Good morning, everyone, and a very warm welcome at Avantium's Capital Markets Day. Pleased to see you're here. Also, welcome to the people that are attending today in an online fashion. Today, we plan to give you an update of where the company is, where we're going. As we are a chemistry company, safety is always basically the topic that we start every meeting with. So also for today, we kindly ask you to follow safety instructions from our team. We haven't planned any fire drills today, as you can imagine, so if the fire alarm goes off, we have a chemical lab downstairs. We kindly ask you to follow us to the emergency exits and to convene outside. Of course, we anticipate that that's not gonna happen.
We can focus really on today's presentation. This is the disclaimer that we need to make at the start of every meeting, as we are a listed company, and we will be making forward-looking statements. Most importantly, I want to introduce you to Boudewijn van Schaik, our Chief Financial Officer. My name is Tom van Aken. I'm Chief Executive Officer of Avantium, and today we really would like to give you an introduction to where the company is and where we're going. And there are gonna be three themes that we're gonna be using as we've set up the presentation for today. We're starting off with the inflection points that the company is nearing. We'll talk about strategic focus, and we'll talk about funding. And I wanna start off with nearing that inflection point.
And of course, I'm showing you this plant because this is really what this inflection point is all about. This is the FDCA flagship plant that we're building in Delfzijl, in the north of the Netherlands. And I've been there over the past years, of course, but more, more and more frequently over the recent period. And every time I'm there, and I'm standing on this site, I'm incredibly proud of what we have achieved as a team, as a company, to get to this point. In 2005, we've done the first experiment here in the lab, the first time that someone actually took a bag of sugar from the canteen and to do the first test, and here we are, 18 years later, we're building the first world's FDCA plant.
And to see how that is coming together is something which is, is really awesome and is really making yeah all of us very proud of what we've been able to achieve. And that proud is actually something... That pride is something that I can, I can see, in particular, if I bring industrial partners to the site. If we take industrial companies or chemical companies or feedstock companies or customers to the site, and I can see their expression when they see this and their realization that this, this is not just a dream, this is not a concept, but this is actually taking place, you can see that this is really an inflection point.
That is really what we want to convey to you today, is that we are there, where this plant will become operational and when our products are coming to the market. It is not only about the technical progress, it's also really about the commercial progress. The company has signed 15 offtake agreements and has signed the first licensing deal to get this technology commercialized. And also, of course, that commercial excitement is something that we want to share with you in today's presentation. As I said, it's gonna be about that inflection point, so today we'll give you an update on the progression of the plant and the timing thereof, and also, of course, the associated cost and the investment to build this plant. We'll also talk about strategic focus.
The company has announced this morning that we're gonna be focusing on the most advanced technology that the company has in its portfolio. So previously, we were a broader technology company with multiple technologies in the pipeline. We've decided to really focus and allocate our resources on the most advanced, promising technology that we have in our in our portfolio, which is the FDCA and PEF technology. And I think that is something that many investors will also like because they really like, of course, to see that the company will focus first on getting that first technology out there, scaled and to the market, before we're gonna be working on other technologies. The last part of the presentation, which was predominantly done by Boudewijn, is gonna be about funding.
The company has announced that we're gonna be raising EUR 50 million, and we're gonna show you why we need that money and how we are planning to raise that capital over the coming months. So starting, of course, why are we doing this? I think you, many of you have heard this before. This is really about addressing a very difficult problem in our society, which is the plastic problem. Plastics are predominantly made from petroleum. They cause huge amounts of carbon emissions, and if the petroleum, that basically is, it's not only the energy that is needed to make these materials, it's also the fossil carbon that is the basis of making these plastics. And that carbon ends up either as CO2 or it ends up as plastic pollution in our natural systems.
That is something that we have to address. So and if you compare the energy transition, we're on the way to solve that by wind energy, by solar energy, by other forms of energy. This is a more difficult one to crack because we need to work with renewable carbon in order to avoid that we continuously bring new carbon into that system. And as you can see on this slide, the problem gets bigger every year because we are using more and more of these materials on an annual basis. Therefore, what the world needs is something to solve this problem, and so far, society and industry has very much set its course on recycling. But I think over the recent years, we've seen that recycling is not gonna be sufficient to help to solve this problem.
We need more radical solutions on the base of renewable carbon and making them circular. So I think the time is extremely good for bringing an innovation to the market that Avantium is currently developing. And to show you that, of course, we have to look at what trends are currently going on. And you can see that from the consumer side, there's a very, very strong pull from the consumers to make sure that we are switching over to these renewable, sustainable materials. So consumers like this, in particular, the younger consumer, is very critical toward brands and companies to make sure that they embark on the journey towards sustainability. But it's not just the consumer, it is also regulation.
It started, of course, off particularly in the European Union, where we have, since last year, the Green Deal, that is really setting the course to make sure that we switch over to renewable and circular materials, but also in the United States, where President Biden has signed an executive order that is set to replace 90% of the fossil-based materials with bio-based materials. And then, of course, if you look at the news of this morning of COP 28 in Dubai, where we've seen really the first signs that the world is gonna be serious about phasing out fossil feedstock. So in that sense, you can see that the winds are blowing in our direction, and therefore, we expect this to be accelerating. And where you can see this is also, of course, if we talk to brand owners.
If you talk to the big brand owners that are the biggest users of plastics in the world, you can see that they're very serious about this. They've set very ambitious targets for recycling, but you can also see that they are struggling to meet these targets, and therefore, they need more radical innovations like Avantium is bringing to the market with its PEF product. Now, the part outside of the plant that I'm actually most proud of is the slide that you see here. This is basically what we call our eco center or ecosystem of partners that we've been able to attract over the past 10 years. It's a collection of brands, of converters, of industrial companies, and more recently, of the biggest Dutch supermarket chain, Albert Heijn.
We've been able to attract these partners, and it has taken an incredible amount of effort, and energy, and dedication for a brand owner to convince them to associate their brand name, which is their biggest and most valuable product, to a new material like PEF. That is something that you should not underestimate, how important that decision is, that goes all the way to the boardroom to make sure that we really have their senior level commitment in order to associate themselves with PEF. You can see brands like Carlsberg, like InBev, like Refresco, like Louis Vuitton, like Henkel, like Albert Heijn. I think it really tells you that the industry is serious about this and that Avantium is capable of convincing these brands to start using PEF.
Now, the nice thing about this is if you look at all these different companies that we're working with and all these different applications, that this is not just one thing, it's not just a bottle. It is something that will touch your lives, and you saw that maybe in the intro movie. It's gonna touch your life in many different ways, in bottles, in packaging, in fiber, so in apparel and clothing, in your iPhone that you're using, in the sofa that you're sitting on. This is a product that you will see and touch many times of the day, and a lot of that is not just discretionary spending, a lot of it is actually something that you need in order to live your life.
If you look at this slide, you can see that we also have here the two most recent announcements, PANGAIA and Albert Heijn. Now, PANGAIA, when I talk to some of, let's say, some of you, people are like: "Who, who is PANGAIA? What is the brand PANGAIA?" My biggest advice to you, talk to your kids. That your kids will know what PANGAIA is. This is one of the most, the hottest brands in fashion, and you can see that they're playing an incredibly smart game in terms of influencing and in terms of bringing really sustainable materials to the market. That is basically what they're doing.
It's called a material science company in fashion, and they are incredibly successful, and therefore, I'm incredibly proud that they have decided to bring PEF into hoodies, into T-shirts, and into other clothing that they're gonna be selling online. The second one is Albert Heijn. Now, for anyone in the Netherlands, Albert Heijn is the biggest supermarket, the biggest retailer in the Netherlands. It's, of course, part of Ahold, which is an international conglomerate of supermarket chains. And you can see here on this picture, a picture of with Marit van Egmond, who is the CEO of Albert Heijn, and we've made this picture actually in my supermarket, in the Albert Heijn in Haarlem, where I typically buy my groceries.
I was there with her to actually make this picture to show also to customers of Albert Heijn that PEF is coming into their hands. Of course, again, you can say it's another bottle. The nice thing with Albert Heijn is we're not just looking at bottles, we're actually looking across the supermarket to meat packaging, to vegetable packaging, to coffee packaging, to look at all the applications where Albert Heijn can start introducing PEF as a packaging material. It's not just something for only very, let's say, specific and high-end applications like it is in the beginning. We're also really looking for mainstream applications that you will be using on a daily basis.
Then I would like to go to the beer bottle, which is probably the part that you were first looking at, which is our collaboration with Carlsberg. With Carlsberg, we're working on a new bottle. It's called the Fiber Bottle. On the outside, it's made from wood fiber. On the inside, in order to preserve the beer, to make sure it's carbonated and that we have the required shelf life, there's a liner of PEF in there. I think this is a wonderful piece of innovation. I'm very proud that we're working with a beer brewer that is really forward-looking to see how the future of beer packaging is gonna look like. And when they started doing these customer trials in Europe last year, they made a nice video that we wanna show you.
We Danes are a resourceful bunch. We don't believe in wasting anything. Burning these would provide warmth, but what if we could turn them into something more? A beer bottle made from natural wood fibers. Would that be the best bottle in the world? Probably.
So the nice thing, of course, is that we have all of these applications which really represent multi-billion-dollar markets, and that we have really the leading brands that have started to work with us. So let's see that in the context of where the company is going. So what is, I think most of you know our mission is to reduce carbon emissions and help to address, plastic pollution, and how we do that is by coming up with new materials, renewable materials, that are truly circular, but that really can compete in terms of cost, so that they are affordable and can compete on performance, because of course, people don't want to compromise on the performance. Now, today is actually something that we announce something new, which is, okay, we're asking people for a new round of investing, investments.
We'll come back to that in a minute, but we also are translating here this into our ambition. Where do we wanna go? And what we expect once our flagship plant is on stream, and we see the revenues coming in, once we see that this translates into our licensing business and that we're capable of selling multiple licenses, our ambition is to have EUR 100 million of revenues in 2026 and be EBITDA positive. We'll come back in Boudewijn's presentation, but today is the first time that we give that forward-looking ambition to make sure that you know, where does the company want to go. Of course, you know that you're investing in a company that has ESG at the heart and, something that is, I think, in all means, also recently certified by our EcoVadis audit, is something that is truly sustainable.
Now, if you have been here before, I think it is important to provide a bit of historical context towards to, to put that ambition into a historical context. So where we started, as I said in the beginning, first experiment happened in 2005. 2011, we opened our pilot plant in the south of the Netherlands. Today, we are here. We're basically completing the construction of our FDCA flagship plant. We've signed 15 offtake agreements and one license agreement with Origin Materials in the United States. And where we're going is bringing that flagship plant on stream, translating that, of course, into revenues out of the plant, and, subsequently, to accelerate our licensing business. That is really where the company is going, and that is basically underpinning that financial ambition that I showed you on the previous slide.
So let's look at FDCA and PEF. I know I've explained this to many of you before, but I think for people that are new to this, it's good to see how are plastics today being made, and how does that compare to how Avantium is making PEF. So if you look at PET, PET is made from crude oil, two monomers, two chemical ingredients, MEG and PTA, and that is one of the largest polymers that we have in the world, PET used in, in bottles, in packaging, and in clothing. Now, when the world is phasing out crude oil, we need the renewable carbon in order to build these materials, and we start from plant-based sugars. You need two monomers for this, plant-based MEG and FDCA. If you combine the two, you come to something that is 100% renewable-based PEF.
And here on the other side, you see what does that then deliver. It'll deliver something which has a substantial lower carbon footprint. The recent study that we've done on a Life Cycle Assessment is that it's a 62% improvement in terms of the carbon footprint of this product. We have superior technical properties that I will show you. It's something with provides enhanced recyclability, and we think we can make this in a cost-competitive way to make sure that consumers can buy this product in an affordable manner. Now, let me start off with feedstock. Often, of course, this comes up, where do you buy the plant-based sugars that you're gonna be using, and how is it gonna look like in the future?
So for today's flagship plant, what we're doing is we're buying fructose syrup from a company in a French company, Tereos, where they are basically processing wheat. They're making wheat starch, and on base of the wheat starch, they make fructose syrup that is shipped to our flagship plant in Delfzijl, and that is the basis for making FDCA and PEF. For the future, we think that we need all different types of feedstock that are available. It's gonna be a combination of first and second-generation feedstock.
Of course, often in these types of meetings, I get asked: "Aren't you afraid that you're gonna be competing with food, or that is there gonna be enough land available to make this?" I think all of these studies that have looked into this show that there is gonna be sufficient land, and there is gonna be sufficient volume of renewable carbon available without actually interfering with the food supply chain. But you need to make sure that you are diversified in terms of the types of feedstock that you can use. So for that reason, we're also looking into what we call second-generation feedstock, so non-edible, lignocellulosic feedstock. We're working with Origin Materials for the process that is using wood chips as a feedstock.
Avantium has developed its own Dawn Technology that is also based on wood chips, and today we are announcing that we're also working on using textile waste, which is a combination of polyester and of cotton, and we can use that also in our Dawn Technology to make actually the precursors that we need to make FDCA and PEF. And of course, with that, we can solve another problem, which is this growing mountain of textile waste that can be used as a feedstock for making this new polymer. Today, during one of the breakout sessions, we'll have more detail on how we plan to do that. And then, of course, this is probably the favorite topic when we talk to our customers, we talk about this is not just a renewable product, it is actually a better product than what you're using today.
What we mean with that is, on the sustainability side, 100% renewable, it is something also which is circular. I'll come back to that in a minute. The most important thing for customers is that it actually has better performance. It has higher gas barrier properties, so it's better to keep carbonated product in your packaging. If it is something that is sensitive to air or to oxygen, you can keep that out. That actually is something which is highly valuable to food companies, because it means that you can actually preserve the products longer if you're using PEF instead of using the products that they're using today.
You can see here, this really delivers them very concrete value proposition, where we can say that we can reduce the weight of the packaging, we can extend the shelf life, and we can make sure that the product is better to recycle. Now, why do I say it's better to recycle? If you look at PET, people often use all kinds of other additives to PET in order to give it the desired performance, but those additives subsequently cause all kinds of problems in the recycling. And that's why, in all fairness, just a small percentage of plastics can be used for recycling because we add so many things to plastics in order to give that the desired performance. That is different with PEF because it has intrinsic the properties that people are looking for.
Of course, we are being asked or challenged, how will we recycle PEF when a new product is coming to the market? Because we've seen in the past, in the chemical industry, that has been difficult. And Avantium has come up, I think, with a very clever strategy here, is that in the beginning, we can recycle PEF in the recycling of PET. We have the approvals in Europe and in the United States that we can blend PEF in the recycling stream of PET to make sure that it gets recycled. This is not the real long-term solution. The long-term solution is to make sure that PEF can be recycled to PEF, but you need to have a short-term solution to make sure that your product is circular and fits with the existing recycling infrastructure. And we have that in place, and our customers really like it.
So coming back to these applications, so these, as I said, are multibillion-dollar markets. The biggest one is in bottles or containers, which are used for beer, for soft drinks, for waters. You can see that we have, I think, a very strong set of launching customers. More recently, over the past few years, we started working on PEF fiber applications, where we have customers now with like PANGAIA, Monosuisse, and Kvadrat. And on the film side and other applications, it is not only in packaging, for example, it is also working with Henkel on adhesives for electronics. So in the future, your iPhone can be basically glued together, not by things that are made from petroleum, but by things that are totally made from renewable feedstock.
Albert Heijn, you can see, will be coming back in different market segments because they will be using both bottles, but we also aim to work with them and their suppliers to make sure that we can also introduce other forms of packaging in Albert Heijn made from PEF. Of course, people are gonna be interested, so how does it work? How big is this total available market, and how will you introduce PEF in that market? So where we are right now, at the beginning, we are pricing PEF at roughly EUR 10 per kilo. All of our existing contracts are 5-year agreements where we have priced it at EUR 10 per kilo. Of course, that is a significant premium, it's justified by performance and by the fact that it's, of course, sustainable and it is new.
This is really what I would call high specialty market. We're competing with specialty products, and that is basically how we've been able to achieve over 90% of our FDCA plant is committed by these offtake agreements that is done over here. That is, of course, important for the initial phase to make sure that the FDCA plant can have decent economics in order to make sure that we, when we bring this on stream and the revenues are coming out, that we provide- that we deliver the, the level of EBITDA that we're looking for. This is the, at the beginning, the most important phase. Our licensees, they will not be building another 5-kiloton plant. Our licensees are expected initially to build 100-kiloton plants. When I say a 100 kiloton, it could be 70, it could be 150.
It is that range that we are discussing. Our calculations show that if you produce PEF at that scale, it's gonna be priced EUR 4-EUR 5 per kilo. At that price level, you're competing with products like glass, with alumina, and other multilayer products. The total market here is EUR 40 billion per year, so this is something that is really sizable. If you look at the ambition that we've provided, so, the EUR 100 million of revenues, it means that we need to sell 5 of these licenses in this segment here. 5 licenses, 500,000 ton, will be a 6.5% of this market right here. Now, if you look at the total market in the future, you can see that it's much bigger.
If you are able to produce PEF in industrial scale plants, like are being used for PET, your price level is expected to drop to EUR 2 per kilo, and then you are competing here with commodity products, with mainstream products, and this is where we think ultimately this is going. Of course, it's always difficult to predict how long it will take to get there. We have here 2035, but this is ultimately where we think we will play if PEF is produced on a mass scale. The initial licensing phase is gonna focus on this part here, so that is where the market percentage or market share percentage is coming from.
Of course, we're always being asked about the economics, so let's make it concrete and give you some real life examples of how this compares with existing products that you see on the market. I'll start off with the 100-kiloton phase. That is the initial licensing phase that I referred to, where we expect PEF to be priced at 5 EUR per kilo. Now, you have to take into consideration, PEF brings value because it has better properties. So where you see this is on this part here. It's a 33-centiliter bottle, and how much weight does it bring? A PEF bottle will weigh 13.5 grams, versus 200 grams for glass and 13 grams for alumina. If you then look at the cost, you can see that here, EUR 0.07, EUR 0.13 or EUR 0.03.
And then you can see the global warming potential compared to these other materials. These are the type of discussions that we're having with our customers when we are being compared. And as you can see, this is actually something where they think if they look at the total percentage of the end product, where we think that we have a very interesting, a valuable, proposition to them. If you go and look further out in the future, and you go to the real large-scale plants, so 250-kiloton plants, you can see how PEF compares with PET, because only at that level, scale of manufacturing, we will be able to compete with PET. You can see here, again, PEF bottles will be lighter than the PET bottles.
But then if you look at recycled PET, how it is priced today, or if you look at virgin PET, you can see that we are gonna be in the same ballpark. For our customers, it's extremely important information to see, is PEF gonna be affordable to a customer in the future? And our calculations show that we have something which is also gonna be cost competitive. And of course, we have something where really we can deliver in terms of reducing their carbon emissions. Now, how do we get there? How do we make sure that the customers can get their products into their hands? And that is, of course, why we're building the first plant in Delfzijl, and that's the picture I showed you at the beginning.
If you look at the press release that we issued this morning, you can see that from a timing perspective, we are on track. The commissioning, we expect to start in Q1 2024, so you can see we are in the completion phase of the construction, and the FDCA production is expected to come on stream in the second half of 2024. Now, what we would have preferred today is to bring you to Delfzijl and to show you this, just like I just told you about our industrial partners, to show you that. Well, unfortunately, we couldn't organize that today because there are close to 200 people working on the site every day to complete the plant.
What we've done is we've made a video to show you where we are, and also we've asked colleagues to provide you with an insight of where we are.
Hi, I'm Patrick van den Berg. I'm the plant manager of the flagship plant of Avantium. We are here to update you about construction work here behind me, the flagship plant in Delfzijl, in the north of the Netherlands, and this is a 2.5-hour drive from Amsterdam. We are building here a very unique facility to produce FDCA in a commercial plant. FDCA is our key building block to produce the fully recyclable, plant-based polymer, PEF. Let us show you the plant.
This is a quite exciting period in the project. All engineering activities affecting the construction are finished. The focus is right now on finalizing the construction of the flagship plant. All civil and main steel structure works have been finished. In addition, the majority of the equipment is already installed, and the piping and mechanical contractor is focusing on installing the pipes and the valves. Also, the electrical and instrumentation contractor is working hard, pulling the cables and connecting all the electrical cables and data cables. This is not a minor effort, and to give you an idea, they have to install around 50 kilometers of cables.
The construction is progressing so well that we expect to start commissioning at the beginning of next year. In the first phase, we will be focusing on commissioning of the utilities, the tank farm, and the first part of our process. This will allow us to start up the first part of our process while we're actually still commissioning the second part of our process. This way, we expect that the whole plant will be up and running in the second half of 2024. Let's take a closer look at our different subsystems in our flagship plant. Behind me, you see the tank that contains high-fructose syrup, which is supplied by Tereos. The high-fructose syrup is the feedstock to produce FDCA in this plant. Our process consists of several steps. The first step, referred to as the sugar dehydration step. In this step, we dehydrate sugar, being fructose, into our intermediate MMF.
In the second step, we oxidize MMF, which happens in this reactor, into crude FDCA. Crude FDCA is the desired product and the key component to produce PEF. The crude FDCA contains some impurities. These impurities need to be removed, allowing us to produce a crystal-clear polymer. This is done in the last part of our process, the purification step. The product out of the purification step is a powder, and this is the final product leaving this plant. The purified FDCA will be stored in the warehouse, and from this warehouse it will be shipped to our partner, Selenis, in Portugal, who will polymerize the FDCA together with bio-based monoethylene glycol into PEF. From Selenis, the PEF is shipped to our customers, who can make fibers, bottles, and film out of this PEF, and the beauty of this material is, it is also recyclable.
We are here in the control room of future FDCA flagship plant. In this room, the operators are going to control the full process of making FDCA. We currently are recruiting our staff for the FDCA flagship plant. At this point, we have half of the staff present. People are very keen to work for our, our company because the positive impact we have on the environment. We are confident that we have all the staff once the plant is operational. It is very exciting to see the progress of the flagship plant, and I cannot wait for the moment that the plant is running and making its first FDCA.
Our process to produce FDCA is fully proven in our pilot plant in Chemelot, Geleen, which is operational since 2011. The design of the flagship behind us is based on the design of the pilot plant, but it's also a scaled-down version of our 100 KTA license plant. All the scale-up risks have been assessed and mitigated, making us feeling comfortable that this plant will produce FDCA with the right required quality and with the desired capacity.
Thank you for joining us to look at our construction of our flagship plant site here in Delfzijl.
Starting up a first-of-its-kind plant will have its challenges, but we are highly confident that this plant will be up and running next year and allow us to launch FDCA and PEF to the market. We hope that you are just as excited as we are at the progress of the construction of this plant.
All right, so this was actually, I think, a good way to take you to Delfzijl, to show you and share with you some of the excitement also of the colleagues that are working on the ground to make this happen. Let's look at the next phase once that plant is operational, which is licensing. So let me start off, why are we using licensing as the business model for deploying this technology? So, of course, we need to make sure that we have a good model in place to make sure that the technology is monetized and that it actually generates income for the company. But I think the most important thing here, it is a combination of speed, and it is very capital efficient. Our customers really can't wait to see bigger volumes of PEF at lower cost becoming available.
The best way, actually, to do that is to make sure that we provide technology licenses to the industry, so that multiple industrial players can convert sugars into FDCA and into PEF, because that will go much faster than Avantium would take it on its own. So I think it's a very logical business model. Also, to investors, it's something that is attractive because we can do this in a much more asset-light way than if we would pursue an own and operate model, because then we would continuously have to come back to the market to raise capital. At the heart of this, of course, is technology development and intellectual property. We wanna make sure that we continuously have a grip and control over all the IP that's generated in these facilities.
IP is often ignored, but I think it is something worth actually to emphasize. We have a very strong IP position, and we are the dominant player in FDCA and PEF. That is because we have a significant time lead over our competition, but also because we have a very diverse and strong intellectual property position. This is about the different parts of the process, the different parts of the process to turn sugars into FDCA, FDCA into PEF, but also on IP that relates to converting PEF into bottles, into fibers, and into films. And that is a IP portfolio that we have around the globe, and I think that is something also very relevant to investors to know that that is how we're protecting our lead in this technology.
Now, in the past, we've spoken about licensing as sort of a theoretical case, but this is no longer theoretical because we actually have signed our first license agreement. We've done it with a company in the United States, Origin Materials. So let me start off, how does it practically work? Origin is a company, it's a renewable chemistry company, that is basically using different types of biomass. They convert it into a chemical product called CMF, and CMF is a product that we will use as a precursor for making FDCA. It is something that looks very similar to how we convert high fructose syrup into FDCA, and that is why Origin has acquired a technology license that allows them to make FDCA and to convert it into PEF. Now, from an economic perspective, how does it work?
We have been working with them since already for a few years, but we signed this. We initiated the real collaboration by a due diligence period and initial collaboration phase. So for that time period, we have already received EUR 12.5 million as a first milestone. We'll have similar types of milestone payments that are related to the engineering of the first license facility, and subsequently, once their plant is operational, we will receive royalties, and we have so far guided the market that we expect royalties in the range of 3%-6%.
So the idea is that Origin Materials will be constructing a 100-kiloton FDCA plant to convert it into PEF, and this is a company that has signed billions of EUR of offtake agreements and capacity reservations with brand owners around the globe. So we believe this is, I think, a really good example of how these deals will be structured, and we expect that our future licensing deals will be structured in a similar way to the deal we have with Origin Materials. The deal with Origin really has, of course, further helped us to accelerate our licensing efforts. We've built a small licensing team, and you can see here on how that is progressing.
So we're basically progressing with companies from the feedstock, from chemical companies to polymer companies, and these are traditionally, of course, companies that are more risk-averse, so they first really want to see that this technology works. So they want to make sure there is enough feedstock, they want to make sure the technology works, and they want to see that there is an end product. The most important thing for these customers is to see that the flagship plant is working. Origin has basically taken, I think, in that sense, a more aggressive approach by signing the technology license agreement before our flagship plant is operational.
We expect that other companies will be more, and that will be more dependent on us starting up the plant, and that is the moment that we expect this is going to be resulting in the company signing other future licensing deals. So to bring it all together, I think I hope that I showed you that at the beginning, it is something where we—which becomes now really very, very close. And this has been a journey of about 18 years from the first experiment. This is a picture of Gert-Jan Gruter, sitting in the back, he's our Chief Technology Officer, who actually was the first inventor of this technology. It started in 2005, and here we are, next year, starting up the first, world's first FDCA plant.
So this is really how innovation looks like, and this is also, I think, in that sense, an historic way, because this is going to be the moment that a new monomer and a new polymer is going to be brought to the market by a startup company, by a scale-up company. So therefore, I can, of course, also share with you that I'm incredibly proud of the team here, that we have, with a relatively small team, been able to actually run this journey and come to this point where this is now going live and where from next year onwards, we will see the flagship plant coming on stream, and then also resulting in, of course, the product coming to the market and coming to your supermarket.
So of course, the press release this morning was not only about FDCA and PEF. We also spoke about the strategic focus of the company. And in previous interactions with investors, we've explained that we are a broader renewable chemistry company with multiple technologies in the pipeline that you see here. And this morning, we have announced that within the company, we've decided we're really going to focus on FDCA and PEF. That is the most advanced technology that we have, and we see that here, this is where we have the biggest traction, the most of the commercial momentum. This is... That is basically the best opportunity that we have in our portfolio.
That is really where we're going to focus our resources and where we are going to focus our financing, to make sure that we deliver that first before we do other activities. That, of course, means that we've also made the decision of things that we're not going to do, and that's on the other side of the slide, on the Ray Technology, we've taken the decision to halt further investments in the Ray Technology. The Ray Technology, just to refresh your memory, that was a technology to convert sugars into MEG, which is the other component that you need to make to make PEF. It was a technology that was now going to move into engineering towards also building the first commercial facility.
Now, on the technical side, we've made tremendous progress, but we still see that this is going to take multiple years and will also require significant capital before we can commercialize that. And on basis of that rationale, we have made the decision to focus our resources on FDCA and PEF. You will also see today our Volta Technology. That is a technology that is looking to convert CO2 with electrochemistry to chemicals and to a new product called PLGA. That is something where the next phase is actually to go into a pilot plant. It is not something where Avantium will be have sufficient financing for, so we are gonna be looking to attract the funding for that next phase from strategic and financial partners.
You may have seen that we've signed deals with Norsk Hydro and with SCG, and we expect from these partners and new partners to provide the funding in place so we can further progress the technology. The part that is actually exceptional, this is our R&D Solutions business. This is actually Avantium's heritage business that we started off with in the 2000s. This is a business that is generating revenues, it's growing, it is EBITDA positive, so this is not an activity where the company needs to raise capital for. In fact, actually, it is generating capital for us, and we are looking to see how we can further grow that in particular in the area of sustainable chemistry. So this morning, we announced that we're gonna be halting our Ray Technology.
Unfortunately, that means that the company that certain positions are gonna be disappearing. So we have informed our staff yesterday that we will be reducing our workforce in, actually, in Delfzijl, where our Ray pilot plant was, with 29 people that are gonna be all redeployed in our RVP flagship facility. So it also helps us to solve our challenges from a recruitment perspective at the RVP site, that we're gonna be redeploying them. I think it also shows you that management is very much dedicated to making sure that our first and most promising technology becomes a success before we're gonna be talking about and considering to commercialize other technologies. Now, I would like to hand over to Boudewijn, who's gonna tell you more about the plans for funding this and our financials. Boudewijn.
Thank you. Thank you, Tom, and good morning to everybody. Thank you all for joining us here today, and also to those of you online. For those of you who don't know me, and Tom, thank you for the introduction, my name is Boudewijn van Schaik. I joined Avantium at the start of this year as CFO. So Tom has spent a bit of time talking about focus, about our strategy, about commercialization, and I want to spend a bit of time talking to you today about our focus on funding and how we're going to fund this growth and these opportunities that are ahead of us. Our focus on funding is on these four areas. We have to have sufficient funding to complete the construction of our FDCA flagship plant.
We have to be sufficiently funded for the commissioning and the startup of the FDCA flagship plant, and we have to be able to invest in the acceleration of the licensing and the commercial strength of the business. Of course, as Avantium, we have to make sure that we have the financial flexibility and are financially stable to see this through. This focus is based on our financing fundamentals, which is the strong support we have from our lenders, the strong support we have from our shareholders and in the RVP business, who are fully committed and remain fully committed. We have an FDCA flagship plant, as you've, as you have just seen, which is nearing completion, with incredibly strong commercial traction, and we have a promising pipeline for the licensing business going forward.
So for now, the priority is to ensure that we are sufficiently funded to see this through to completion. This morning, we announced that we'll be holding an AGM on the 24th of January, 2024, where we will seek consent to raise an additional EUR 50 million in equity, with the option to increase this further by EUR 20 million. What do we need this for? And I will come to this in more detail as we go through the presentation. But primarily, it is to fund Avantium's share of the financing package for the Renewable Polymers business, to make sure that we're sufficiently funded for all other ongoing activities, and to be properly capitalized as a company, and to demonstrate financial stability and flexibility to future partners, particularly on the licensing side. I wanna take you back to 2021.
2021 was the year in which Avantium developed a business case for FDCA and to build the flagship plant. In December 2021, the company took the final investment decision to invest in that FDCA flagship plant based on an estimated cost of EUR 192 million. That cost was for the CapEx to build the plant, for the operational costs for the Renewable Polymers business, and to be able to service the financing, the EUR 90 million financing package that was put in place. Fast-forward to today. The world has seen unprecedented events taking place. We've seen inflation that's never been seen before on a global scale. We've seen rising interest rates, supply chain constraints, materials constraints, labor constraints, and all of this has had a direct impact both on the CapEx but also on the business itself.
We've seen the CapEx increasing to an estimated level of EUR 149 million at the end of 2024. We've seen the operating costs increase from EUR 64 million to an estimated EUR 83 million, and we've seen the financing cost estimate grow from EUR 12 million to EUR 23 million. On the CapEx side, really largely driven by inflation, supply chain constraints, and the knock-on effects from a timing perspective. On the operating side, we've seen significant investments in the technology development, application development, but also on the regulatory front.
So if you look at the successes that Tom spoke about with Albert Heijn, with Refresco, with Carlsberg, they rely on us, as Avantium, to demonstrate that these products work, that our technology works, that we have the barrier properties, that we have the regulatory approvals in place to be able—for them to be able to provide these products in their markets. These are not things that these customers are doing, and that adds to the strength of what we're presenting to these customers and, and future potential customers, and that is quite a substantial investment from our side.... So how are we going to fund this? So as I mentioned, you know, we have the stakeholders in place from a financing perspective. So together with our lenders, we've put together a debt financing increase on the existing EUR 90 million facility of EUR 15 million.
Together with BPIG, the Bioplastics Investment Consortium from Groningen, with Worley, who is a shareholder but also our EPC contractor, and with Avantium, we will provide EUR 49.5 million in additional shareholder loans. So that gives us a financing package of EUR 64.5 million, which covers the estimated increase in the CapEx of EUR 33 million, the EUR 19 million in OpEx, the additional EUR 11 million we anticipate in interest costs, and leaves a small contingency in there. If I look back at these cost increases that we're estimating across the board, I would like to say the management has taken what I would call a balanced approach to how we look at that.
We haven't said, "What is the bare minimum?" And we haven't said, "Let's build in a whole bunch of buffer." We've looked at what is reasonable, what do we think, and we've come out with these, these estimates. So coming back to the equity raise that we announced. So this is obviously to fund this execution, to get us to the completion of the FDCA flagship plant, and to be able to focus on the commercialization of our technology. So approximately 80% of these proceeds will be used for FDCA and PEF, and that is primarily focused on the cost increases I just announced. Approximately 15% for the financial stability of the company and to fund our ongoing activities. Approximately 5% for Volta.
So as Tom mentioned, we are looking for strategic partners, we are looking for investors in Volta, but we do need to ensure the continuation so that we can deliver under the agreements we have today with Norsk Hydro and SCG. And the additional EUR 20 million is really to have the financial flexibility and to be able to demonstrate to the outside world that we are sufficiently capitalized to be there when we deliver on these licenses that we're, we have sold and will look to sell. Now, that was all about costs. Clearly, there's also the revenue side of the business. So we have three key activities, which Tom also mentioned, is the R&D Solutions business, our FDCA and PEF sales from the flagship plant, and the sale of technology licenses in the future, and of course, not forgetting the Origin license.
So on, on R&D, we'll be focusing on growing the revenue. We'll be pursuing strategic growth opportunities, particularly in sustainable chemistry. For the flagship plant on the FDCA and PEF sales, so we have a plant with an installed capacity... Sorry, I see Edwin let me come and stand on this side. Of around 5 kilotons. So at 9-10 euros per kilo, that gets us to an annual revenue estimate of about EUR 45-50 million, with a decent EBITDA margin on those sales for the flagship plant. If we look at the technology licenses we have with Origin in place, a milestone payment and a royalty program once the license plants are built, and this is the same profile we expect for future licenses.
So bringing this all together, and Tom spoke about management ambition to reach EUR 100 million revenue in 2026 and be EBITDA positive. That is a combination of everything I've just explained on the revenue side and on the cost side coming together. So to get there, we have to be sufficiently funded to make sure that we can get through the completion, the commissioning, and the startup of the FDCA flagship plant. We have to focus on capital and cost discipline. We rely on the strong support of our lenders and our shareholders, and we have significant commercial traction, which has about EUR 500 million in revenue backlog from licenses, FDCA sales, and the R&D Solutions business. To get there, we need to raise additional equity to make sure that we can fund this and see this through to completion.
So in order to do this, we've appointed ABN AMRO and Bryan, Garnier as global coordinators for the equity raising, and we have the EGM, as we mentioned, on the twenty-fourth of January next year. Tom, back to you.
Thank you. Thank you, Boudewijn. So what are the key takeaways? So I think the first and foremost, if you look at where we are, we have enormous, strong commercial traction. We have signed 14 offtake agreements, signed the first technology, license. So if you compare with where we were at the time of FID or where we were at the previous financing round, I think we've made tremendous progress. We are the most advanced FDCA and PEF player. As I showed you, we have a, a, a very strong time lead, but also a very strong intellectual property position, and we're now reaching this key inflection point where we expect that the company is going to move from a technology and R&D company into a commercial company.
And we've provided you, of course, with our ambition on how that future is going to look like from a financial perspective, with EUR 100 million of revenues in 2026 and becoming EBITDA positive in the year 2026. In order to get there, we need to raise more capital, and I, of course, realize that that is a very important announcement of this morning. Boudewijn just spoke about this. We're going to be raising EUR 50 million with an option to extend it to EUR 20 million, and we're going to be asking our shareholders for approval for this. Just be very clear about this, we need to have that capital in order to execute this plan, and we're confident that the company is going to be raising this from a mixture of both existing investors as well as new investors.
So that brings me back to the first slide I had, which is the three points. So I hope I've shared with you, been able to convince you on how we are nearing this inflection point, where the plant is becoming operational in 2024, and that we expect also will be kickstarting our licensing business. We've made the decision in the portfolio to focus our efforts, to focus our resources, to prioritize FDCA and PEF before we are investing in other technologies. And the company will require new funding in order to get to the milestones, to make sure that we are sufficiently capitalized in order to execute on that strategy. That was my last slide, so I'd like to thank you for your attention and of course, open the floor for Q&A.
I wanna just mention we also have people that are gonna be attending online. They also have the opportunity, if they have logged in, to ask questions. We either read them or they will come on screen. So that will be a mix of online questions and people that are gonna be here live in the room. I think I saw the first hand, so if you could take the microphone, say your name, and ask the question.
Thank you. Osama Tariq, ABN AMRO. Thank you for the presentation. I have two small questions, very small. First one, I understand that the business case of PEF has to be made cheaper in the long run for your clients to get on board. You have a slide 2030, 2035. How certain are you that for your business case, for your license to be sold in 2030 and 2035, that all these plants are gonna pop up? For instance, if you've sold to Origin the agreement, what if Origin is not a going concern going forward? So how confident are you that that capacity is going to be there for you to sell the license?
Second question is, correct me if I'm wrong, you're more going towards putting all eggs in one basket. I do understand that, since the plant is going to be operational, it's a nice strategy. But what if, from an investor point of view, tomorrow you stop Volta also? So, are there some risks involved in this if the plant gets delayed? Could you just comment on it? Thank you.
Yes. Okay. Thank you for these questions. So let me first try to address the first question. So how certain are you about these license facilities that they will be built? Now, clearly, in order to get to a license deal, you need basically three elements from a licensee perspective. You need to have feedstock, you need to have the technology license in order to, to produce FDCA and PEF, and you need to have the market and the customers. I hope that I've been able to share with you that there's a very strong market for this. There's very strong commercial momentum. So I think in that sense, that's a good justification for licensees to be investing in FDCA and PEF production facilities.
If you look at the feedstock side, in particular at the beginning, there is no doubt that there's gonna be enough plant-based sugar on the market available in order to convert that into these materials. So the question then is, of course, does the technology work? And this is of course where the flagship plant is playing a critical role, because people will want to see that the technology works in a scale which is an industrial scale, as you can see on this picture. That is the most important thing. We don't want to rely on one company to produce this. We've seen this in the past with other polymers, bio-based polymers, that where there was one dominant producer, that is not good for actually market adoption.
Customers like Coca-Cola, like Albert Heijn, like Refresco, they like to have multiple companies producing this because that really increases their security of supply. So we're not focused on selling five licenses to one company. We really prefer, of course, to sell them to multiple players in order to make sure that there is that security of supply for our customers, and of course, that would also be much more beneficial to Avantium. We do expect that these plants are gonna be built around the globe because we see that there is market demand in the United States or in North America. We see a very strong demand in Europe, but we also see, in particular in Japan and North Kore-- or in South Korea, that there's a very strong demand for these type of new materials.
So that is why we expect that these licenses will be distributed around the globe. There was a little question in there about Origin Materials. Of course, we're very pleased to see that Origin has acquired the first technology license. I think if you look at their position, they have a very strong... They've demonstrated there's very strong demand out there, and I think they have a very nice technology that links us to also to second generation or let's say more diversified types of feedstock. We clearly wanna make sure that we have multiple players that we're working with in order to ensure to our customers that FDCA and PEF are gonna be produced on an industrial scale.
How quickly that's gonna go in the further future, in 2030, 2035, that's a very, very difficult thing to predict. We think we have much more visibility on the initial time period. For the longer time period, how quickly people will start building even larger-scale facilities, that is not so much in the hands of Avantium. It's very much in the hands of both chemical companies, but also how quickly the market is adopting to the use of PEF. Then I've just complete brain freeze here about your second question.
Just putting eggs-
Yes, of course, of course. Are we putting all our eggs in one basket? Previously, we've been actually concerned that we were if we would embark too early on one technology, that that is actually something that we would be concerned about. Now, if you look at FDCA and PEF, this is so far advanced, this plant is almost ready. I think this is the logical time to do that, to say, "Let's first deliver on this before we spend time, money, and resources on the other technologies." And it's not that there is no interest in the other technologies. We have a small team on the Ray side that is gonna continue working with strategic partners to follow up on their interest in further advancing the technology. Similarly, for Volta, we're working with industrial partners to help us to fund this.
If you look at the success of the company, what we are basically communicating to the markets today is that the success of the company is gonna be very much, for the coming years, determined by the success of FDCA and PEF. That is really where we're focusing on. We believe that this is the right time to do that, and, you know, of course, after we've been successful in doing this, I will be happy to come back to it and see if we should do other things. But let's first make this a success, make this profitable, and then we can come back and consider if we need to do other things.
Thank you.
Hi, Andres Castanos from Berenberg. First of all, congratulations on the decision, hard decision, I imagine, to phase down the Renewable Chemistry division. My question is about potential cost savings. There will be some people leaving, but you also need some new staff to staff the new FDCA plant. So what will be the net change, you believe, in terms of headcount and potential savings here? Thank you.
Okay. Yeah, thanks, thanks very much for your question. So the decision on Ray is twofold. So we have the pilot plant, which has approximately 29 employees. They will all be transferred to the FDCA flagship plant, so that actually in one go resolves the need for hiring people within the flagship plant. So that's a net change. In Amsterdam, we will have a significant reduction in headcount, particularly around the Ray Technology. But that is a process that is still ongoing internally and following all the regulatory requirements to get to a final decision on that, so it still is an intended decision, it's not a formal decision.
We are looking at the moment, what headcount vacancies do we have in Amsterdam or across other businesses other than the flagship to see, can we reallocate people? Are there opportunities there? So the final outcome will depend on, you know, where we stand early next year once we've gone through this whole process. The net savings itself is a combination then of no longer investing in the Ray Technology from a direct cost perspective, but also from an indirect cost perspective. So we'll no longer continue incurring costs, but we also won't invest in engineering studies, in the PDP, in the FEED. So it's a combination of those two.
We're not, we're not quantifying that, 'cause we're not there yet in terms of what the overall impact is, but it's, it's going to be a savings, particularly on the direct cost side.
Paul de Froment, Bryan Garnier. Thank you very much for your presentation. Two questions on the technology for me. First, you mentioned recycling rates for PEF. Could you elaborate on that? I mean, have you done any tests related to mechanical recycling or chemical recycling for PEF? And my second question is about sorting. How easy is it to sort PEF in plastic waste? Could we separate PEF from PET in plastic waste? Thank you.
Yes. Thanks for the question. So on, let's say, the number of recycles you can do with PEF, I think like any... It's a bit of a technical answer, but ultimately, what happens if you do mechanical recycling is that you chop bottles or products into smaller pieces, melt them again, and blow new products. What happens with, you know, if you chop it into small pieces, is that the polymer chains actually become shorter. So if you've done it multiple times, at a certain moment, there's something you need to do, and we have identified how we can reprocess the polymer in order to get it back into the desired specifications. And for that reason, if you apply that, you can basically indefinitely recycle the polymer.
So it requires another step in order to make sure that you keep the right specifications of the product, but there are technical ways in order to make sure that you can keep the product into the system. In terms of sorting, we've done multiple trials across many different countries and different recycling companies. They typically use infrared sensors to basically distinguish between one plastic material and the other, and these sensors, they can distinguish between PEF and PET. So the infrared fingerprint of PEF is very different than from PET. So we've done tests that have shown us that we can completely sort PEF from PET.
So in the future, we can make sure that also existing sorting plants can completely sort our PEF and make sure that we can ultimately go from PEF to PEF recycling, which is, from a circular perspective, of course, extremely relevant information. So thank you for asking the question.
Hi, it's Irnest Kaplan. Thanks for the presentation. Can you just talk a little bit about your competitive position? And also, how does PEF compare with anything else that might be invented in future or has been invented, which we don't know about?
Yes.
Thanks.
... Well, first of all, of course, it's always very difficult to compare with something we don't know yet about. But we, of course, are looking at this very, very carefully. So first, let's look at the space of F, of PEF that you are referring to. Avantium is seen as really the front runner in this. I've often said, "If you wanna get access to PEF, all roads come to Amsterdam, because this is the place where you can buy this stuff at the right quality in order to make bottles and to make fibers." We believe that we have our time advantage is at minimum five years. We hope, of course, that it's more. There are other industrial companies that are working on this. They're still in piloting stage.
They're still in initial phase of development, and we know that they have to go through the same learning curve that Avantium has gone through over the coming time. And our advantage is that we are producing on a larger scale. We can do many more trials with PEF and create new intellectual property than that's gonna help us in defense of future competitors. But you're totally right, it is not only PEF, it's also: Are there other materials where you are gonna be competing with? So we've not only looked at other biopolymers, but we've looked basically across at what is coming to the market. If you look at these other biopolymers, most of these products are completely different in terms of performance than PEF.
So we have not seen another polymer with such high gas barrier properties, with such properties that it's suitable for making bottles, for making fibers, and other products. That doesn't mean that PEF, of course, is gonna be the solution to everything. There are gonna be other applications where people are looking for other applications, where these other materials may provide the solution. But if we specifically look at packaging, bottles, and fibers, we believe that PEF is the lead product in terms of, let's say, renewable polymers that are coming to the market. Now, I said at the beginning, of course, it's difficult, things that we don't know how, how to compare.
We're monitoring this very closely from an intellectual property perspective, but also all publications that are going on about this, to make sure that we have a good track of what is coming. And we often ask our customers: What do you see coming to the market? The feedback we're often getting from brand owners and from retailers is that they see too little real solutions coming to the market, and that is why people are so excited that now a new solution is coming in real and is gonna be produced on real scale in order to be introduced in their products.
Yes, good morning, Patrick Roquas from Kepler Cheuvreux. A couple of questions. The first one is on: What is the estimated CapEx for a 100 kiloton plant, knowing that we've seen quite some inflation? And then, what kind of EBITDA margin would such a plant generate? You've indicated for the 5-kiloton plant, a 35%-40% EBITDA margin. That, that is the first question.
Okay. So, this is a difficult one to answer 'cause it's gonna depend on location, it's going to depend on is it 70, is it 150, is it 100? Our, our initial estimates are a ballpark of around EUR 600+ million in pure CapEx for a 100 kiloton FDCA plant. But again, very much caveated on it does depend on. And also the choice of feedstock. In terms of EBITDA, again, it would be a range. It would very much have to depend on location, on feedstock choice, on operating costs. So I, I can't give a range on that, 'cause I think there's just too many variables that, that would need to contribute to that.
Can I add something to it? Because I think when you look at the CapEx of such a plant, the number that Boudewijn just mentioned is, of course, if it's a new plant.
Yep.
Now, what we're also looking into is if we can use existing assets and retrofit them. I think we spoke about this in the, in the past, Patrick. But if you have existing oxidation plants, like terephthalic acid or isophthalic plants that are built around the globe, you can see that we can use many of these assets and retrofit them to make, to make FDCA and purified FDCA. It doesn't capture all the steps of the process. If you look at the movie, we first had the sugar dehydration step. That is new. That will have to be built by someone. That can also be actually built by a feedstock company.
If you look at the oxidation and purification step, as well as the polymerization step, we're really, of course, looking at using existing assets, because that will be a much more capital-light way instead of building all kinds of new plants around the globe.
Yep.
And then on Origin Materials, a follow-up one. Yeah, given the situation the company is in, how likely is it that you will receive the EUR 7.5 million next year? And how likely do you think it is that they will proceed with their plants, because they have so many ideas and plans to,
Yeah
... build?
Yeah. So on the first one, look, we can't really speculate on Origin, right? I think it's. If you look at their financials, they have a very healthy cash position. They have no debt, but they have big ambitions. So they've clearly communicated that they see FDCA and PEF as the future. They have a relationship with us. We're working on the first technology license agreement with them, so we're developing the bridge technology to get to the Process Design Package for their plant. That is the milestone for the next payment. So if I look at the interaction we have, at the relationship we have with them, I see no reason to believe that that won't continue until we get to that point.
Beyond that, you know, clearly Origin will need to invest quite substantially, so, I think they have a clear plan on how they plan to fund that, and I hope that they are successful in executing that.
... Then finally, if you assume that you sign five license deals, how much could these deals contribute in EBITDA once these plants will run at full capacity?
Ooh. I will, what I will say on that is it's an asset-light model, licensing, so we have to provide some support services. We have to provide engineering services and a process design package, which I think is, de minimis relative to the volume of income that comes from a license. So, what I will say is the EBITDA margin is substantially higher than you would see if you were the owner and operator of a plant, just because the nature of what a license agreement is.
Thank you.
Hello, it's Fernand de Boer from the Degroof Petercam. To come back on that last one, you say, "Okay, we expect then with EUR 100 million, you expect a positive EBITDA." But with the plant full up and running, it's EUR 45 million-EUR 50 million, and then, let's say, 30%-40% EBITDA margin. So you could assume that on the other EUR 50 million, you're going to make an EBITDA of EUR 40 million. So you're ending up with, let's say, EUR 60 million EBITDA. But then, okay, that's fine. After 2026, because I can imagine that you actually say this is kind of one-off payment, and then the rest depends on what's coming in. So could we see then a period after 2026 or maybe three or four years, no revenue stream from the licensees?
Yeah. Okay. Look, the challenge with providing any kind of forward-looking ambition or statement is there are many drivers and many assumptions underpinning that. The income is going to be variable because it indeed is driven by milestone payments from these licenses, so it's very dependent on when do we sign, what are the milestones, what are the amounts? So that's why we've been cautious in how we've structured that guidance and given it over a longer period. Or not... And I'm sorry, I'm saying guidance, but it's an ambition. And it depends on the success of the pipeline, on selling licenses. What will happen at one point is when those first licenses come on stream, and we get into the royalty phase, that is approximately two-thirds of the value of the license.
So I do expect in the beginning some variability, but you will start seeing that smoothing out as we get into that operational phase of those licensed plants, and we get that steady inflow of royalty income.
Okay. And to come back on your pipeline, of these 15 potentials and 2 more, you have in further stages, how many of them are actually conversions, and how many are really the ones who need to invest EUR 600 million or EUR 500 million-EUR 700 million?
Yeah, there is a mix thereof. So in that sense, there are certain companies in there that have existing assets. Of course, we need to look at the CapEx or how much it would cost to retrofit their existing assets to a FDCA plant. But there are also players in there that want to use capital to actually build a new plant. So in that sense, it is a mixture of these two, and I think that is also what you can see moving forward. There will be companies that are gonna be interested to build basically greenfield assets, but we also will see that there are companies that are much more focused on retrofitting existing assets to make FDCA.
Okay. Of those potential clients, what I always find difficult to understand is, if you are going to invest EUR 600 million, why not put some money already now on the table and help you out instead of going to the shareholders? Or maybe, yeah, simply become a shareholder.
Yeah. Um-
Because for EUR 10 million for them, it's only 2% or 1, so, of this total investment, so I don't understand it.
Yes. Well, I think in that sense, that is, of course, a logical question from, let's say, if you're an investor in Avantium, why is someone else not doing this? I think if you look at the petrochemical industry, it is an industry that has been very risk-averse and very conservative. So what they're doing is they first wanna see this plant to be operational. And you can say: Well, we have all the evidence to show that it's gonna work. Their attitude is much more, "Let's see, and then I believe that this plant is working." So that is why it is so critical for us to get to the point, to get that flagship plant up and running, because then we have the data to show to them, this is how such a large-scale facility would look like.
We can design it, and we can give them basically much more confirmed about the yields, about the selectivities of such a plant, and of course, about the CapEx that is gonna be required. So they look at this like this is the most critical milestone before they're willing to enter into such a commitment. Would take the other way around, for them actually to take a small stake in a chemical company like Avantium, that is actually something from a strategic perspective that they find much more difficult than signing a license agreement. So signing the license agreement, it very clearly gives them the way actually to get access to the technology and to build a plant. Taking a small stake in a company like Avantium is something that they, that is they are not very used to that model.
That is not something which is very common in the industry.
Okay.
Yeah.
I have more questions, but-
Fernand, can I just come back to-
Yeah
...your first point? 'Cause I just wanna make sure we're clear on the EBITDA guidance we gave on the flagship, that that is just the flagship. So it doesn't include the overhead costs-
Yeah
... the renewable polymers costs. It's really just the-
Yeah
... the flagship. Yeah, just to be clear.
Okay. What is the difference in your technology compared to the thing Stora Enso is developing? Is there any difference, or is it simply that they are behind in timing?
There is absolutely a difference because if you are, let's say, a follower like Stora Enso, first of all, you have to make sure that you're not infringing on one of the patents from Avantium. So we have, in that sense, the benefit that we are the first, so we're not infringing on anyone's IP. They, of course, have to make sure that they stay outside of our intellectual property. One of the key things in the process, of course, that's sugar dehydration, which is the, let's say, new part, which is something that we do in methanol. We actually have a technical benefit of making an intermediate that is stable and that is distillable.
They have to prove their technology on making sure that they can do a sugar dehydration step, which is not only stable and scalable, but is also something that's gonna work on a larger scale. That's what they're gonna be testing in their pilot facility. In terms of the oxidation, they have to make sure that they stay outside of our IP. Alternatively, of course, they can come to us and buy a license. So if people from Stora Enso are watching, that is actually the part that I would tell them is, In that sense, we have a business model that will enable companies like this to actually use the technology that Avantium has developed and avoid that people have to replicate things.
Okay. What's going to happen with the pilot plant for the Ray Technology? We have taken impairment and, and was there nobody—Because I always thought also that the Ray Technology was quite superior, with a very low cost per product compared to the existing bio-MEG.
Yeah.
So I think, yeah, it's a pity that you actually canceled this, contrary to what my colleague was saying. Was there no interest in the world to take, to pay a fee for this technology? Because we have some players already in the market which are producing, but probably a higher cost price. So I don't understand why they were not interested in taking over this technology from you.
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think I can answer that question. Because if you look at the technology, it was actually the... From the technology perspective, we were really on the right track, and there's nothing from, let's say, the technology side that has made us decide to halt investments. It's really, in that sense, given by making sure that we allocate our resources to the most advanced technology. We are in discussion. We have a team, I think it was one of the slides. We have a small team that is continuing discussions with strategic players for the continuation of the Ray Technology. So, these discussions are ongoing. But if you, of course, look at the speed of these type of discussions, they take a longer period of time. Avantium has come to the conclusion we need to make that decision right now.
We're now at the phase where we're gonna be starting up the plant, and we need to really focus our financial resources in that way to avoid that we have to come back to the market, multiple times to raise capital to further develop the Ray Technology. If the team is successful in attracting strategic partners, and they want to help us. They want to fund the further development of the technology, then of course, we're gonna make sure that that is gonna be executed. Avantium is not gonna use its own balance sheet to, further finance the Ray Technology because we have to focus that on the FDCA technology.
Okay.
Yeah.
Any impairments to take on the pilot?
Yeah. So as I mentioned previously, this is an intended decision, not a formal decision yet. So we are in discussions with the auditors to see what the timing and what the impact would be of such a decision.
Okay, and last question for the time being. Your loan of EUR 90 million, and now an addition of EUR 15 million, when is maturity date of the total loan or-
The total loan has a maturity date of 31 March 2025, and then under the agreement, we have the option to request two extensions of up to one year.
Okay. Thanks.
... Gijs Berke lder, ABN AMRO. Question on your sourcing for my ESG clients. I would say, the syrup of Tereos, where is it coming from? The slide says wheat. How about sugar beets? And from a geographical perspective, where is the sourcing coming from?
Yeah. The wheat that Tereos is using to process that to starch, to process to fructose syrup, is coming from, predominantly from the northern part of France and from certain parts of Belgium. We're using wheat-based starch to make that fructose. So currently, we're not using sugar-based sugar beet-based fructose. That is also something that's possible. But at this moment in time, the fructose that's coming from the sourcing of wheat is a lower-cost option in comparison to the sugar beet. Of course, that's something we will have to monitor over the future. In the future, using sugar beet is also something that is gonna be that is a real option. But at this moment in time, it's more attractive for us to use wheat-based fructose syrup from Tereos.
But Tereos is not allowed to, let's say, source in Brazil, wherever in the world for, for the syrup they provide?
Well, if the syrup that would be coming from elsewhere, of course, we would have to look if that is more economically attractive. Of course, agricultural commodities is actually something; it is quite a complex system of all kinds of also trade systems that are in place. So the wheat that they're using is European based. And that is what we're using today. And in all fairness, if you look at the total volume that we're using, it is not of such magnitude that we're gonna be shipping it from all kinds of other places in the world. Clearly, if we would start doing it, it would also have an impact on our sustainability profile.
So that's why I think also, if you look at the longer term, you want to make sure that you use local crops in order to feed these facilities, and we think that is also gonna be the most economic.
... Agree.
Good.
Next question: Can you remind us on the CapEx needed for the Volta pilot plant? And, in addition, for potential investors, what is then the next big potential CapEx project?
Okay. So on Volta, what we're doing this year is working on the agreements we have with Norsk Hydro and SCG, in terms of the joint development agreements on the technology. The plan is to progress towards FID on a pilot plant. During that process, we'll actually scope the parameters and cost of that actual pilot plant. We don't know yet what that investment will be. We expect to need to invest this year between EUR 1 million and EUR 3 million in Volta to get to that decision at the end of 2024.
But is that EUR 50 million, EUR 200 million again, or?
I think if you look at the previous pilot plants that the company has built, we're talking here about investment more in the order of magnitude of EUR 10 million-EUR 20 million, rather than EUR 100 million plus. But because I am extremely sensitive here for confusion, our idea is that capital will be actually formed by our partners. We don't expect to use our balance sheet to help to fund the pilot plant for Volta.
Yeah. And also, not next generation FDCA pilot plants?
No, we don't have any plans for constructing other-
No
... pilot plants.
Yeah.
If we would do that, we would have to really revise the strategy. There is no plan whatsoever to do that.
Yeah.
Also, looking at the textiles, which Tom mentioned, you know, we have the Dawn pilot plant already, so there's no investment needed there either, for that.
Hi. Coming back to just... Could you comment on one or two things like R&D Solutions, if there is something you wish to give out? And secondly, I somewhere read you were also interested in wood to lignin. I don't know if it is still in your focus. Is it something what Borregaard does? Could you just comment on it?
Yes.
Thank you.
So our R&D Solutions business is actually something which is a growing business. We have embarked on a new strategy there to focus that business on renewable or sustainable chemistry, so pyrolysis oils, making hydrogen, absorption. We want that business to grow. Of course, we're always interested to see if there are strategic opportunities that help us to grow the business faster. The main role of the business is to make sure that it provides us in a positive way to from a financial perspective. On your second question, we are not in the business of producing lignin.
A side product from the Dawn Technology is actually separating lignin out of woody biomass, but we're not in the business of looking for value applications for lignin at this moment in time.
Tara Fraser from APG. I just wondered if you could say a bit more about the announcement to move from the first generation, in terms of sugar and starch, to the second generation around wood chips. If you could just say a bit more about that, that would be great. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you. Yeah, so the strategy, the feedstock strategy that Avantium has, is to make sure that we're feedstock flexible. We have learned over the past 10 years, if you fall in love with one feedstock, it's probably going to haunt you in the future. So we want to make sure that we are flexible. Right now, if you look at the near-term future, there is enough fructose syrup available in many places around the world to be used for making FDCA. And it can be wheat-based, it can be corn-based, it can be sugarcane or sugar beet-b ased, sugar beet-based. So that is the first generation.
Now, of course, in many of our discussions with our partners, they are expressing concerns: "Well, hold on, does that compete with food, or is there enough land in the world available to do this?" We totally understand those questions because, of course, Avantium does not want to interfere with the food supply chain. That clearly has priority. Nevertheless, if you look at first-generation sugars, if you look at the starch part of the plant, it's not so much used for food, it's used for all kinds of other applications, like biofuels or like, industrial applications. So we believe that there is a lot of starch available to actually do this.
Now, if I look in the long term, of course, if we think that PEF is gonna take off, and it's gonna become a mainstream product, then, of course, we also have to make sure that we can use other types of feedstocks. That is why we're working on these second-generation feedstocks. We do that with Origin, because they can use wood chips to convert it into CMF. We can then use it as a feedstock for making FDCA. But also, if we look at our Dawn Technology, and now with our textile waste, basically, we can feed it into the Dawn process and make the precursors, the sugars basically needed in order to make FDCA.
If we succeed in all of these things, of course, we can look where we are in the world, what type of feedstock is available, and what is the most efficient and the most sustainable way of, of feeding these plants for making, for making PEF. It's gonna be different in the Far East than it's gonna be in South America. It's gonna be different in the US than it's gonna be in Europe. So we've learned, be flexible and don't be too fixed on one solution. The world is rapidly evolving, and we have to make sure that we can that we're flexible in using different types of solutions that are gonna be available.
... Two questions for me. The first, I don't know if you can disclose, but, I try anyway. But what are the end markets related to your most advanced licensing discussions? Is it related to bottle packaging, cosmetic packaging, fibers, films? And my second question is related to life cycle assessments. Could you recall us what is the life cycle assessments related to FDCA or PEF compared with PET? Because we know that it's one of the most important key metrics for brand owners.
Yes. Yeah, so if you look at the licensing pipeline that we have, we have multiple discussions going on. Some of them are really looking at our customer base and the markets where we're and the brand owners that we're working with, and say, "Okay, so how can we make FDCA and PEF to serve the Carlsbergs, the Louis Vuittons, the Henkels in the future?" Because they demand much more than what they will get out of a 5-kiloton facility. This is just the beginning, so they need to have access to larger scale assets in order to fulfill their needs. However, there are also players in the licensing pipeline that are looking for captive use of FDCA and PEF.
So they have their own applications in films or in fibers, where they're looking to make this themselves and to basically integrate PEF into the solutions that they are providing to the end market. So it's a combination of these players. I think just very much how the plastics industry is organized today. You have players that are serving many different customers, and you have assets that are really serving one application, and it's basically dominated by a specific industrial company. So we want to make sure, of course, that we have a diverse pipeline and work with multiple companies across that spectrum. The second question was about,
LCA
... the life cycle assessment. Yeah. So this is something where we see multiple LCAs have been provided, so I can also imagine sometimes it's hard to follow. The good news here, recently, with the most recent data, a new LCA was published by the Renewable Carbon Initiative, and that shows that we have a 62% greenhouse gas benefit performance over PET. So I think that gives a very tangible number to the people that are interested in this, that are looking at this from a sustainability perspective. Is PEF really providing, let's say, the sustainability benefits? I think the answer to that is yes. And just keep in mind, Paul, this technology is at the beginning, right? We're competing with PET that's been on the market for 50 years.
That is completely optimized from an economic perspective and also from a carbon emission perspective. We're coming to the market with a new technology that will go through a learning curve, and we see enormous opportunities to help us to drive down the cost, but also to reduce carbon emissions. We just need to make sure we're going to be doing it at a much larger scale than what we've been doing so far in order to exploit those opportunities.
Yeah. So two quick ones for Boudewijn. The first one is: What is the expected cash position by the year end, as well as for next year, excluding the EUR 50 million equity raise?
Yeah. I need to just think how I'm going to answer this question, because it's a very good question. We will end cash flow positive at the end of this year. So we've had a significant year of investment in the flagship also with all the activity that's taking place. So I can't give you a round number, but I can tell you it's positive. For next year, clearly, there is a funding need. You know, we disclosed in August with the half year figures that we need more funding. So in order to continue as a company, we do need more funding. So next year, funding is going to be critical on how our cash position develops.
What are the implications for the consortium debt if you do not raise the EUR 50 million?
At the moment, we have, with the EUR 15 million that the banks have committed, we have a requirement to raise at least EUR 40 million as a condition to be able to access that EUR 15 million. So that's part of our capital raise structure that we've agreed with the banks, so it's obviously been a collaborative process. But we've, you know, as we communicated today, we think the EUR 50 million is critical for the-- to pursue the activities we want to pursue, and the additional EUR 20 million to give us that financial stability that we're looking for, particularly externally.
Fernand?
Yeah, I thought that Patrick was going to ask the question, but, because you have still have the warrants outstanding, so-
Yes.
I thought that part of the interest payment was actually in these warrants.
Correct.
So this step up at EUR 12 million to EUR 21 million, what is... I thought that EUR 12 million was the interest plus the warrants cost, or is that the warrant cost coming up on 12, EUR 12 million interest? And what is really the cash out for this interest in-
Okay.
-the next?
So it's a good question. It's a technical one to answer. So most of the increase is driven by Euribor. So when we closed the financing, Euribor was negative. Today, I think it's at, what? 4.6%-4.8%. So that is the bulk of the increase is actually the cash component that we're paying purely for Euribor. There is also a cash component of the margin that we're paying to the banks in cash, and some of the lenders indeed have warrants as an additional compensation for the full interest amount. And we're asking our shareholders again to approve additional warrants for the financing increase to limit the cash out.
Could you remind me how many, at the current situation, how many warrants are outstanding, and how many shares does that mean?
I can't answer that question right now. I'm sorry.
Okay.
I don't know.
Okay. Thank you.
All right. First of all, thank you for all these questions. I think that really is the purpose, of course, of having meetings like this. We would now like to go on to the next part of the program, which is... First of all, maybe you want to grab a cup of coffee and/or take a bio break. Then subsequently, we're going to be following up with breakout sessions. We have three breakout sessions organized for you today. First is gonna be a session to visit the new Polymer Processing Center and looking at some of the applications of PEF. Secondly, we're gonna be taking you to the Volta electrochemistry technology and also show you some examples of PLGA.
Thirdly, we're gonna want to show you some things regarding feedstock development, in particular, how we plan to use textile waste in the future for, as a precursor for making, for making FDCA and PEF. There will be two people who will actually raise up their hands at a certain moment to Caroline and Arne to do that. Right, for this... At this moment, I want to thank you for coming today, spending your time with us, and we look forward to working with you to make this capital raise a success. Thank you so much.
Thank you.