Evergen Infrastructure Corp.

Hi everyone, this is Jeremy So, Director of Corporate and Business Development. Welcome to the Evergen Infrastructure fourth quarter 2020 for your earnings results presentation. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Participants can submit questions via the Q&A box at the bottom of the screen, which will be answered following the presentation. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Before we begin, I would like to direct all participants to our website at www.evergeninfra.com where you will find a copy of the fourth quarter 2023 earnings presentation. Please allow me to remind you that our discussion today contains forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from results projected by those forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to particularly differ from those in the four looking statements is contained in the fourth quarter 2023 management discussion and analysis. I will now turn the call over to Misha Zatman, Evergen Infrastructure's President and Chief Executive Officer to begin.

Thanks Jeremy and thanks everyone for joining today. Overall, 2023 was a year to solidify our foundation to ensure future and sustainable growth in 2024 and beyond. It was a year in which we achieved some significant milestones, in particular, bringing the Fraser Valley biogas facility online. And as we continue to ramp that facility up today, we're pleased in terms of how that facility has performed relative to our expectations. And we expect to continue to see that type of performance at that facility, which sets us up well in terms of the development of all our core projects as we continue to advance those in 2024. With that, I'll hand it over to Sean to go through our year-end results, and then I'll go through our presentation here, and then we'll leave it open for Q&A at the end.

Thanks Misha and welcome everyone to the Q4 year-end earnings presentation. Starting with our financial results, our revenues for Q4 2024 increased 35% relative to 2022 and these were boosted from the commencement of RNG production at Grotech in Q3 and additional feedstock received across all of our operating facilities. After adjusting for depreciation, our direct operating costs were consistent with Q4 2022 and it should be noted that Q4 2023 includes additional costs associated with the RNG production at Grotech and the operations at our Prairie Sky organics facility. Our net loss was slightly impacted by recognising a write down on surplus equipment, which was classified as held for sale at year end. And our adjusted EBITDA was lower than last year, mainly as a result of the Fraser Valley Biogas construction and commissioning work undertaken during the quarter, which disrupted RNG production at the facility prior to the completion of construction. Moving on to liquidity, our cash and working capital balances have been utilized for the Fraser Valley Biogas Project, as well as the purchase of certain equipment at our Grotech facility to be used as part of the second phase of the expansion. We're actively managing the working capital deficit through additional financing initiatives, including a $3.5 million term loan for Growtech secured in January 2024, and we're working on additional non-dilutive financial measures. These initiatives serve to substantially improve both working capital and liquidity as the, along as the operating results continue to strengthen from Fraser Valley Biogas coming online. Overall it's positive to see the increased revenues and stabilized costs during the quarter, which has seasonally been a slower quarter for Evergen. And we look forward to reporting the Q1 results, inclusive of the Fraser Valley Biogas project operating results in late May. I'll now hand it back to Misha for the remainder of the presentation.

Great. Thanks for that, Sean. So in terms of what do we actually achieve, what were the significant milestones that Evergen was able to get across the line in 2023? Obviously, as we've touched on, Fraser Valley Biogas was a big milestone for us. But we also brought in new feedstock contracts, winning the City of Abbotsford contract for our Pacific Coast Renewables facility. We finalized our NRCan grant for $10 million at PCR for the development of that project. We were awarded a 10 year, 24,000 ton processing organics processing contract with the City of Regina, and we continue to advance all of our core projects in terms of bringing them online. So with Fraser Valley Biogas, We, as you saw in the month of February, it was a record production month for us. We only had two of our three digesters operational at that time. We've since commissioned the third digester as well. We're in the process of commissioning our dry feeding system as well. Nameplate capacity at the facility is 160,000 gigajoules per year. Based on how the facility is performed to date, we expect to be able to exceed that number once that facility is fully ramped up on a run rate basis. What's particularly exciting for us now that Fraser Valley Biogas is online is we've got a team that's actually Adam Finkelstein- ramped one of these commissioned and ramps a facility this facility like this, of this scope of this size, and we can essentially redeploy that team redeploy that model to what we're doing at grow tech in Alberta. Since the end of last year, we've deployed a project manager who's fully dedicated to the advancement of GrowTech phase two. As you can see, GrowTech is now, phase one is producing RNG at a capacity of 70,000 gigajoules per year. What we've come up against is some pipeline constraints in terms of getting the gas into the system, which will be fully addressed as we design phase two. We expect to be in a position to announce FID at Grotech for phase two in mid 2024 as we continue to advance that project. 2023 was a really busy year for Pacific Coast Organics or Pacific Coast Renewables. We renewed our feedstock contract with the City of Abbotsford, but we made a lot of progress in terms of advancing the permitting at that facility for an RNG facility there. We've completed our environmental upgrades there and essentially now have a clean environmental bill of health. such that we're now in a position to move forward with permitting of the RNG facility. We expect to be in a position to announce FID by the end of 2024 and start deploying funds from the NRCan grant thereafter. Where we've really made a lot of progress is on project radius. We've managed to optimize the economics at that project in order to take advantage of the new ITC structure in Canada. We brought in a funding party. We're in the final throws of bringing in a financing party, essentially to address the funding gap for all three phases of the project. which once executed will provide a much clearer path to getting to the full RNG capacity of this project. Again, we continue to expect to be able to achieve FID in mid 2024 at project radius here. And we continue to evaluate, while fully focused on our core projects, we wanna establish that solid foundation from which to be able to grow creatively and sustainably. We continue to analyze and review opportunities in our pipeline. The RNG market continues to be ripe for consolidation, and we wanna ensure that we're taking a really disciplined approach in terms of how we grow and how we bring new projects into the fold. And we're still just at the early stages where we're only digging into a small piece of the larger RNG pie, as there's many other opportunities out there to bring into the fold. And it's just a matter of ensuring that we do so on an accretive basis. As Sean mentioned, we essentially were in the process and have addressed many of the liquidity concerns that were highlighted in our financials. All strategic and financing alternatives that we're evaluating would be executed on a non-dilutive basis. We continue to to to see opportunities to evaluate these strategic alternatives, which would be essentially with a view to growing our platform, to bringing in new EBITDA in search of near term cash flow as opposed to longer, longer staged greenfield growth. With that, I'll pass it over to Jeremy for the questions and answers.

Thanks, Misha. So the first question is on Pacific Coast Renewables R&D expansion. Can you speak to the estimated cost and timing for financial investment decision and the plans for financing?

Yeah, so why don't I touch on the on timing? Sean, you can touch on cost and financing. So we expect to be in a position to get to FID by the end of 2024 here. As I mentioned, we've made a lot of progress on the permitting side of the facility and the RNG development there. We've now got a clean environmental bill of health. We're in discussions with the City of Abbotsford to get final approval from the City and we're in the final stages of finalizing our scope and our finalized design such that we can begin to draw on the NRCan grant.

Thanks, Misha. So the guidance that we've previously put out is a cost of between, I believe, $33 to $35 million. As Misha touched on before, now that we've completed the Fraser Valley biogas expansion project, our team's being redeployed at both Grotech and Pacific Coast. and they're really going into the detailed design and engineering work there to determine the project scope and we don't expect that estimate to change upwards. If there is any movement we would expect it to come down based on the preliminary work done to date. In terms of funding, we've obviously previously announced we have $16 million available from our existing debt facility, as well as an additional $10 million or $10.5 million from the NRCan grant, which was executed in February.

Thanks, Sean. The next question is on Grotech Phase 2 expansion. Similarly, can you speak to the expected cost and timing for financial investment decision and plans for financing?

Yeah, so with Grotech Phase 2, the two main design issues that we're addressing right now are essentially Adam Finkelstein- Addressing the pipeline capacity issue that we encountered in phase one and we've come up with with a solution to that issue which will get addressed in phase two. Adam Finkelstein- At at a minimal capital cost and and and secondly it's addressing the upgrading capacity at that site and and and the the capital costs associated with that. Sean, maybe if you want to talk about financing at GrowTech.

Yeah, sure. So as we touched on earlier, we secured a $3.5 million term loan for GrowTech. The way that I would look at that is $2 million was a reimbursement for the costs incurred for phase one and $1.5 million is partially for costs incurred for phase two, along with ongoing costs being incurred for phase two of the project. We're working with our existing lender there and they've indicated support for phase two of the project, depending on certain standard terms and conditions.

Thanks, Sean. The next question is regarding covenants. For the fourth quarter of 2023, can you speak to the lender covenants?

Yeah, sure. So I believe the question was why we weren't in compliance with certain of the covenants. So the biggest noncompliance there was the working capital deficit, our existing term loan. with Roynette and EDC has working capital ratios that need to be achieved. And obviously with a negative working capital deficit, we were offside on that covenant. We've been working closely with both of our lenders on that term loan. to and they were able to provide waivers for Q4 and we've since amended those covenants as the facility ramps up. In discussions with them it's not unusual for, while this is a corporate level debt, it's in nature it's project level financing for a construction loan for Fraser Valley Biogas. And it's not unusual to have a ramp up period as that project comes online. Obviously, the debt was required to be drawn prior to during construction and well in advance of that facility coming online.

Thanks, Sean. On that note, the next question is regarding liquidity. What specific steps is the company planning to take in order to raise liquidity? And can you provide an estimate of the total amount of funds that the company needs to raise and meet its obligations?

Yeah, so I mean, we as part of year end, we obviously went through the full audits and this was a topic that we went through with our auditors. In our financial statements, we identify that there is a liquidity risk. um but what how that's being addressed is from the the uh term loan that we entered into for growtech and as i touched on earlier my presentation we're working currently working on additional liquidity measures um and and one of those is an operating line of credit which we're in the final stages of as well So with those two mechanisms in place, that solves the working capital issue that we have at year end. Additionally, with Fraser Valley coming online and with improved operations across all of the sites, I was touching on the lower costs that we're seeing year over year, our operating cash flow is improving and we expect to be able to generate more than enough cash flow from operations to meet our obligations as they come due.

Thanks, Sean. The next question, can you please elaborate on the write down that occurred during the quarter?

Yeah, sure. So that's really an accounting mechanism as part of the completion of the Fraser Valley biogas project. There was certain equipment that was decommissioned and we are now in the process of selling that equipment. So it's really the delta between the carrying value um or the book value of that equipment versus what we expect to sell it for so some of this equipment is 10 10 plus years old and the accounting depreciation would have been depreciated over perhaps 15 to 20 years so now when when when we're trying to sell it it's it's it's at a slightly lower price than the book value okay thanks sean

For the next question, can you speak to Fraser Valley and Brotec's ramp up of production and when we anticipate reaching for capacity?

So at Fraser Valley Biogas, we've always envisioned a three to six month ramp up period. We're about three and a half months in. We've got our third digester commissioned and our dry feeding system is almost fully commissioned. So we expect to be fully ramped come the end of Q2. And once we've achieved that, with nameplate capacity at 160,000 gigajoules, the expectation based on how we performed to date is that we'll be able to achieve about a 20% increase from nameplate capacity.

Thanks, Michel. Can you speak to the opportunities that we're seeing in the U.S., particularly with regards to U.S. offtake opportunities as compared to Canada?

Yeah, so the big distinction historically between the US offtake market and the Canadian offtake market is price and term. So in the US market, you'll see some of the utilities or private actors offering five-year terms at significantly higher pricing than what you'll get in Canada. In Canada, the offtake market has improved significantly in Canada from the utilities. When we founded Evergen about four years ago, the utilities were offering in the high 20s per GJ. Now you've got some utilities in Canada that are able to offer in the mid 40s. Those are Canadian dollars. And FortisBC has recently increased their cap to the mid 30s. So we continue to see sort of positive tailwinds in the offtake market in Canada. As we move forward and develop projects, particularly at a larger scale, there will probably be evaluating an offtake mix with a mix, a blend of long-term 20-year Canadian off-takes with other U.S. sort of shorter-term, higher spot price opportunities, not too dissimilar to the structure that we have, we've achieved at GrowTech.

Thanks, Misha. For the fourth quarter, with respect to seasonality with processing, can you speak to the impact of that? Yeah, I can take that one.

Thanks, Jeremy. So the way we look at both Q4 and Q1 in a given year, there's seasonality with our composting facilities. And the way that we look at it is there's usually minimal or very, very little EBITDA added from those facilities during that time. And just in March when When the weather started turning, we were seeing quantities of feedstock at all of the facilities more than double in a given week. So it's really those facilities generate the majority of their cash flows during Q2 and Q3 of a given year, including the sale of soil that the facilities produce. And Q4 and Q1, really, there's nominal EBITDA contribution during those periods.

Thanks, Sean. That wraps up the Q&A. That concludes Everdine Infrastructure's fourth quarter 2023 earnings results presentation. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in today. Thank you.