Verbio Se

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Montega, welcome to the earnings call of Verbio following the publication of the Q3 figures of 2022-2023. The CEO, Klaus Sauter, and Alina Köhler from Investor Relations will give you a presentation on the results in a moment, and the floor will be open for upcoming questions following the presentation. Having said that, I hand over to you, Mr. Sauter.

Thank you very much, operator. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, for the presentation of the Q3 results of the business year 2022-2023. In my name and the board and together with Alina, our head of IR. So we prepared a presentation. First of all, we will report about the group financials, segment financials, acquisition of our new site in the United States, in South Bend, ethanol, and then update and outlook. And for sure, for this discussion, one of the main topics will be the development in biodiesel, especially the imports from China. But let's start. Alina, please start. Okay, so First of all, an overview about the production and the key figures for Q3. So finally, about the production, we are very much in line. We increased the biodiesel production 10% year on year due to higher utilization in Canada. Ethanol production is stable year on year. And the RNG production, renewable natural gas, 14% plus year-on-year due to capacity expansion. Epid A, minus 66% compared to the previous quarter last year. So the decrease is primarily due to decline in sales prices, in particular for biodiesel. We have a big margin squeeze in biodiesel imports, but therefore we prepared later a slide about the Chinese imports and on the same time, higher purchase prices for feedstocks. Net cash minus 32% from 177.5 million to 121. So change is driven by EBITDA and working capital plus. Then we spent money mainly for growth investments, building up new capacities and our other activities in Germany, tax payments and dividend payout. Equity ratio still stable at 73.8%. So we have a strong balance sheet. Financial stability remains high. But now I would like to hand over to you about the details.

Thank you very much and good morning to everyone from my side as well. So as Klaus already said, our EBITDA for Q3 was at 43 million. And this is short of the year back EBDA of 128 million, which was definitely driven by the attractive procurement that we did on rapeseed oil, but also on wheat. So it's not very comparable to actually compare the numbers. So what we also show on the slide is that in the last quarter, we had an EBDA of roughly 49 million. And as you can see, the composition has changed tremendously. So the bioethanol segment actually recovered very strongly, whereas the biodiesel segment declined due to the reasons that Klaus already mentioned, especially the imports of the Chinese biodiesel, which we will come to in a second. However, for the biodiesel segment, as I mentioned, there is a low comparability year over year. However, you can actually see that in the gray, sorry, in the green light bars, our sales increased year over year. We said that the biodiesel prices actually declined. However, in North America, we had a better utilization in the Canadian plant, which was driving the increase as well as better biodiesel prices. And in Canada, Yes. So, however, the EBTA was burdened by the decline in European biodiesel prices, which were coupled with comparably high purchasing costs, and the attractively priced GHG premium stabilized our results here. So in the end, we showed 25 million EBTA in the Q3 figures for our Q3 EBTA in the biodiesel segment. which is a very good result considering the imports that we've seen from China. But I'll hand over to you again.

Yes. So a big problem at the moment, I must say, is the wrongly labeled biodiesel imports from China. On these charts, we want to show you how the market developed. So the gray chart is the situation last year, 2021, 2022. And for biodiesel, you can see that between September and August and January, margins were very attractive. 500, 600 euro per ton of margin. It went down then. in February, March, and the actual business year now shows that the margins now at a level of below 100 euro per metric ton. The whole commodity on the right hand of the right chart, the whole commodity market went down dramatically. So when rapeseed oil was €2,200 last year in July, then we are at the moment at €900 per ton. Finally, there is a possibility to hedge the feedstock costs, but we are in a position where we say for vegetable oil, we are bullish because in the United States, 10 million tons of new capacities for hydrated vegetable oil is coming up. So the distortion of the Chinese imports, which are finally palm oil , some blended with other components, is really, distorting the mark heavily. And that what I say that it is not just a gimmick. April 24, there was an announcement that Chinese imports labeled as used cooking oil to the US were stopped in New Orleans, two ships the Environmental Protection Agency and the beauty control took samples and finally it was palm oil, which was labeled as used cooking oil. So we have now more and more indications that it is really a big thing what is coming there. And now on the next slide, I want to show you about what amounts we are talking. So Chinese biodiesel was always coming to Europe or was exported. Capacities in China are around 2.4 million tons of biodiesel capacity. And the whole volume in Europe, what we need is around 9 million tons, just that you get a feeling. So it's about 25% of the capacity in China. Most of these exports in previous years came as used cooking oil. And if we are looking to January, so the first quarter of the last year, January, February, March 2022, then the exports were approximately 50 to 100,000 tons. but it was labeled as used cooking oil material. So compared with this, Chinese exports have doubled year on year. And most of this product is wrongly labeled as advanced biofuel with an attractive greenhouse gas quota. The point is that also Used cooking oil, methyl ester, is now, since January 2023, capped at 1.9%. Now, these imports, especially from China to Europe, are labeled as advanced biofuel, according to Annex 9a. So that means that for the German market and also the market in the UK, for advanced biofuel, biodiesel, it is very attractive because the quota is counting double. So in the chart down in tons of CO2 reduction, most of the product is imported via Rotterdam. But we estimate that most of this biodiesel, which is labeled as advanced, is coming to Germany. And you see that it is not only that there are these amounts coming to the market and blended from the oil companies into diesel with the double counting, the quota is doubling. So that means, for example, when in 2022, 100,000 tons of biodiesel came to the European or German market, it was a single counting in Germany for the quota. So 100,000 tons was counting 100,000 tons for the quota. now labeled as advanced. And finally, a lot of based on palm oil, which is banned anyway. With the multiplication, 250,000 tons of biodiesel are coming to Europe, most of them to Germany because it's the most attractive market. And with 250,000 tons, you get 500,000 tons of quota. So used cooking oil material is the imports last year. 100,000 tons in January, for example, is 100,000 tons of quota. And now 250,000 tons are coming. And this is 500,000 tons of quota. That shows how the market is really disturbed. There is a huge distortion. And it's simply not possible that all this product coming from China is really advanced because the feedstock is, first of all, the feedstock is not available. And secondly, a plant which was built to make used cooking oil methylester cannot handle the advanced feedstock for advanced biofuel. We know from what we are talking that We also want to increase our existing capacity for advanced biofuel, but therefore we are building a completely new plant. So EU-wide and national solutions are currently being developed to address the mislabeling of the biodiesel. So we know that Berlin and Brussels is working on it. And in the United States, I mentioned it, April 24, they just blocked the import. One of the most important certifiers for the whole biofuel business, ISCC, withdrew already five certificates in the last couple of weeks from Chinese exporters. And fortunately, fortunately now, the first oil majors stopped using mislabeled prime oil-based biodiesel from China. Last week was a clear announcement from Total that anything which has Chinese components inside, will not be taken in Germany for German total refinery or refineries. So action is taken, but at least these significant fraudulent imports from China are distorting the whole market. Even that, what I mentioned before, that rapeseed oil came down from 2,200 euro to 900. So the whole market is shaked up because the amount of imports is just so huge. 250,000 tons per month, which is 3 million tons per year, counting double. So you are creating 6 million. million tons of co2 savings in a market environment where the use of biodiesel is 9 million tons you can see it's more than 50 all of the product coming from china huge distortion which is not only affecting the biodiesel which is also in fact in bioethanol because when it's now easy for the oil companies to fulfill their obligation with these kind of biofuel. They also decide to take less ethanol because there is no pressure at the moment. So what we are asking the government is first of all, to stop the imports. And secondly, investigate how much volume came from these companies where the certificates were withdrawn and finally to go back because it was all fraudulent. So let's see what we can achieve here. But finally, it is a huge scandal, which is also participated by Big Oil. Okay, thank you very much. Alina, continue, please.

Yes. So moving to the ethanol segment, year over year, we also saw a decline. However, we saw a strong recovery quarter over quarter. Looking at our sales again, so that's the green light bar that you can see in the chart. You can actually see stable revenues year over year, while our production remained largely stable. And this is mostly driven by additional GHG quota that we sold despite the ethanol crisis declining. So that explains why revenues actually remained largely stable. And while the GHG quota has a very attractive margin, the decline that you can see in EBITDA was still driven by the strong pressure that we had on our input costs linked to feedstock, but also the energy costs. Also last year, we benefited from positive one-off effects, which are worth mentioning. So this also explains the difference that you can see. It's also noteworthy that we had initial bio-LNG sales actually in the last quarter. And we stored the quota, so we're definitely waiting to sell the quota until prices are at a very attractive level for us again. However, we're progressing very well, and Klaus will also give an overview of our gas network towards the end of the call, because we actually already have five gas stations online now for our own gas stations. to the markets here, you can see that the spreads on the left side hand of the chart, the green line actually are the current spreads that we're seeing that they have recovered strongly over the quarter, also driving the results and they remained largely stable, came down a bit due to also the biodiesel imports as Klaus was just explaining a little bit earlier that this also has an effect on bioethanol demand. So this is basically what you're seeing in the chart. On the right side, it's the comparison between bioethanol prices and wheat prices, both per ton of bioethanol, which is basically just gives you the calculation for the spreads on the left hand side. Yeah. Moving on to our acquisition.

About China, we were talking. now about the US market and our new acquisition South Bend Ethanol. South Bend Ethanol is in Indiana and what we prepared here is to show you the competitive advantage of our technology compared with US technology. Let me explain. In the United States, corn as a feedstock goes in and ethanol and feed, which is called DDGS, feed, animal feed for chicken, for cattle, for pigs goes out. These are the two main products. The big difference to our technology is corn goes in, ethanol goes out, but we are not producing animal feed. We make renewable natural gas. So this is the big difference between traditional US technology and All the 220 ethanol plants in the Midwest are doing it how I mentioned. And now Verveo is coming with the combination ethanol and RNG. RNG can be sold in the US as a biofuel. So then we have ethanol as traditional corn ethanol plant, which is a D6 RIN. And our renewable natural gas, which is a D5 RIN. So when we compare these two technologies, then we have a competitive advantage on looking forward for the next months, approximately 50 cent per gallon. So on the example for South Bend, which is an 85 million gallon ethanol plant, our competitive advantage with about 50 cents per gallon is 42 million US dollar per year. This is the competitive advantage. So guessing you are not making money on ethanol, our competitive advantage gives us 42 million US dollar. Only through with the combination of ethanol and renewable natural gas compared with ethanol and DDGS. That's the first time that we show this slide. And this slide is pre-IRA, has nothing to do with the IRA. So about the deal rationale. What are we going to do? We are going to convert the traditional bioethanol plant into a Verbio biorefinery with 85 million gallons and 850 gigawatt hour per annum of renewable natural gas with a strong competitive advantage. The estimated capex is 230 million. The project will be financed from freely available cash, credit lines and cash flow. And as I said, these competitive advantages pre IRA. So when we are looking on the IRA, then for this location, the IRA provides an investment tax credit between 30 and 50%. At this location there in Indiana, we will get a tax credit of 30%. So 30% of the investment will be given by the state as an investment tax credit, which is finally the equity. But apart from the ITC, the investment tax credit, we are also creating production tax credits. Production tax credits means if the CI, the carbon intensity of our biofuels of ethanol and renewable natural gas under a threshold of 50 kilogram CO2 per MMBTU, we are getting two cents per gallon for each kilogram which we are under this threshold. For example, if our CI, carbon intensity, for the ethanol and also for the renewable natural gas is 40. So we are 10 points below 50. We are getting two cents per gallon production tax credits for five years, which is another 25 million US dollar compared with a traditional Why 25 with 85 million gallons? Because it's given for the ethanol. So with 85 million gallons, two cents at 40 CI, we are talking about 17 million. And then we are producing renewable natural gas, where is the same logic. There we are also getting two cents. If all the product stays in the US, if we are going to export because there are more attractive markets outside, for sure we are not creating the production tax credit. But at least this is the baseline. The baseline with our technology, once it is finished, post IRA, we are talking about a competitive advantage of 70 to 75 cent per gallon. So I think that's just a strong argument and shows these, yeah. advantages of our technology compared to traditional technologies. We were dealing now more than one year on this acquisition with South Bend. We the closing was May 2nd. So we are already operating the plant. Our engineering team was already there. So Even if it's a traditional ethanol plant at the moment, we identified already low-hanging fruits to improve the efficiency. And the next step is that we are going, once Nevada is commissioned, what will be in late summer this year, we will start immediately with South Bend and according to the fact that our business model is so attractive, even for the US market and the fantastic environment of the IRA, we are looking further what other targets are there in the market. Okay, next slide. So at least With this new investment in South Bend, the capacity increase in liquid biofuels and also in renewable natural gas will continue. So I see there is a mistake. So our estimation at the moment was 2023, 2024, 710,000 tons of biodiesel, from which is 100,000 advanced biofuel, 800,000 tons of ethanol, and approximately two terabyte hours of gas. And with the acquisition of South Bend, and there is a mistake, 2026, 2027, Also, ethanol will increase. We will be then approximately at 1.1 million tons. And gas is going to approximately three terabyte hours. Okay.

No, the 800 already includes 250,000. Ah, yeah.

Okay. You are right. Because we are already producing ethanol. Okay. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. The numbers are right. Okay, 800,000 tons of ethanol, approximately three terawatt hours. And with the acquisition of South Bend, our ethanol gas unit in the United States is then already much bigger than our capacities in Germany. All the gas there, this three terawatt hours, are advanced biofuel in the United States. but they are also qualified as advanced biofuel Annex 9A for the European market. So as a conclusion, we had to adjust our guidance from 300 million EBITDA to 240 million EBITDA. But I describe the reason. It's a market distortion. So our net cash is still in positive territory. And looking on these market distortion and the effect, what you want to do against fraud. So when I look on the actual market situation, and uh and i hear what's going on uh with our competitors then i must say these results what we are presenting are extraordinary because a lot of competitors are already shutting down so compared with last year uh it's uh Less APTA for sure, but last year was extraordinary. And under the actual circumstances, it's really, really a great job what everybody in Verveo made. Just some add on here. So about the expansion in Germany, we are slightly ahead of our plan. In the United States, the 160 gigawatt hours straw-based RNG plant is operational with about 50% utilization. Capacity will come additional on stream. The Nevada biorefinery rollout is running. Mechanical completion of the biorefinery is expected summer late summer so we are going to start up the plant and why only 50% capacity utilization on the straw based gas this had something to do with with the quality of the feedstock but it's mainly that With the complete completion of the bio refinery and the fact that the straw based RNG production has to be implemented in the bio refinery. We are, we are here also limited in production so Last summer, the whole biorefinery, everything will be implemented. Then we can start it up. And then we are talking about 800 gigawatt hours of yearly gas production and everything is advanced. About our downstream business, our own network of bio LNG and bio CNG filling stations. So 20 gas stations are planned, locations secured, rollout is running and five gas stations are already online. We are producing already BioLNG since January and we are now going to increase these amounts. but it's already working and we have also third parties filling stations. Other companies who were investing in LNG filling stations are now supplied with our BioLNG. Ethanolysis, which is the gate to the chemical industry. So the plant location is secured. It was more difficult than we expected to get the right location, but the plant location is secured. Approval processes for the ethanol uses plant are pending. And from the government, we will get investment subsidy, not as attractive as in the United States, but it's about 25 of the investment so thank you very much ladies and gentlemen thank you alina for presenting presenting the numbers and now uh the stage is over uh open for a q a session

Thank you very much, first of all, to you, Mrs. Auter and Mrs. Köhler for your presentation. You can submit your questions either by chat or by audio line. In case you have that in via phone, please press the star key followed by number nine and then the star key followed by number six. We kindly ask you to limit yourself to two questions. If you have more questions, please jump in the question queue again. We will start with the questions from Joma Emerson. Jona, please go ahead.

Perfect. Can you hear me? Loud and clear. Great. Yeah. Let me start off with my first two questions. So how much quota credits have you currently stored and do you expect to carry into the next fiscal year? And question number two, how big are your renewable natural gas reserves right now? How much have you sold versus stored this quota? And how does this look like in Q4 2021?

So we're not communicating on how much quota we have in our balance sheet for competitive reasons. For the gas that we stored on the balance sheet, it's around 750 gigawatt hours. Because as we also already said during the call, we already started supplying bio LNG and hence the increase in gas reserves is already slowing down a bit.

And can I ask a follow-up question towards this? Sure.

Maybe just one, what I want to add. We sold a significant amount of our quota in February, so before this big downturn came. And Quota prices went from 460 down to 200. Now it recovered again at 270, 300. But right now we are not selling at these levels. So we have the freedom now to take it and to store it. We sold a significant amount, as I mentioned, but we are not forced to. to sell our quota at the price levels at the moment. This is also a big advantage. For biodiesel, the quota goes with the molecule. And when biodiesel prices are so low, we are not able to keep the quotas. But for the gas business, we are now increasing our sales for the molecules directly into transport. We are realizing the CO2 savings and we keep it. Okay, continue, Jonah.

Yeah, just then concerning Q4 and renewable natural gas reserves. So the level is currently at 750. Your initial goal back in the day was around 1,000. Yeah, how is it going to look like in Q4, right? How much, I mean, you probably already, you know, if you accumulate all everything, you probably already reached 1,000. Can you maybe just give a bit further insight into Q4? How much are you actually planning to sell of your renewable natural gas?

depends on the ramp up of our gas station. So it's not, we cannot comment on it yet. So depending on how much we can actually already sell through our gas stations, we will store like not a significant amount, but we will already be able to deliver to the transport sector directly.

Okay, perfect, appreciate it.

We expect that it will stay at that level. So there will be no further increase.

Right, thank you.

Okay, so something about this, but it is like Alina said, it's dependent on the ramp up on the filling stations, but the fact that we are already able to deliver bio LNG, yeah, that was faster than what we expected. So our assumption is it will stay on that level with 750 gigawatt hour around. Okay.

Thanks.

Thanks for your questions, Jonah. We continue with the questions from someone who dialed in via phone. The number is ending on 3780. Please press the star key followed by number six to unmute yourself. We can see that you not have unmuted yourself yet. It's the Starkey followed by number six.

Yes, good morning, Mr. Sauter and Alina. It's Niklas Becker from Deutsche Bank. I also do have a couple of questions and I would like to take them one by one. First question would be on the European biodiesel market. What's your personal view on the situation? Do you expect it to be resolved or what is the likely outcome in your view, given your experience? And furthermore, also, do you think this will be a structural problem going forward with oversupply and customers' ability to source the biofuel from cheaper alternatives? Also, can you highlight the unannounced audit by the ISEC again and put the five withdrawn certificates into context? How many do exist in total? Thank you.

Sorry, you said one question one by one and now... It's a lot now. Okay. About the competition from cheap sourced biodiesel. You know, this is not advanced biodiesel which is coming here. And the fact that everything is just coming from China, you can smell it. You can just smell it. And the fact that now the first oil companies started to say, sorry, no, we don't take it anymore. I think it is already a scandal that it was possible to bring these huge amounts to Europe, to Germany, because all this product suddenly is coming now from China. So you can smell it. So at least... We expected something like this during the process when this law, what we are executing right now, was done. We mentioned it in public hearings that the whole system is fragile. And it was a question of time when something like this is happening and Finally, fraudulent imports are coming already five years. But the amounts were low, 50,000 per month, 30,000. And then it was going everywhere in Europe. Now with 250,000, that has a dimension which is really dramatic. And To your question, what do we expect? We expect that it will go away short term. It will go away short term because there is legal action has started from Berlin, from Brussels, but it will take time. The more efficient point is now that all this fraud is already public, is becoming more public, and at least it is the oil industry, which is circumventing with fraudulent product, which is not advanced. You know, if you continue this idea of making fraud, why to take biodiesel at all? Just do it with diesel. So the point is now that it... The product will just be blocked from the oil industry. Everybody knows that there is a huge question mark, huge amounts coming, everything only from China. Suddenly everything is labeled as advanced. So. It's just not possible. So from our side, we expect that it will go away fast. We are also fighting, therefore, that biodiesel from these sources will be cancelled, retroactive to be cancelled, because it's just too obvious. And then let's see what is happening. But the market distortion, we expect that it will disappear shorter. But as I said, we also want that which were already blended, that they are canceled. Because the oil industry, for example, in Germany, is sitting on about two, three million tons of CO2 savings. If they were extremely using now these kind of biofuel, they were able even to ramp it up. It cannot be that something like this is happening. So, okay, these are the main points. Can you repeat something that I didn't answer yet, please?

Yeah, that was really clear. Maybe just one follow-up on the withdrawn certificate. Can you put the five withdrawn certificates you mentioned into context? Do you know how many in total exist in China?

Sorry, I didn't understand you well. How many companies are there in China? How many certificates exist in China? Okay, well, at least there are 43 producers, 2.4 million tons of capacity. And until 2022, everything was labeled or most of it was labeled as used cooking oil methylester. So first point, technically to use advanced feedstock in this technology doesn't work, number one. To your question, These are just estimations, but at the moment the German market is the most attractive market for this product. So when we look on January, 250,000 tons, and most of it should have come to Germany, then 250,000 tons is creating about 500,000 tons of CO2 savings. Because one ton of biodiesel makes two tons of CO2 savings. So 250,000 tons, 500,000 tons of CO2 savings, and this 500,000 tons, if it is really advanced, is creating one million ton of CO2 savings. So for 2023, the overall target of CO2 savings is 16 million tons. So you see, only from China, this amount of CO2 savings is huge. Only January. So at least if we will continue with these Chinese imports without doing something, 60, 70% of the German quota can be fulfilled with this product. Dramatic. So under this situation, if you see our results under this spot, then we made really a great job.

Okay, that's very clear. Thank you. And then maybe my second question, since we're already in QFU, looking ahead into next year with key events and profit contributors coming online, such as on the one hand, the downstream expansion, and then also the North American capacities coming online. But on the other hand, we still have the headwinds on the pricing side. Currently, consensus expects EBITDA to be in the ballpark of around 320 million for the next financial year. What is your take on this number? Do you think it's ambitious or is it achievable given the current environment? And maybe you can just put the number a little bit in context. Thank you.

Okay. One question back. What do you mean with pricing headwinds?

So given the current pricing dynamics and the headwinds on the spread side. Well, okay.

The pressure on the margin is coming from the fraud. And the fraud is not only affecting Europe, Germany, also Chinese markets. used cooking oil imports are hurting the US market. But the US authorities are much faster and more consequent like the Europeans. But it is also affecting the US market. So in a normal situation, there is no pricing headwind. Because as I said, for vegetable oil, for the whole segment of vegetable oil and mainly rapeseed oil and soybean in the US, we are bullish. But the prices are coming down because there is no demand for the biodiesel or it is hard to make a margin for our competitors. And that is the reason, you know, our plants are still running on full capacity. But if you want to sell rape from the last harvest today to an oil mill in Europe, they are full. They don't take it because oil demand, vegetable oil, especially rapeseed oil demand is weak. So that's the reason why the prices were coming down. At least when the fraud is away, we expect that Vegetable oil will go up again because at that price levels, farmers are not able to make money. So we don't see these headwinds. To come back to your specific question, for the new business year, 320 million EBITDA, that is a little bit too early. We are at the moment in the phase of planning the new business year. And this year... You know, usually we give just a guidance for the next 12 months. This we will continue, but we want to give also an implication for the next two or three years, because now we have a clear view. We have a clear strategy. IRA in the US is clear. So we can look a little bit further into the future. OK. But it's for 320.

a little bit too early we have to make our plans we will come up with it in september okay and then maybe just one last one on the south band acquisition um would you maybe just give a little bit of insight about the ebta contribution and how we can think about the phasing going forward um

The US market for ethanol is very volatile, but usually in a plant like South Bend at the moment, you are able to make a margin between 10 and 20 cents per gallon, traditional ethanol production. So under normal, under full production, we would say it's about 10 to 20 million EBITDA if we would just run the plant. We want to start as fast as possible with our investment and this investment will impact the operation of the plant. So maybe to make a long story short, the contribution of South Bend, as long as our technology is implemented, it will be not very much, maybe even negative.

Okay, understood. Thank you.

Thank you for your questions. We also received some questions via chat. We will start with the first one. Is there a risk that you have to slow or stop biodiesel production for some time in Germany due to low or negative spreads? When do you expect the false Chinese imports to end?

I think I answered this question. We expect that Chinese will stop short-term production because it's too obvious. And no, we have still a margin on biodiesel. I think we showed it on these slides. We don't see any risk at the moment that we have to reduce our biodiesel production in Germany due to negative margins. We have a positive margin, Not on the biodiesel production, but when we take our co-products, then we are making a positive margin. And I think you were able to see our EBITDA margin last year was 25.8 percent. Now it is 7.9. So this is disappointing for us, but at least it is still a positive margin. Next question.

And we received some more questions regarding the south burn plant. If you could give some more color on the main risks, where your break-even for your RNG is, and if you have capable people there, and how about the procurement contracts?

Okay. I showed in this slide here our competitive advantage, which means that If US ethanol is making no margin, we will make 50. 50 cent per gallon. That shows the competitive advantage. The plant is fully operational. So there is a team. And we overtook... the whole team. As I said, our engineers were there May 2nd. We showed them our concept and yeah, the feedback was very, very positive. Finally, I'm happy about the team there. These are experienced people with the former owner their possibilities to improve the plant and to give their input was limited because the former owner, owner, Mercuria is mainly a trader. They don't have these engineers. So yeah, it's quite positive. We have a team and, and everything is very promising. So feedstock, feedstock is bought short term. So we don't have there. It's the same in the US like in Europe. There are no long term contracts. We are continuing like we are doing the normal business. The corn will be bought at the market one, two, maximum three months ahead. We must see how is the market condition. The question about RNG, what is your break even? Look, corn goes in, ethanol and RNG goes out. So it is like you have a refinery and crude oil goes in and there is produced diesel and gasoline and jet fuel. So when you are break even with your diesel, if we look to the market situation the last 12 months, when Diesel was much more expensive than gasoline than you can see. You can even lose money on gasoline because you make a super margin on the diesel. And this is also our business model. I cannot give you a number where RNG is profitable. The two main products which are going out must give us a margin based on a bushel of corn. So that is the point. Feedstock goes in, two main products go out and they are priced at the market differently. Natural gas has in the United States also a big volatility. But at least renewable natural gas in the United States is much cheaper than in Europe, which makes it more competitive. which makes it also more interesting for so-called voluntary markets. So in the U.S., we see more and more demand coming from maritime. So big cruises with LNG engines, they ask for renewable natural gas, bio LNG. So there's a lot of development, a lot of movement and demand. It's important, the slide what we showed here, that our competitive advantage with a traditional ethanol plant is about 50 cents per gallon.

All right, thank you very much for elaborating on that. And would you be so kind to remind us on the US market potential to sell biomethane as fuel?

As I said, renewable natural gas goes to transport. Market demand is high. It was usually very high in California. In California, nearly all the natural gas which is used for biofuel is already renewable natural gas. In other states, Texas, Illinois, everywhere there in the Midwest, there is demand for filling stations and compared with diesel, RNG is the most attractive fuel. So there is enough demand. And as I said, now, voluntary demand is coming up. maritime when I talk about transport, but also chemical industry, methanol production, steel industry. Everybody is asking for renewable natural gas. So the demand is very, very high. And it is increasing very fast. We have more questions for RNG than here in Europe and big amounts, really big amounts. So it's quite positive. First thing. Second thing is with the possibility to liquefy the renewable natural gas, it's also interesting to supply under the US RNG for the German or the European market. And after, yeah, let's say some break in, natural gas heavy duty transports. The market is coming back because with diesel compared with diesel, diesel is very attractive. The break came from the extremely high natural gas prices last year. So some of the hauliers were shocked. But now with the possibility to supply their bioenergy, we can guarantee them a stable price and we can guarantee them a discount compared to fossil diesel. So this BioLNG is a game changer for price stability for the hauliers and secondly to decarbonize transport. Next question please.

The next questions are about the request to comment on the recent Indian activities, the current status, time planning, the business volume, and also regarding the utilization and profitability of the plant.

Okay. India is not making money at the moment. So at least the EBITDA is about minus 2 million. per year so it's still very small but we are working at the moment with the ministry of oil and gas what is necessary to improve the business case India was very busy last year with the high oil and gas prices because the Indian government, the oil ministry, is subsidizing oil and gas, which was finally hurting our business. So we were able to address our expectations directly to India. the Minister of Oil and Gas, Hadeep Puri. We had several meetings and now we are working on legal changes which are necessary that we are able to increase our capacity in India. But at the moment, India is a startup, has huge potential, but at the level where we are at the moment, we are doing typical first mover work. First of all, the legal framework must be fixed. And then in the second point, we can think about to increase our capacities. But from our time frame, the plan is clearly to get India profitable, positive ABDA contribution next year, next business year.

All right. Thank you very much. You also mentioned that you are ready for further acquisitions in the US. How much more plants or how much more firepower do you have here?

I don't understand this question. What means firepower?

How much more plants you are planning?

Well, further growth is coupled with financing models. So right now our equity ratio is still at 75%. We have to see how it will work. So I think there is space for another two acquisitions at the range of South Bend. something like this should be possible. And it is from a financing point of view, and because of this, I mentioned it, with 30% investment tax credit, that is the equity. So with the IRA, also possibilities to do a new kind of financing models due to US projects, because normally the banks are also financing the ITC. So we have to look now, South Bend was paid with equity, it was not necessary to raise their money, but now we are looking what kind of possibilities under the light of the IRA are possible to do more. Right now I would say,

until the end of 2024 it should be possible to do two more projects thank you very much we received a follow-up question from jonah please go ahead jonah yeah so um thanks for taking my question again

So basically concerning the statement you just made, right? So two acquisitions until the end of 2024. You know, does it mean we can potentially maybe even expect another acquisition still during the remainder of this year? Or would you expect both of them to come during next year? I don't know how far along are you even?

I guess you mean the calendar year? And not the business year. In the business year, for sure not. It is one month. Okay, I meant to comment on you. No, no. Jonah, this is too early at the moment. As I said, at the moment, we are not working specifically on something. And South Bend took one year. So we have to identify. So not before the end of 2024. Maybe there is something faster. I don't think it will be faster because ethanol in the U.S. was under some pressure, margin pressure. The margins recovered now. So nearly everybody is making money at the moment. So acquisitions will be more expensive and also more difficult. So we are still looking on the market. We try to identify something faster. Okay, perfect. What you can take in your model at the moment.

Okay.

Perfect.

Thank you. That was already my question. I appreciate it. And thank you for your time.

Maybe just something on top, Jonah. Yeah. Clearly, we continue our strategy to increase production capacities Few years, we say already that the preferred market is the US market. And these messages were before IRA. So IRA is like a turbo, double turbo for our business. Anyway, we have to look on our firepower, what we can really do and Firepower in my meaning means not only the availability of capital, we also need the availability of staff. That is very good in South Bend that we were able to acquire already an experienced team. For example, in Nevada, we have really to build up everything from the scratch. But what I want to mention here at the end of that call is We are still continuing our strategy. We want to increase our capacities. We want to increase our trading activities, trading these volumes and continue to move with our main molecules, methyl ester, ethanol and methane into chemical applications. Nothing has changed.

Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you, Jonah. Mr. Sauter, could you please give us some color on the plans for the trading desk in Stamford?

Volumes, trading volumes are not significant yet. We have established the team at the moment and For our kind of trading business, we have to do some homework, build up logistics. We have in our business, and that shows here the Chinese fraud, all the logistics system and the whole business has to be certified. So right now we are in this process. As I said, the traded amounts are not significant. There is some positive single digit million contribution to the business, but not significant. And I guess that we will be able to ramp up trading volumes and also to be able to move the molecules at the end of 2023. So our plan right now is to import BioLNG by the end of 2023, significant amounts to Europe, or from the US point is to export it from the United States.

right thank you and with regards to the time we are coming now to the last question can you give an indication on how much revenue is currently first and how much revenue is second generation products a very good question that's why we're changing our segmentation yeah next year we will give you an answer for that yeah next financial year yes but you know uh

That is an interesting question because the definition of advanced biofuel in Europe is different like in the US. So I know where the question goes. It is about advanced biofuel for the German market, for the European business. But let me give a note here on this question. When we are talking about Verveo as a company, our strategy and where we want to go, we should not be so much fixed on the German and the European legislation. Our business is a global business and the feedstock is biomass. And the best pricing and that's the reason why all the chinese are bringing their fraud product to the european to the german market at the moment it is advanced biofuel in germany that's that's the most profitable product but it will also disappear and We have, when we are talking about our strategy, we need a more broad, broader view because a lot of the definitions and especially about synthetic fuels, European definition shows that there will be no investment because it is too complicated. There will be an obligation in Germany and in Europe for renewable fuels, non-biological origin, but there will be no production capacity. And that is important. So a lot of our, for example, biodiesel, what we are producing in the US, is all advanced biofuel for the US market. Biodiesel as itself is advanced biofuel according to US legislation. In Germany, if you make it from rapeseed oil, it is first generation. So... More specifically, but to come back to your question or to that what Alina said, yeah, we will change our reporting and it will show then what is first generation, what is advanced biofuel according to European regulation. At the moment, we don't have the figures clearly because we are in the process to change our accounting and to prepare everything that we have really developed At the moment, I would say it's about 30 percent of our production. It's all of our gas. It's some kind of the biodiesel. But it is about 25, 30 percent.

All right, thank you very much. This is also where we are coming now to the end of this earnings call. Again, thank you very much, Mr. Sauter and Mrs. Köhler for taking the time and all those interesting details. Thank you also to all participants and the questions. I hand over to you, Mr. Sauter, for some final remarks before closing.

Okay, thank you very much for the audience. There is nothing more to add. We were talking about everything. Maybe you have something, Alina?

No, thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Okay, so we are looking forward for our next call and we are sure we will be able to have more positive messages and that especially China will be over. And what is even more important for us that it will now have also real consequences that, for example, blended, already blended amounts from January and February will be canceled. That is at the moment, especially my work to talk with the ministries that first of all, it was expected. We told them that they have to do something and now we have it. And now it must have consequences because at least also big oil knew that that it's just not possible that all this kind of product is now coming from China. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I wish you a nice day. And as I said, we are looking forward for our next call. Have a nice day. Goodbye. Bye.