Greenlane Renewables Inc.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Green Lane Renewables fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. Following the results, we will conduct a question and answer session. 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. Today's call is being recorded and a replay will be available on the Green Lane website. I will now turn the call over to Darren Seed from Insight Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon. Welcome to the Green Lane Renewables fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 conference call. I'm joined today by Brad DeVille, Green Lane's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Monty Balderson, Green Lane's Chief Financial Officer. Before beginning our formal remarks, we'd like to remind listeners that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements that reflect current views with respect to future events. Any such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements. Green Lane Renewables does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements except as may be required by applicable law. Listeners are... urged to review the full discussion of risk factors in the company's annual information form, which has been filed with the Canadian securities regulators. Lastly, while this conference call is open to the public and for the sake of brevity, questions will be prioritized for analysts. Now I'll turn the call over to Brad.

Good afternoon. Thank you everyone for participating on today's call. I'd like to start off with a few financial and business highlights from our fiscal year 2022 as well as provide some industry perspectives before I turn the call over to Monty for a more detailed review of the numbers. All figures are in Canadian dollars unless stated otherwise. The GreenLane team delivered another year of record revenue in 2022, a solid accomplishment given some challenges in the RNG market in the U.S. that emerged during the year. Early in 2022, we completed our acquisition of Airdep in Italy. And we went on to launch our deployment of development capital program as we advanced funds of 1.6 million to two separate RNG project development teams in the US. As a reminder, we launched this program to assist project developers in accelerating their projects to the ready for construction phase, while at the same time adding new recurring revenue and profits to GreenLane's business by gaining exposure to RNG off-tape contracts, along with generating additional sales of GreenLane systems and services. In 2022, Greenland announced over 45 million in new biogas upgrading system sale contract wins, 25% of which was for food waste to RNG projects in the US. The remaining 75% split roughly evenly between dairy-derived RNG projects in the US and RNG projects in South America. Today, we also announced that GreenLine was awarded a $7.2 million contract for a food waste pipeline project in Ohio, where we'll be supplying an integrated sulfur removal unit from our subsidiary in Italy and water wash system for upgrading biogas from food waste streams for direct injection to the local natural gas pipeline network. In 2022, 40% of our system sales revenue was generated outside of the U.S. versus only 14% in 2021. For our non-U.S. system sales revenue in 2022 was 14% from Canada, 12% from Brazil, 11% from Europe, and the remaining 3% from other countries. Within the U.S., we've seen a recent shift in contracting activity towards food waste RNG projects as compared with dairy-derived RNG projects. The challenges I referred to a minute ago in the RNG market in the U.S. that emerged during 2022 are related to price. 2022 began with strong RNG spot prices near the highs of the five-year range in the U.S. However, prices began to moderate throughout the year, ultimately ending below their five-year average, largely due to a surplus of credits under the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard, or LCFS, program. U.S. dairy projects were particularly hard hit At the beginning of 2022, spot prices for dairy-derived RNG were more than US$115 per MMBTU, but by the end of 2022, prices dropped to around US$70 per MMBTU. These effects, combined with inflationary pressures, rising interest rates, and lack of fulcrum rules issued by the Department of Treasury for the investment tax credits available under the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, impacted our growth in the second half of 2022. Having recognized that low LCFS credit prices may not achieve the greenhouse gas reductions they are looking for, the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, has indicated that they will update their LCFS program, including introducing more aggressive compliance targets for carbon intensity reduction in 2030 and beyond, with the objective to support continued investment in low carbon technologies. While we anticipate that these and other regulatory developments in the US, such as the IRA, will support RNG demand with improved economics for GreenLane's current and future customers, we are also increasing our focus in other markets where we see growth opportunities. Outside of North America, GreenLane continues to invest for growth in Europe, building on our acquisition in Italy in February of 2022, and in South America by expanding our local presence. We see 2023 as a pivotal year for GreenLane as we actively diversify our global footprint and invest in systems and processes that will allow us to scale the business. Our investments to grow in key international markets include strengthening local supply chains, employing local talent, and partnering with industry participants that have strong relationships locally within the region. We are well capitalized with more than 21 million in the bank and are debt-free which means we're well positioned to pursue our strategic plan. I would once again like to take this opportunity to thank the GreenLane team for their dedication and commitment to our mission of helping to decarbonize the world's energy systems, as well as our customers for choosing GreenLane as a trusted partner. I'll now pass the call over to Monty.

Thanks Brad, and good afternoon everyone. As a reminder, all figures are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated, and all comparisons are for the fourth quarter and fiscal year of 2022 against the respective periods of 2021. Greenland generated revenue in the fourth quarter of $17 million compared to $17.1 million in the prior period. of 2021. For the fiscal year 2022, revenue of 71.2 million increased 29% over 2021 revenue of 55.4 million. System sales revenue accounted for 92% of our total revenue, which is recognized in accordance with the stage of completion of projects, with the remaining 8% of revenue being generated from aftercare services. Our gross margin excluding amortization in the fourth quarter of 2022 was 19% or $3.3 million compared to $4.3 million or 25% in the fourth quarter of 2021. For the full year, we delivered a gross margin excluding amortization of 24% or $16.8 million compared to 25% or $14.1 million in 2021. The company has a portfolio of active projects all at different stages of completion and different gross margin levels. However, during the fourth quarter, gross margin before amortization was adversely impacted as compared to the previous quarters on a percentage basis on one project where we had commissioning costs that were beyond our control and on another project where we saw some scope changes that were not recovered. Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter was a loss of $2 million versus a $300,000 profit in the fourth quarter of 2021. And for the full year, adjusted EBITDA was a loss of 2 million versus a profit of 1 million in 2021. In light of our growth in 2022, the company added staff, which coupled with the Q4 gross margin impacts I already mentioned, weighed negatively on adjusted EBITDA. As Brad mentioned, We had a successful year in 2022 on the contracting front, announcing over $45 million in new system sale contract wins, and at December 31st, the company's sales order backlog was $27.7 million. As a reminder, the sales order backlog is a snapshot at one moment in time, which varies from quarter to quarter, and the sales order backlog increases by the value of new system sale contracts and is drawn down over time as the projects progress towards completion with amounts recognized in revenues. Our sales pipeline of prospective projects is approximately 900 million as at December 31st, 2022. And we continually update our pipeline of active system sale opportunities based on code activity, which represents visibility into a significant number of opportunities that funnel down through our sales process. And those opportunities successfully are converted into contract wins, then moving to our sales order backlog. Our balance sheet remains healthy as we exited the year with cash of $21.4 million and no debt, providing flexibility for GreenLane to strategically invest in and grow our core RNG business as well as pursue other strategic initiatives. We will continually focus on prudently managing our cash to maintain a stable financial footing. We look forward to keeping shareholders apprised of our progress and with that, I will open the call to questions. Operator?

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press star, followed by the one on your touchtone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request, and your questions will be pulled in the order they are received. Should you wish to decline from the pulling process, please press star, followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Nick Boychuk with Cormac Securities. Please go ahead.

Thanks for having us. You discussed the importance of obviously diversifying cash flows away from the U.S. market, given the concentration of U.S. dairy business and what's happened in the LCFS market. Can you expand a little bit on the diversification of the $900 million pipeline by geography? How much right now is outside of the U.S.?

Yeah. Hi, Nick. So, yeah, what we're trying to shine a light on here is a little bit is the diversification that we've seen in our sales activity from 2021 and 2022, just to show a little bit of the trends we're seeing. So as I mentioned that the trend from 2022, sorry, 2021 of roughly 14% of the sales being outside of the US versus 2022 being 40%, then that same trend is reflective of the kind of trend that we're seeing in our sales pipeline. Also, we're seeing a trend, a shift in our recent contracting activity towards food waste for the U.S. market away from dairy. And I think that's obviously a consequence of some of the pricing dynamics we've seen in RNG as an impact of the LCFS and what's driving that shift. So I think In short, I think it's fair to say that the mix that we're seeing in our pipeline is not dissimilar from the trends that we've seen over the recent times.

Okay, thanks. Shifting to gross margins, can you walk us through what happened on the two projects you noted this quarter and kind of talk through the potential of that occurring again or if those are just completely one-off events?

It's Monty speaking. In regards to the commissioning costs, obviously, we don't like to see it happen over and over and over again, but to say that they're a one-time event, never going to happen, that's just not realistic. But in this case, on that project, there's just been a lot of things that have been outside of our control that have ultimately resulted in us having to eat some costs impacting margins. And, you know, to give perspective, we operate in different environments, so we're exposed to site conditions, which sometimes things happen that you wish didn't. And then in regards to the contracting scope, that is where we are much more laser-focused, and I wouldn't want to say with certainty it's a one-time event, but it's definitely very unusual to experience what occurred there, and so we do not expect that to happen. be something that shows its head again.

Yeah, I think I'll add to that, Nick, that these are not dissimilar. Certainly the commissioning one from challenges we've had in prior quarters. So as you know, we've been quite consistent at the gross margin level. So the impacts we saw in Q4 were outside the norm for us in terms of our past performance. I think that's important to know.

That's helpful. Thanks. And last for me, just I'm curious with you guys shifting geographies and including that comment on gross margins, how much flexibility do you have to increase the prices on your projects? In particular, I'm curious how governmental support and things like tax credits might be supporting that. If your developers are receiving a good portion of their CapEx now covered by governments, are you seeing more flexibility to potentially increase your prices?

Well, it's a good question, Nick. I mean, we look for opportunities where we can uniquely take advantage of some pricing that's more favorable on margin. We don't always have the luxury of that if we're in a competitive bid situation, because in that case, the market decides. But generally, our strategy is to look for those key opportunities where it's beyond just price as the main competitive feature. and where we can show the customer the value that we provide. So not a straight answer, I realize that, but there's certain situations where we'll be able to increase margins on a deal-by-deal basis and certain ones where it's going to be more of a competitive environment. Okay. Thanks, guys.

Thanks, Nick.

Your next question comes from David Quesada with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Just a question for me, I think, just on your view of changes to the LCFS and, I guess, clarity on the rules under the IRA. Do you have any sense of roughly what the timeline will be? Do you think that you'll get clarity on those IRA stipulations this year? And do you think that those things will result in, I guess, recovery of order activity in the U.S.? ? or increase?

Yeah. Firstly, hi, David. Good question. Thanks for those. And I also want to say is we're not policy experts, of course, but we monitor it very closely. And starting with the LCFS, there's obviously been a number of workshops that the California Resources Board has held, the most recent one being a week or so ago or whenever that was. And so they've... know what's important to note there is that they've designed this program the intent of the program is to ultimately see reductions of the greenhouse gas footprint to the transportation fuel mix in california and they've they've they have the ability to modify if the outcomes aren't heading in the right direction and so that's what we've seen is is they've had a healthy credit environment until 2022 where the prices started dropping off and they have an ability to pull the lever, I'll call. And that, in this case, was changing the reduction requirements, the compliance targets. That takes effect, my understanding. Again, this is, you know, need to double check to find detail in the ARB's published documents. But that would take effect in 2024. But I think what they're ultimately doing is sending a price signal so that people get a clear view of transparency of what's happening in the program and that sets pricing now rather than having to wait until 2024 until that event occurs. So that's our understanding of the LCFS program and the ability of the ARB to make adjustments. As it relates to the final prescriptive rules published by the Department of Treasury this related to the IRA. The IRA, of course, came into effect January 1st. And some of the rules, but not all of them, have been published by the IRA, which is a bit frustrating for people active in the industry. So that's caused, certainly when the IRA went into law in August, I think there was a a bit of a pause for people to say, well, what does this mean and how do we protect our position for the investment tax credits under that new law? That wasn't very clear. It's still not 100% clear. More clarity has been driven by the rules that have been released to date by the Department of Treasury, but there's still more rules to come. So nobody, as far as I can tell, has any indication of timing when those final rules are. You would have thought they would have been published before January 1st, but... you know, here we find ourselves in March, and they're still not fully released.

Okay, that's great, Collin. Thanks, Brad. Appreciate that. And then maybe just one more for me on your new order that you announced earlier today. It sounds like the sulfur removal and that sort of integrated product offering from the Airdab acquisition, well, I guess my question would be, is that something that helped you win that order, and is that sort of a new capability that you've realized as a result of that acquisition that's going to help you in the future?

Yeah, we did that acquisition for a whole host of reasons. I think you can simplify it to two main things. One is it's compelling technology that we have in that division in Italy for particularly applicable to certain desulfurization biogas composition. So piece one, yes, it's compelling. It gives us an advantage from a product and a price perspective. And then piece two is it does give us some incremental margins rather than purchasing it outright, which would have been the case prior to the acquisition. So I think, yeah, it helped us win the order, and it's helping the business, too, in terms of contributing the margins that we were hoping to see.

Great. Thanks for that. I'll turn it over. Thanks, guys.

Your next question comes from Aaron McNeil with TD Cowan. Please go ahead.

Hey, afternoon all. Thanks for taking my questions. Brad, what's your approach to your sort of overarching run rate cost structure in 2023? Obviously, you know, in the outlook commentary, you speak to scaling up and investing in systems and processes, but, you know, some may look at the backlog and interpret that near-term sales could be down sequentially. So I guess what I'm really driving at is how comfortable are you in terms of, you know, maintaining that cost structure, you know, if revenues decrease into 2023, and how long would you be willing to sustain a cost structure like that?

Yeah, that's a great question, Aaron. So You know, what I can say is over the last few years, we've seen a dramatic change in our revenue. It's been climbing significantly. So we've been adding staff to be able to accommodate that and fulfill our contract obligations. Monty had mentioned in his comments that we'll continue to really manage the cash. You know, that's mission number one, to make sure that we do that. Right now, we're focused on the top line. So, you know, we think that the opportunities are out there. We think that with our diversification beyond what's currently a bit of a lull in the U.S. dairy sector, that that'll be helpful for a focus for us. But we'll take the appropriate actions if and when those need to happen.

Okay. Maybe a bit of a different spin on Nick's question. Of the sales pipeline that is associated with the LCFS program, based on your conversations with your customers, what do they need to get comfort on, you know, the outlook and ultimately go ahead with an order?

As it relates to biogas projects, there's a couple main things. So one is there's the labor law component. So this is the apprentice and the, let's just slip my mind, the other piece of it. So, the fair wage apprentice components of that, that was recently published by the Department of Treasury, so that's helpful. The domestic content piece is still not published, so there's a bit of a lack of clarity on how you content your programs. So, that comes from local use of steel for infrastructure. very defined term of manufactured components and the interpretation of what that means. So that's still driving a little bit of confusion, I would say. So I'd say that comfort is growing. The other thing that we did find in Q4 was some push out of activities from 2022 into 2023. So it was not to erode the ability for the project to capture the ITCs under the IRA.

Okay. And then maybe one quick housekeeping question. As it relates to the bad debt expense in the quarter, what type of credit analysis are you performing on your customers, and are you becoming more vigilant in terms of who you provide credit to in the context of reduced R&G pricing under the LCFS program?

Yeah, so it's Monty speaking. When we enter into any contracts, we do a KYC process, know your client process, similar to lots of other industries. Obviously, there's lots of judgment in there, but we do spend a bunch of time. This situation, I would suggest, was, I don't want to call it unique, but a little bit different. And unfortunately, left us in a bad place. But in general, on our projects, we are getting paid by the customer in advance of when we are paying for the supply of the goods. So we're in a net positive cash position, but obviously there is some risk that an entity could go upside down. But for the most part, we've been pretty good with dealing with big parties. And then also in the case of... Some of our larger contracts where they have bonding capacity, our financial partner being a lending institution and then EDC, they do their own KYC process as well before they green light with it. So there's also a third-party mechanism in there as well.

That's helpful. Thanks, guys. I'll turn it over.

Your next question comes from Adam Gill with Paradigm Capital. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, everyone. Just on your recent order announced this morning, Synthica has, you know, quite a number of projects on top of the St. Bernard project, 15 more similar scale food to RNG, food waste RNG projects. Do you think you're in good position to be bidding on these projects, given they liked what they saw on your initial bid? And do you have any colour on their timing of potentially additional orders for their project rollout?

Yeah. Hi, Adam. I think hopefully the order speaks for itself that we are in good position to work with them on additional projects. I think what they've published on their website is probably the best information that's out there. Obviously, we can't speak on their behalf in terms of timing. In the development phase of projects, there's often uncontrollables. We do know that they're very committed to the space. They're motivated to move forward. They wanted to work with us, and we're proud to have won that order. For us, what we intend to do is to look for those developers who are capable, well capitalized, and that we can add value and support, and support them ideally through their whole portfolio. I don't know what else to say. Yes, we'd like more business from them, and we're hoping to achieve that.

Great. Second question for me, just on the current order backlog, given it has been kind of coming down through the year, how long do you think it would take you to grind through the backlogs that are currently in place at the end of the year, not including the recent order?

We've disclosed publicly before our projects typically run between nine and 18 months. So obviously, some of it's driven by the schedule of the project. But I would suggest that very macro picture, the backlog that you see should be materially used in fiscal 2023, obviously loaded towards the first half versus the back half. There's a lot of moving parts. Projects do move in timing, and so it's not an exact science, but I would suggest that we should be through the vast, vast, vast majority of that backlog in 2023.

Okay, sounds good. That's all for me. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Ahmed Shaw with Beacon Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys, maybe just one for me on if you're able to help us understand the split between the one project that had a change of scope and the one project that had some cost inflation related to the commissioning stage impact on margins each and on the commissioning project, what specifically happened there in terms of the cost increase?

I apologize, I couldn't hear some of what you said, but if I interpret it right, on the two large initiatives, you're looking to get a little bit more color as to what specifically occurred?

Yeah, on the two projects that had an impact on gross margin this quarter, if you're able to help us understand the magnitude of the impact.

Well, I don't want to get into specifics as to how much on each project, but I would suggest in general, they loosely were about half each. So if you look at the grind from 25-ish percent to 19%, that's loosely a million dollars, and the impacts were about half each for those two projects. Obviously, there's about 10,000 other moving parts in there that go on, but I think directionally that would be a good proxy. And then getting into the specifics on the... The commissioning costs, just to give you perspective, we're doing this outside in the field in different environments. You have issues such as weather, you have issues such as preventative maintenance, and you always need to work with your contractor being typically an EPC. There's always debate as to who's responsible when things don't go well. Obviously, we actively manage that, but you don't win 100% of those conversations and so that's what happened there and then in the case of the project scope there was a you know an issue where there was a different interpretation made and ultimately the the decision was is that we were going to have to eat that cost and so absolutely we don't like those things occurring but in this case it did occur and and it was of an order of magnitude that it stands out and i'll just i'll just add to that ahmad that

The scope control piece, that's something that we've got tight internal controls and had really good success doing that. We've had a bit of an anomaly in Q4 with this particular project, so that's unfortunate. The commissioning one, we do have a lot of variability when you arrive at site, so that's not necessarily a new thing for us. You've seen our past performance on gross margins. They've been quite steady. and solid. And so this is something that just happened as a more variability than we would have liked in Q4. But previous to that, we've had a solid track record of being able to manage and control that.

That's great. That's very, very helpful. I appreciate that. And maybe a follow-up on the deployment of project development capital. Maybe give us an An update, I see you guys maybe didn't do much in Q4, but has the change in the environment in the U.S. changed the way you think about that initiative, and what you allocated, if any amount of money is allocated for that in 2023?

Yeah, great question, Ahmad. So in the MD&A, I believe it's, I think we said it's somewhere around $10 million that's slotted for our deployment of development capital model. And we did the first two deals. They're in the U.S., but we didn't limit it to the U.S. market. We've been quite active in markets outside of the U.S. for the same concept to deploy that. In the development phase, there's a lot of moving parts. We've had a number of discussions. We intend to continue down that program path. I think it's fair to say that the two deals that we did in 2022, that is a pilot phase of the project. We want to be able to demonstrate the value that we bring to the development teams while at the same time securing the orders and seeing our recurring revenue and profits be realized through this opportunity. We intend to do more. We intend to evolve the model as the market speaks back to us in terms of what's helpful and what's not so helpful. But so far, I think for these first two deals, it's been a positive response from our developer partners, and we're looking to do more as there's opportunities.

That's great. And last one for me, I'll hand it over to you. Back to your comments on continuing to be focused on revenue growth, which we appreciate that. Should we expect maybe G&A costs to take up as well, just in support of the revenue growth pursuit that you guys are at, or are we at a good level with G&A right now?

Well, obviously, we always want G&A to be smaller. If you were to ask the accountant, I would say we're focused on it. Obviously, if there's a step change in our revenue profile, there would need to be a corresponding change of some nature in G&A. We are seeing some efficiencies being gained, as we mentioned, on systems and processes. We're not to the promised land as of yet, but we're starting to see some of that. My expectation is that If we had the corresponding revenue going in the direction we want, the pace of G&A should not follow. It should be smaller as we start to see some benefits from the work we've been doing here over the last X number of months that we're continuing to work on over this year.

Sounds good. Thanks for answering our questions. I'll jump back into the queue. Thanks a lot.

Your next question comes from Colin Healy with Haywood Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. I guess we covered quite a bit of ground here, but maybe just looking for an update on the potential M&A activity and if you're seeing many emerging opportunities that complement the business like AirDepth and just wondering if you're seeing valuations come down on potential targets or if you have any comment around that. And also maybe just a quick comment on AirDepth itself and... If it's kind of meeting expectations in terms of opening doors overseas, any color like that?

Yeah, good question, Colin. So, to start with ZERDEP meeting our expectations, I'd say yes, absolutely. So, that was a favorable deal for us. It did what we wanted to do. incremental revenue and growing revenue to the business with some growing margin opportunities, plus a compelling product to make our portfolio that much stronger. So checks all the boxes for us, and we're pretty pleased with the outcome. We think that, you know, that was a really great deal. Set a high bar for us now in terms of, you know, other deals we want to do. We want to be as good or better. We do continue to look around. You know, I guess... We did see, I don't know how to say this. I mean, it was a bit more activity, I'd say, a year ago in terms of availability of targets or deal flow possibilities. But there's a few things still out there. I think we have raised our bar in terms of what we want to accomplish and what we want to see. Had a great experience going through that. We went through some others that didn't conclude. That's normal when you're doing M&A activity. But Yeah, we continue to keep our eyes wide open for new M&As that can continue to propel the business forward. So look for more as we find some.

Yeah, thanks. I appreciate the update. I'll leave it there. Thanks, Colin.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one. There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed.

Thanks, everyone. I look forward to seeing everybody on the next conference call, and please feel free to submit any questions you want to the website as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.