BQE Water Inc.

Thank you for standing by. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the VQE Water Q4 2025 investor call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To ensure everyone has a chance to participate, we ask that you limit your questions to one plus a follow-up. I would now like to turn the conference over to the BQE Water Management Team. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone. My name is David Carter-Crew. I'm the President and Chief Executive Officer of the company, and on behalf of our entire team, warm welcome. to our conference call about Q4 and year-end results for 2025. With me here on the call today are Iman Wong, the chief financial officer of the company, and Peter Gleason, executive chairman of the board. We will start the call by Iman summarizing the highlights of the financial results And I will then provide a few comments to set the financial results in a broader context on the past, present, and future expectations from the management's perspective. And then we'll open the floor for questions. I do need to remind everyone, though, on the call that the discussion will contain forward-looking statements about future business and financial expectations. And the actual future results may differ from those projected in today's forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties, including the risks described in our financial report. Furthermore, on this call, we'll refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as proportional revenue and adjusted EBITDA. And reconciliation of these measures to the closest GAAP financial measure is included in our MD&A. which is available on our website. And now I will pass the floor over to Heman. Please go ahead. Thank you, David. Hello, everyone. My name is Heman, CFO of EC Water. Let me first start by walking over through our financial performance for the year-end, December 31, 2025. We delivered record gap revenues of $35.5 million, an increase of $18.4 million, which is 107%. and also a record proportional revenue of $39.9 million, an increase of $15.1 million, which is 61%, an increase compared to 2024. These results are broken down mainly by our recurring water treatment fees, which was $7.3 million. In general, a raglan with a longer season, and we started up a third salt plant in China, and also started up a salt mix plant in North Dakota. Technical services was $28.3 million, and mainly the two projects in Yukon combined to $20 million, and we both will continue the work in 2026. Included in our proportional revenue, which includes our share of income and revenue from China, our JTC joint venture, and this was roughly half of the prior year's results. Net income for the year, was $8.1 million compared to $4.8 million, an increase of $3.3 million, or 68%. In our net income this year, we recorded a deferred tax recovery of $1.8 million, which further increases the recovery from last year of $1.3. So, in total, we have a 3.1 recognized as deferred tax growth. That's it. And these assets is recognized to offset future tax expenses against the prior year loss carried forwards from Canada. Just that EBITDA was $8.2 million in 2025 compared to $5.6 million in the prior year, an increase of $2.6 million, or 47%. On the cash flow side, we grew net cash and cash equivalents by $7.2 million to $19 million as of December 31st, with $5.1 million generated from operating activities. On the balance sheet, we have increased our working capital, which we define as current assets less current liabilities, increased by $8.8 million, or 70% year-over-year, to a total of $21.4 million over the year-end. With that, I would like to turn the call over back to David. Thank you. Thank you, Iman. Before we start with questions, I just wanted to share a few comments and observations and thoughts on the company from my perspective. You know, looking at last year's, it was really, really in many ways transformational for the company. When I compare the company today and a year ago, I see several significant changes. Number one is that our field operations team has grown tremendously. It's now, well, three times, maybe quadruple the size of a year ago. As a result of the operations work that we've actually been doing, not just last year, but already in Q1, And as we indicated in our MD&A, we are in discussions with several other sites where we expect to provide operations services this year as well. And really, our operations group is now by far the largest group in the company. So that really bodes well for the ability of the company to generate revenue and recurring revenue specifically. I also want to share with everyone that our new aquatic toxicity lab is approaching completion, and we expect that active testing with HISH will start within the next few weeks and already received interest from several existing clients who inquired and are interested in toxicology services that include not only the advisory consulting side, but also, crucially, the actual lab testing. I also see a backlog of engineering services projects that I don't think I've seen before at BQE. I think that the size of the projects that are in the backlog is also indicative of the stage of the cycle, the commodity cycle. I finally wanted to also share with everyone that I personally do see already positive results of the internal reorganization, restructuring that we completed last year. We definitely increased our business development capacity, and it's still expanding. with the fresh onboarding of our new Latin American lead. We have dedicated intellectual property capture and development area with leadership in place and properly staffed. And we also onboarded the new directors of EH&S and talent that will make us overall a better company. Finally, I see sort of shift in the industry. When I compared Q1 last year to Q1 this year, the nature of the works changed. Last year, we worked on a lot of small early-stage projects on the technical services side. This year, most of the work and proposals are really for – pre-feasibility, feasibility studies, and for projects that are anticipated to fast-track to implementation. A major shift in the nature of the technical services work that we anticipate as we progress through the year. Now, we are growing and will continue to grow. You know, what is the expected growth? It's early to say for this year, for sure. But I would say that we're well on our way to meeting our internal goal that we set for ourselves last year, which is to double in size in the next three to four years. And with this out of the way, I'd like to now open the floor to questions that you may have for us. And back to you, Morgan.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. To ensure everyone has a chance to participate, we ask that you limit your questions to one plus a follow-up. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Robert Gignac with Fortera Investment Management. Your line is open.

Hi, and thanks for taking my question, and thanks for giving a platform for investors and analysts and offers questions. My first question is just about the current outlook for 2025. It seems to be quite strong, but after such a strong year in 2025, should investors be thinking that you can see revenue growth? And if so, would this be more from operations revenue stepping up or a mix of both?

Mr. Gediak is interested in your revenue growth.

Okay. Hi, Robert, and thank you for the question. So I think the growth is actually going to come in balanced from all these areas. I think we're firing on all cylinders. I think when I look at the operations services, there's undeniably growth that's going to come from there. With respect to the difficulty to overcome last year because of the revenue linked to the emergency response at EGLE, obviously we don't need as many resources this year necessarily for EGLE, but we continue. There's still water. We're there on site. We're treating. So I think that with respect to the operations revenue, there's definitely going to be a growth there. And for the rest of the company, as I alluded to, I think just the nature of the projects changed, and so I expect that these feasibility studies, pre-feasibility studies that allow us to allocate resources for an extended period of time rather than these small projects where you need to really quickly be reallocating and really replacing projects that move through the pipeline very quickly within four to six weeks, you need to have a replacement. These feasibility studies are typically taking months, right? And so you have better opportunity to achieve high utilization of staff. And so I do expect growth overall. It's early to say how much, but I certainly, based on what we see, I would expect to do better than last year.

Okay, great. And just maybe on a follow-up for that, it's just around the Britannia Milstar project. Can you maybe elaborate on the rationale for this project from the client's perspective and the prospect of this providing a reference case for other projects in North America?

Sorry, Robert, it wasn't clear.

He was asking about Britannia and reference?

Just on the Britannia mill project. Oh.

If you could elaborate on the Britannia. Yes. Okay. So, can you maybe. We now know what project you're talking about.

Can you repeat it? Okay. Yes. And can you maybe elaborate on the rationale for this project? from the client's perspective and the prospect of this providing a reference case for other projects in North America?

Yeah. Obviously, I can't comment from the client's perspective. That's up to them to comment. I think that the importance, obviously, for the SAR technology overall is to have its first application in Canada. and application that is basically in the metallurgical processing that is non-heat leach, which is a tougher application for SART and for cyanide recycling than a heat leach operation. And I think for those reasons, having that reference is really important. And I think that it sets also the tone for other companies in the way that we actually execute and implement together with Hudfay. And because, you know, I think as we discussed in the past, you know, the notion that you can quickly implement SART without having the right people involved, relying on sort of was publicly available without having the know-how and expertise. I think that that's a policy, and I think that this really helps us to put the stake in the ground and say, this is how you deliver SART in Canada safely, quickly, and achieved the metodological performance and safety standards that everybody respected. Yeah. If I can add, David, to that, and to you, Robert, hello, Robert.

The up-based due diligence, because there was nothing in the geographical region, was extreme. They really did do a hell of a lot of due diligence, including travelling around the sites we've got. And a bit like any business you look at, you look at first-line movers, to make the market. Well, there's also an element of that in geography. If someone is in the geographical region, someone else says, where can I see it? So I think it would be a good reference point in that way as well, not just accident.

Great, thanks. I'll get back in the queue. Thank you.

We know you will, Robert. It's okay.

Your next question comes from Nicholas Cortellucci with Atrium Research. Your line is open.

Hello there, David and team. Thanks for answering my questions here. Really excited for, you know, the first conference call that you guys are doing in a long time.

So, the first question I wanted to ask was regarding two of the contracts you signed with, one with Canadian Royalty, the other with Britannia. And it seems like those were signed on plans that other companies built.

So, how did you guys land those contracts over, you know, the incumbent, and is that a future opportunity where you can go to, you know, other plants that are built around the world and search yourselves in there? Yeah. Hi, Nicholas, and thank you for the question. I think you're right. I mean, is that an opportunity for us? Absolutely. I think as this company grows, as much as, you know, you know well that the vast majority of our projects have been sole sourced. So we got into operations without having to compete and bid against others. We recognize that as we grow this company and we want to continue growing, we have to go after some of these tenders and public tenders from governments as well. And I think that in order for us to be successful in those, we, however, needed to build that expertise and really strong, strong expertise and know-how. And not only on the operations side, but to have all the systems in place. To be a really credible party to bid on a large government contract, we have to have systems in place and procedures. And I think that that is really the... Part of the winning strategy, so for Canadian royalties, I think that, you know, in order to be successful at a remote site in a seasonal operation where you need to discharge large volume of water very quickly, you need really good systems in place and strong team that can train on board and execute with confidence. And I think that that really is the winning strategy for some of these seasonal operations for us in general. And like I said, for the government contracts, I think that really winning Britannia basically evolves the company into a different tier of a company that I imagine that, you know, once Farrell comes again on a public tender in Yukon, we will be there. and we will be one of the senior players.

Okay, that's amazing. And then the other question I had was more for Heeman.

Regarding the levels of the sales and development costs of 1.5 million in Q4, is that the level that we should expect going forward, you know, given the hiring and corporate organization you guys have done?

Yeah, regarding the sales and development costs, one thing we, alluded to in Q3, we have the expanding of the product toxicity. So there is cost to, I would say, more of a one-time cost, and it takes time for them to build up the lab, and they will soon be revenue generating, like what David mentioned earlier. I wouldn't expect a continual increase up, but there's components of one-time in nature in there as well. I would expect it to be a maximum going forward. And as you know, we don't use our capital in other areas, but this is the one area that with a small bit of M&A that we did in July last year, there is some unusual expenses out there, but they're not fixed for now. In general, sales and development also, so there's that one-time investment cost into the product. But I think in general, everybody understands that that's where a lot of unallocated labor ends up. So if we're not busy, it becomes sales and development expense for the company. So we expect that to be fairly minimal. Having said that, we're growing, and we're onboarding a lot of new people. And so it may be fluctuating depending on how much internal time we need to spend on onboarding talent. I think moving forward this year, it's not going to be a very large number because a lot of the onboarding is happening through our existing operations. So the labor is fully allocated. But if we get into a situation where we're onboarding some senior talent, then that would be in that line item, yeah.

All right. Understood. Okay. Well, thanks for answering my questions, guys, and I'll jump right in. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Siddharth Swani with Rational Capital Investment Fund. Your line is open.

Hello. I have a question. Apart from the regional hub model that a single head office can manage a suite of local projects, for your operational segment going forward, which is the strategy that you'll be using to scale. Are there any other strategies that you'll be using to reduce the customer acquisition costs and retention costs, possibly through AI automation tools, where the value, the data that you collect, there is some value from all of that?

Could you repeat that again?

We had a hard time actually...

My question is about the scalability from the operational segment. You said that you can use a single head office and you can gather many projects in that region and that's how you've scaled through the operational segment. I was wondering if there is implementation of some AI and automation tools as well that could help reduce customer acquisition costs and retention costs moving forward?

Yeah, no, very good question, and thank you for that. I'll offer comments and then let my colleagues comment on it as well. So it's true that we enjoy and we will continue to enjoy the economy of scale as we scale up our operations and have a centralized, you know, system for operations support. for health and safety, and obviously collecting data, as you alluded to, and interpreting trends and et cetera, et cetera, basic operation support. The data also is a source of potential new IP, so the analysis of the data is actually mined internally for any new potential IP and ideas for improvements in technology development. So as far as automating that, we're well on our way to do that. So in our automation team, we have one person who's actually dedicated to streamlining the way that the site reports and automatically generates different heat maps, if you will, or summaries for people involved in operation support, in intellectual property development, and actually archiving as well for ourselves. As far as actually implementing artificial intelligence, we're very careful about it. We don't have a subscription to any AI for reasons that we, because we are focused on intellectual property and we're not feeling confident yet that the rules around and clarity around intellectual property are clear enough for us to be confident to engage in that sense. But as far as automation, absolutely, it's already happening inside.

That's great. Thank you so much. My second question was regarding the discipline engineering acquisition that was talked about previously. We did the aquatic toxicology acquisition. I just wanted to ask if there's any updates on that. Yeah.

No updates that we would be able to share on this call. However, as we indicated, that's a natural next area for us to be pursuing, and we are in the process of identifying additional ones. So it's not just the discipline engineering, but we're starting to look at areas New areas that we haven't yet – we haven't looked previously, but we're looking now. And, again, fully complementary, applying the same criteria, we're looking for businesses that are already profitable, established, and that are bolting onto our existing services, specifically in water and mining areas. so that it's truly growing complementary to what we have. But we don't have anything specific to announce on M&A today, but those are the areas that we're looking.

That's awesome. Thank you so much, David.

Thank you, Peter. Your next question comes from Quig Tingley, who is a shareholder. Your line is open.

Hi, guys. Can you hear me? I hope I got this right. First off, congratulations. Great job. I'm a very happy shareholder. Thank you. But next, the focus seems to be a very large focus on critical minerals, rare earths, and I just wondered if we have got any technologies or whatever that, or we're looking at that area as a new area, a new source of income.

I certainly let David answer it, but as a shareholder, you see some, David's made some mentions about us in projects with Rare Earths now.

I don't know how you'd expand on that, David. Is it any different to... I mean, I think it's basically... Put it this way. I think it's public knowledge that we are part and parcel of two projects that require resources are advancing in South America. One is in Chile, and one is in Brazil. Those projects are... And, you know, please look up Clara. It's really an inspirational company in many ways. They are developing projects, but they are integrating from mine all the way to the Super Madness production. And the uniqueness of their projects is that they are very much focused on the heavy rare earths. So it's terbium... and dysprosium, those are the most valuable of the rare earths. We are in charge of making sure that water that's used for processing is fully reused, so there is full reuse of water, so the treatment is focused on reuse, as well as making sure that tailings from the processing meet the strictest limits that are out there including sulfate, including other impurities that would be in the pore water of the tailings produced from the metallurgical processing. And at the same time, in the process, in the treatment process, we also capture some of the rare earth themselves that the metallurgical process does not recover, so we recycle them back to the project. We run full integrated pilot or acquired it with us, with our team. So we teamed up with them and ran a full pilot in Chile and in Brazil. So those two projects, I think, are advancing. I think Acclar announced that they're building a refinery in Louisiana for purifying those metals and separating them. And most recently with CAP on... a large iron producer on actually producing from the pure metals producing super magnets. So that's one. And then we're also, I can't disclose the name, but we are involved in a rare earth project where we're looking in very early stage at basically doing best available technology assessment for water treatment. So our involvement is not on the recovery of these, but on making sure that these processes are you know, environmentally acceptable and basically meet the high standards of regulatory approvals.

Sounds quite the same.

And I'll presume, David, for the layman out there, hard rock mining is hard rock mining. It doesn't matter if it's rare or so. Well, that's actually a unique thing, but for Clara, is that they're developing ionic clays. So unlike the hard rock, this is where I think their projects are probably the most advanced out there because the nature of ionic clay is that you literally just need to wash the metals off the clay instead of hammering them. They don't need grinding, milling, acids, nothing of that sort. So it's really the most environmentally friendly process, if you will. for getting rid of, but no undue complications by the time it gets to our end. Water is water. Yeah, but the water is basically recycled around, right? So it's really a zero liquid discharge situation.

Okay, thank you, Greg.

Thank you.

Your next question is a follow-up from Robert Gignac with Forterra Investment Management. Your line is open.

Thanks for taking my call. I was just wondering how investors should be thinking about your margins going forward, given the nature of the new operations contracts that you've signed and that are going to be part of results for 2026. Should we expect that some of these come at a blended lower margin going forward? Maybe help us understand what the go forward looks like for margins.

Thanks.

The new operations in 2026, there is a blend. There's a spectrum of various margins, but together in aggregate, it will be similar to what we had in 2025. Yeah.

Okay, great. And just to follow up, I wanted to ask about Sentara's Chem-S project. They put out a more compelling PEA recently. Do you continue to have involvement with this project while it's on care and maintenance? And what's the likelihood that if this project were to come back online, you would be engaged here again?

So just to clarify, we've always had – always had engagement and involvement since they put the project on care and maintenance. So, basically, our team would go to site once a year, inspect the encouperant, maintain the resin, et cetera. So, we've maintained that involvement under contract since it was put on care and maintenance. You know, I think we mentioned previously that we're in discussions with Sentera about the next steps in basically putting that treatment plant back into operation. So, the discussions are ongoing. We, again, as part of our technical services that we will report on in Q1, we've done some work on that project specifically. So just be patient and you'll learn more. But thank you for your question. Great.

Thank you. That concludes our Q&A session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Pete Cleason for closing remarks.

Yeah, thank you, Morgan, and thank you, everybody, for listening and everybody that joined.

You know, we really do appreciate our shareholders and the support over the years, and we hope to keep, you know, performing with you. If anybody didn't have a chance to answer a question or ask a question or whatever or, you know, want to dig further into what we've already answered, please feel free to email me. I was, you know, I'll definitely respond within 24 hours.

and happy to answer anything that we can answer. Thank you very much, Morgan, and I'll hand it back to you.

Thank you. That concludes the BQE Water Investor Call. Thank you so much for attending, and have a wonderful rest of your day.