. The risk and uncertainties associated with the forward-looking statements are described in today's news announcement and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. Rex American Resources assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. I'd now like to turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Stuart Rose.

Good morning, and thank you again to everyone for joining us. First quarter saw a continuation of the strong results of Rex American returned over its history. Once again, our core business of ethanol and co-product production was strong. with 74.5 million gallons of ethanol sold, an increase of approximately 4% over first quarter of 2023. Construction of the One Earth Energy Carbon Capture Facility continue to pace their Gibson City, Illinois location. We're also on track to complete the ethanol production capacity expansion at the One Earth Energy Facility. with the initial plan to run at 175 million gallons per year, and then apply for an EPA permit to increase production to 200 million gallons per year. To match our operational achievements, our financial results were among the best in our history, with first quarter 2024 the second most profitable first quarter in the company's history from a net income per share perspective. This was made possible due to lower natural gas and corn import prices and the excellent execution of our team, despite a weaker pricing environment for both ethanol and coproducts. The balance of the year, we have three goals. First, continue our streak of profitable operations, which has now reached 15 quarters in a row. Second, complete the construction phase of our one earth energy carbon capture and compression facility. And lastly, to complete the capacity expansion of our One Earth Energy ethanol production facility to 175 million gallons per year, move towards the plan further permitting of the facility to 200 million gallons. Focusing on these three core priorities, we're remaining nimble and adjusting as appropriate to market and business conditions will keep us in a good position, both now and in the future. I'd now like to turn things over to our CEO, Zafar Rizvi, to give further update on our One Earth project.