Good afternoon, this is the conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Carbios 2024 half year results presentation. As a reminder, all participants are in listen only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via website only. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing seven zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Pascal Bricout, Chief Strategy and Financial Officer, and Emmanuel Ladent, Chief Executive Officer of Carbios. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning, good afternoon. I would like to welcome you for this conference. As a reminder for those who are joining for the first time, Carbios is a biotech, clean tech company, which has over 10 years experience in R&D, developing enzymes and processes for processing plastic, biorecycling and biodegradations. We have 59 families of patents to date, a bit more than 150 employees. And we have two technologies at maturity. One, on the biorecycling of polyesters PET, and the other one on the biodegradation of PLA, and we'll come back to that. Really our expertise is to develop enzyme and processes to process enzyme at large scale, to depolymerize polymers, and to go back to the original materials, what we call the monomers of the plastics.
The operation of repolymerization is not done by Carbios, but by its partners. So over the years, we have developed a significant network of partners. We just mentioned the brands which are willing to adopt Carbios technology in their products. L'Oréal, PepsiCo, Suntory, Salomon, the group PVH, Nestlé Waters, Patagonia, Puma, and of course, many others in which we have discussions. We have strategic shareholders. Of course, we have many shareholders, but among them, we have companies in cosmetics like L'Occitane and L'Oréal and Michelin, which are very active in supporting Carbios technology. And we have developed over time a network of industrial partners like Desmet, which is executing our plant. Novonesis, where we have an executive strategic partnership, exclusive strategic partnership to supply our enzyme worldwide.
And we have developed recently a partnership with Selenis, and, of course, Indorama, which is a long-term partner for our operation in France. Beyond the two activities I mentioned, we will have three streams of revenue. One is, of course, the licensing activity on our PET biorecycling technology, where we are right now starting to have partnerships announced and soon contracted for this activity. The first plant, Longlaville, which will produce monomers in 2026, and for which we will generate revenue from 2026 onwards. And the PLA biodegradation activity, which will start commercial activity at the very beginning at the very late of 2024 or very beginning of 2025. So that's the current activities.
Obviously, Carbios, with its enzymatic expertise, is developing other polymers and other innovation activity beyond those PLA and PET activities. I will not mention them today, but they will be source of revenues for the future, and I'm thinking about the polyamides, the nylons. I'm thinking about the polyolefins and others, where we have a good breakthrough in term of innovations. In term of partnership for licensing, I will come back to them, but we have already announced three LOIs, one with FCC for a plant in the U.K., one with SASA, the Turkish PET producers, large PET producers, mainly focusing on textile for Turkey, and one with Zhink Group for in the Zhejiang province in China. Let's move on.
Carbios currently is located between three sites: Clermont-Ferrand, where we do everything from industrialization of the enzymes. We have the pilot plant in Clermont-Ferrand. We have also the demonstration plant, which is now operating for three years and giving us a lot of significant positive results to move forward in licensing and in building our own plant. Toulouse, where we develop all our innovation and all our new enzymes. In Toulouse, we have a large team of PhDs developing the enzymes of the future. And Longlaville, where we build the first biorecycling plant for PET worldwide, and the construction is ongoing. Let's move on. What happened in twenty twenty-four? First of all, we are developing on track for the activity.
As you know, we started as a lab. Thirteen years ago, we were in picoliter scale. We moved to a pilot plant in 2018 with 100 kg of waste, which could be treated. Then we moved to the demonstration plant, where we can process two tons of waste in the batch, which is equivalent of 80,000 bottles. So that start to be very significant. And the good news of our process is we have the same results and the same kinetics in 20,000 tons and in picoliters. So there is no surprise on the scalability of our technology. And in our first-of-a-kind plant, for 50,000 tons-...
of waste per year, we will be able to accommodate two billion bottles or 300 million T-shirts, and we expect exactly the same kinetics than in our demonstration plant. So the plant is running. It's in Longlaville at the border of Luxembourg, and we are planning to commission the plant late 2025 and start operation and start production in 2026. Move on. So right now, we are on track with this plant. We have got, and we are still the only plant of chemical recycling, advanced recycling, to have a permit in Europe. So we have been granted the permit in October last year. We have finalized the acquisition of the land to Indorama in February 2024. We started the land preparation.
We have done the groundbreaking, and the construction keeps moving. As I said in the earlier slide, we will be making the mechanical completion by 2025. We have the engineering team of Desmet supporting the project with us, and we will start the operation and the production in 2026 to deliver our customers, which are expecting our product as soon as possible. Let's move on. Here is a bit, a little bit of details of everything which has been completed already. As I mentioned, we have make the acquisition of the land to Indorama. We have contracted Desmet as an EPCM to do the project and to manage the project. We have finished the land preparation. We have done the soil pollution activities. We have built the water retention reservoir.
We have already signed with Dalkia to contract for the water treatment systems, for the utility units. We have already received the first equipments on the site, from Schneider Electric, and we have already done our second wave of recruitment. We have already more than 20 people which have been employed in order to prepare a fast ramp-up of the plant. In April, we did, and you have a picture on that, with all our key partners and stakeholders, we did the groundbreaking ceremony at the end of April.
So I, I just want to mention that we are working on this project very heavily, and we have, as announced, in our yearly results, we are continuing our discussion with Indorama Ventures, with a view to reach an agreement on the financing of the plant. And there are several discussions ongoing with Indorama, from feedstock supply, offtake agreements, commercial discussions to serve our brand owners and customers, and their brand owners and customers, and the financing. So each of these discussions are progressing and are in progress, but of course, to ensure the proper execution of the schedule, we have also initiated discussions with financial institutions for alternative financing, notably debt financing. Please move on.
So, on the upstream part, we have secured a lot of the waste we would need to operate the plant. As a record, in 2023, we had an agreement with Citeo for 30% of the food trays and produce for France, which will be giving us a volume of about a bit more than 5,000 tons yearly, on a yearly basis. That all of that are long-term contracts. This year, in 2024, we have formalized some agreements with Landbell Group for waste also. Again, this is mainly plastic waste and this is mainly food trays, so less expensive waste. We have a similar kind of agreement with a company named Hündge n Germany.
For the textile part, we signed two agreements, one with Tomra Textile and the other one with NFT, Nouvelles Fibres Textiles in France, in order to be able to support our textile ambitions and have the feedstock. As a reminder, this is a very significant competitive advantage for our technology, our capability to accommodate waste that are not processable by other technologies like mechanical recycling. We are mainly targeting those kind of waste, from food packaging, food trays, multilayer food trays, the residues of conventional recycling, and the textile waste. This is really our strategy, to get the cost benefit of those kind of cheaper waste. Let's move on. In terms of revenues on the licensing part, we confirm the model.
We have several discussions, and this is the model we are implementing, which is basically this. There are some licensing fees at the time of signing, at the time of commissioning the plant. So there will be a process of getting revenue upfront before starting the operations. And then we have recurring fees, recurring revenues, which are coming on one hand from selling the enzymes. We are not selling the enzyme. Novonesis is selling the enzyme to the licensee, but we have a sharing of the revenue on this enzyme commercial activity. And then we have what we call premium royalties, which will be royalties we collect from the production of the licensee. Move on. So where are we in terms of commercial agreements on the licensing side?
As I mentioned, we have, and I will come back to that in the next slide, we have already one agreement with the Zhink Group in China for a project of 50,000 tons. This is a LOI, and we are discussing the next steps to go to a binding contract. Same with Sasa in Turkey, but for a larger project of 100,000 tons in their location in the south of Turkey. And we have a discussion with the FCC for a capacity which is not yet disclosed, which would be in the U.K. And we have discussions in many other countries which are progressing. I can mention Japan, Taiwan, Korea, India, Europe, of course, several European countries, and North America. So Zhink Group.
Zhink Group is a large company based in Zhejiang in China, so they are one of the top 500 private company of China. And we had a signing in the summertime, and we are now in the process of moving towards a final contract, final binding agreement, with our team very involved to get there. Move on. Next slide, please. So same with Sasa. Sasa is a very large textile provider from Turkey in polyester, and they have the PET production facility. So Sasa is also with us in the next stage, moving from the LOI to a final contract, and we have a team committed to get there quickly. And last but not least, the FCC.
So Sasa and Zhink are PET producers, but we have also with FCC a first waste management company. Waste management company are interested in our technology because they have easy access to waste, and with FCC the interest is on the U.K. market, whereas FCC has a significant presence. FCC being a Spanish company, but their presence in the U.K. is quite large. Sorry, move on. So with Selenis we did the announcement last week, but Selenis is also a very active PET and PETG producer, and they are interested in Carbios technology to provide recycled PETG to their customers, and their customers are mainly heavily present in the healthcare and the cosmetic. So that's where the PETG is developed.
So that's opening a new venue and a new activity for Carbios, is to expand our capability beyond PET to new polymers like PETG. So two words on our PLA activity. So PLA market is mainly driven by demand in North America, and especially in the food market applications. So it was key for us to have the FDA approval and the BPI certification that we obtained this year. And since we did a new publication in Nature, we had a previous one on our PET application in 2020. But this year we had a second publication in Nature, and we have, since we did that publication in the month of July, a growing level of interest for our technology.
And beyond an announcement, we did please go on the next slide with Sleever, which is a partnership we are doing for the product on the biodegradable tamper evidence seal. We have several commercial agreements that should be concluded soon. When I say soon, is we are at the edge between end of twenty twenty-four or very beginning of twenty twenty-five for start of commercial activity. So this is where we are on the biodegradation activity for PLA. So let's move to the next slide. So I will leave the floor to Pascal Bricout to highlight the financial results of the first half.
Thank you, Emmanuel. So first, on the balance sheet side, I will start with the cash evolution. So from EUR 191 million, we moved to EUR 120 million, so we consume EUR 71 million. And as Emmanuel was mentioning, the key events of the year is the plant starting. So over these EUR 71 million, we use EUR 55 million for the plants. So if you see the footnote number one, there is around EUR 27 million for the tangible assets and part of the financial assets. And the current financial asset, you have EUR 28 million deposit that we have to put as a guarantee for the purchase order for the plant. So it's EUR 55 million over EUR 71 million.
The remainder is the loss of the first half, which is on track, I mean, as expected. On the liability side, on the next slide, sorry. Next slide. You can see that there is no big move on the liability side, except that we do have this 80 million EUR loss for the first six months, which is, if we go on the next slide, is on track. It's against our budget. So if we move to the next slide, we can. The next slide, please. Yes. So this 80 million is made of 20 million from operation, so it's 6 million more than last year. And we have three main drivers. Number one is the big effort on the staffing, on all respects.
I mean, R&D, industrial, and commercials, including full-time employee, but also consultants, to go for licensing. And then we have also a one-off event, which is an ERP to digitalize the company. That's accounts for 1.5. And then we have also around 1.5 for long-term incentive amortization, which is not a cash item. And then you see that on the financial income, we move from a loss to a profit because the capital increase was closed July 2023, and since then, we have this deposit that generates some financial income. And I have to mention that this deposit is fully liquid and at no risk.
So on the cash situation, the next slide, we will find again, investing activities is the EUR 55 million I was mentioning for the plant. The fourteen million that you can see here is if we move from the EUR 20 million operating loss, we have EUR 6 million of non-cash items, especially amortization for the demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand and also the long-term incentive amortization. I think that's the main items that should be highlighted for the period.
I propose we move to the question and answers, and I have already received a few questions in the chat, so thank you for all your questions. The first question is: could you confirm that your cash situation will avoid a new capital increase should you get your own financial autonomy? So I will leave Pascal to answer that question. Pascal?
Yeah, it's clear today, as of today, a capital increase is not a favored option considered by Carbios.
The second question is: how long will it take to go from a LOI, LOI, sorry, toward a real contract with a paid upfront? Obviously, just to explain, when we sign LOI, we have already had several negotiations and we are not starting from an LOI. The LOI is when the partner believes we can sign a license. Now, to finalize a full due diligence before a final investment decision, all the technical due diligence has to be completed. The economical assessments, and economical assessment means also localization, of course, and CapEx, which takes a bit of time. There is always an aspect on location, so where to build, how long it will take to get the permits, can we have subsidies?
So that's also a part of the timing, which is beyond. And last but not least, do we have enough feedstock to feed the plant, whether it's a 50,000, 100,000, or more. So that's why it's taking some time before a final investment decision and a binding contract. So not all of that is in our hand, but what I can tell you is on the projects we have already announced, we have teams from both sides, from us and from the customers, working actively on making that happen as soon as possible. So I would say it's more a question of months, but obviously, once we will have a binding agreement, it's a very serious project ready to start construction, permitting and construction fast.
Third question is: how do you explain that the funding of Longlaville is still in discussion with Indorama while the plant is already in progress? Is there any disagreement about these subjects? So, as I mentioned, we have several discussions with Indorama. We had one on the land acquisitions, which is now completed. We have discussions with Indorama on the supply of feedstocks for a certain part of the volumes we will need for the plant. We have discussions on the commercial side, on the off-take, on which brands and where we will sell the brand and which brand will be sold. We have discussion on the off-take agreement, so, how to repolymerize and at which conditions. And then we have discussion on the financing of the Longlaville plant. Each of these discussion is ongoing and are progressing.
But obviously, Carbios needs to make sure the timing of execution is going to be respected, and that's why, to ensure the proper execution of the schedule, we have also initiated discussions with financial institutions, for alternative financing, notably debt financings. So our board will evaluate the best option to respect the interest of the shareholders and the timing. The third question is: could you make an estimate, even approximate, about what will be the EBITDA of the turnover generated by Longlaville and the one generated by the activity of your licensees?... which will be necessarily different. So, Pascal, I will let you answer that question.
Yeah, so for the Longlaville, we do expect in our plan to be above EUR 150 million revenues. And at the full ramp up, once the ramp-up is at nominal, which is fairly quick, and for the EBITDA, we will be above the EUR 50 million mark. But and for sure, if you look at the unit, like Sasa in Turkey, the return, the IRR would be expected to be over the 20% mark and the EBITDA over the 40% mark. This is our calculation based on the CapEx, on the cost of goods sold we do have now in our model.
Okay, then I have some question in French, so maybe I will try to translate this, translate them. So can you give us news on the sale of license? Only means to reestablish your accounts in the green and give confidence to the shareholders. So yes, so let me restate that. So as I mentioned, we have now commercial presence in various countries, about 10 countries, where we have commercial presence, people which are representing Carbios. We are progressing very well in certain geographies, in particular in Asia and Europe. And we are now starting avidly the exploration of the North American market. We have three LOIs which are announced. Others which should come in the next months, a few months.
And the transformation between the LOI and binding contracts, so basically meaning sales of license, is a process on which we are ongoing very actively with the teams and with the customers, which we have already announced. So the when will be... I cannot disclose the when we will sign license, because I don't have 100% of the decision in my hand, but I can tell you that we have active works and active streams with the customers where we have already made announcements. In particular, Sasa and Zhink, which are the first one we announced, where we have active work streams and active activity to get to conclude quickly. So then I have somebody has two questions.
I thought the financing of the plant was secured, or I see you need to make debt. Why and how much? So maybe, Pascal, you want to answer that one?
Yeah. So it's as you've read in the press release, we are looking for alternatives. So the amount is not totally defined because it depends what will be available on the Indorama side.
Okay, concerning the hiring I mentioned, why do we hire so early for starting the plant only in one year? How much person are concerned, and what are they going to do during that year? So why do we need to hire people early? It's a question of speed of ramp-up. When you want to start your operations and get revenue quickly, you need to have the people not only hired, but trained and ready to operate the plant in the best conditions. The chance we have at Carbios is we have a demonstration plant. So why did we already hire 20 people for the plant? First, we hired the management, which is going to be the one making sure we deliver the results.
Secondly, we hired some of the first technicians and operators to make sure we have a fast ramp-up. Securing the production and the turnover of the plant that will be generated in 2026 and 2027 is a key priority for Carbios, because that will be first significant revenue for Carbios. That operation is going to be fast cash positive, but we need to make sure the production ramp-up is fast. That's why we need to hire the people in advance. Okay, so somebody asked me. Somebody asked: I have invested six months ago in Carbios, and the share price is going down despite the promising announcements concerning the future of the company. Do you have elements that could estimate when the curve could go up?
So my answer on that is, obviously, I'm very concerned about the share price, like anybody, but my job at Carbios and the job of the management team of Carbios is to execute the project and make sure we execute the project in the best possible conditions. So the focus of Carbios is to execute its industrial plan and make sure we are on time on delivering the products the customers are expecting. Make sure we secure all the conditions around the plant to make sure to make the operation and the ramp-up fast. I mentioned about all the work we did on the feedstock. I mentioned all the work we are doing to secure the fast ramp-up with the training of the employees. So that's a very important part of the future revenue of Carbios.
The second part of the activity of Carbios is the licensing, and that's where I'm making sure we have all the capabilities to concrete to make concrete plans on selling license, and that we get that. The last but not least activity is right now we are entering in the final phase of securing the commercial activity of the plant to make sure we have not only production in 2026, but all the secured agreement with the different customers, and that we will deliver the customers at the expected turnover and expected price. So this is really where I focus the efforts of Carbios. My guess, but I'm not a shareholder, but my guess is when this will be happening, and announced to the market, the share price should go in the right direction.
Question on do we have discussions with giants in recycling such as Veolia or Suez? My answer is yes, we do have contacts with Veolia and Suez for different kind of activities. I mean, those companies have interest in recycling. They are also feedstock providers, so I'm not going to disclose what kind of discussion we have, but yes, we do know those companies and have discussion with them, and continue to have discussion with them. Okay. So the other question is why the action is falling down? So once again, I'm going to answer.
I mean, I don't have all the answers on why the share price is going up or down, but my key focus as a Comex member and as a CEO of the company is making sure we have the capability to deliver and to deliver our industrial and commercial plan, and I should reassure the shareholders as soon as we get those announcement made. So then there is a question which is: what exactly do you mean with start of plant production in 2026? Is it the first quarter or the fourth quarter of 2026? So we don't disclose yet that very precisely because we are still 18 months from the... No, sorry, we are 15 months from commissioning.
What we know is we will have a high volume, significant volumes to deliver in 2026 to our customers, but obviously, like any plan, we try to improve and we try to make better. The full speed of the plant is not in 2026, and to be clear, because we, although we are putting efforts on the ramp-up, the full capability will be achieved in 2027. But we will have significant volumes in 2026. Now, the exact timing will be disclosed later because we still need to progress on the construction before we can give that. What do you intend to conclude the contract with Indorama regarding the 110 million EUR stake in the industrial plant, and on which point are you still not in agreement?
As I will repeat what I already said, we have negotiations ongoing. There are a lot of contracts in the agreement with which are under discussion in the agreement with Indorama, so I will not disclose where we are in terms of negotiations points, because this is ongoing and we are doing, I think, in both ways, from both parts, all our efforts to conclude in the best possible timing. Okay, then the next question, I think, Pascal, you already answered. What do you intend to do if Indorama cancels the contract? Would a capital increase be an option there?
I think Pascal already answered if we don't get to an agreement with Indorama, the alternative we have we are working on is financing through financial institution, notably in debt. Another question is, is there any deadline to finalize the discussion with Indorama Ventures when we'd have full visibility on the total funding of the plant? The discussions are progressing. They are progressing well. I'm not going to give a timing right now because we are not the only ones in that discussions. But obviously, I think both parties intend to conclude in the best possible timing. When will we have full visibility on the total funding of the plant? This is mainly linked to this previous question on when we will conclude with Indorama.
Pascal, a question for you: What kind of annual sales could you generate with your agreement with Sleever? No, sorry, with Sleever. So again, we have a volume expectation with Sleever. We have, this is part of the contract. We have decided with Sleever not to disclose that, but Sleever is very active in promoting this technology, which is very innovative, so that could be a significant volume for the PLA biodegradation activity. But, I cannot give a revenue estimation on that particular contract. Now, there is a question: Is the competitive landscape changing? Do you see any new players coming? So in terms of chemical recycling, we don't see a huge activity in Europe. There have been a few announcements of projects.
Many of them are not yet really in the state of activity, and none of them have permitting at this stage. So we are the only depolymerization activity to have a project ongoing in Europe. That's why, of course, we have a lot of interest from the brand owners and from our customers. So we don't see a big activity in Europe. There are a few projects moving on in Asia and in North America. But obviously, as I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of contacts in Asia, and it seems our technology is reaching a lot of interest, particularly in the fiber to fiber in the fiber industry, in the textile industry, which sees Carbios as really a breakthrough technology.
We do have chemical competition in glycolysis and methanolysis, but at this stage, we believe our technology has really a lot of benefits to offer to the customers. In terms of enzymatic, full enzymatic depolymerization technology like ours, we see zero competition at this stage. There are no activity at industrial scale on enzymatic depolymerization. So we are the only ones to be fully enzymatic with biorecycling claiming, so. Another question is, are you in the research concerning new plastics, nylon polyamides? Yes, I mentioned that very early, maybe a bit too quickly, but yes, we are in the R&D phase and discussion phase with some industry players for certain polymers, in particular, polyamides. And we are also contemplating other polymers.
I think we'll make some announcements in the future on other polymers, but the enzymatic solution is very promising for other polymers and polyester and PLA. So that's why we have, at least on the nylon, a good hope, and we have other polymers where we could make some announcements soon. Okay, so I think the next question has been already answered. When do you intend to conclude the contract with Indorama for the industrial plant? Okay. So Pascal, a question for you, when do you expect to reach the break-even point?
From the cash perspective, it will be 27 from operation. We do expect revenues from the Longlaville plant, which is very much contributive, but also from the licensing activity with the upfront payments we're going to receive from the licensee, and also the royalties from the plant.
So a question on what are the risks and opportunities we see regarding the 2026 expected launch of production? So at this stage, and it's a program which is ongoing, obviously, but at this stage, in October 2024, we have no delays, and no bad news on cost, and no bad news from suppliers on the execution of our program, of our project. So obviously, the project is not finished. We are still engaging suppliers, and we have contracting every month, so we cannot claim everything is going to be done. But at this stage, there is no delay in the execution of our program, and we are comfortable to have significant volume in 2026.
Now, we need to keep updated the market if any delay would occur, but that's not the case in October 2024, and we have no visibility of any risk, any major risk, on completion of our project at this stage. The last question I see on the chat is, could the recent change in government call into question the government support for Carbios? So I would answer, I don't think so, because we had promise and commitments from the governments, previous governments, on the support to Carbios. It has been submitted to the European Commission. We expect the return of the European Commission before end of this year, and it should be positive.
So we don't see any risk on not getting the France 2030 subsidies, and the region subsidies that were promised, at this stage. But again, I'm not a politician, so I cannot guarantee that. The money is not in our bank account, but that would be a very surprising change of strategy from the France 2030, if anything would occur on that. And I think I see a last question, which is, is the overall CapEx budget for the plant confirmed? So, the last estimate we did on the budget was done in mid-2023, when we did the final engineering design of the plant. Right now, we are in the contracting of all the elements of the plant.
There is no cost deviation at this stage, but again, we will finalize the CapEx amount when all the contracting is done, and this is too early to answer. But at this stage, there is no deviation on cost compared to what we initially planned. Yeah, I see a very good question. How much more expensive is Carbios technology compared to the production of plastics from crude oil? Will it be possible to reduce the cost of Carbios technology in the future? So my answer to that is, obviously, like any technology with maturity, there will be a cost reduction with time. Now, to be absolutely clear, there is already a very strong price premium for recycled content in the market, for two reasons.
In the packaging industry, they need to incorporate 25% by 2025, and 60% by 2040. So the demand for recycling goods is already much higher. The second thing is, in the textile, there are very few technologies which are compatible with the textile-to-textile ambition, fiber-to-fiber ambition of the brands, of the big brands, and we are one of the few, of the happy few. So, so there is a price premium for our technology compared to crude virgin plastics, where the demand is expected to be flat, while the demand for our recycling products is growing very fast. So how will we reduce costs with time? We keep improving, of course, our process and our enzymes. And of course, there is a question on the size of the plant.
The first plant we built in France is a fifty thousand tons, but in certain discussions we have in Asia, for instance, we could go far beyond that. In Turkey, we have announced that the project would be a one hundred thousand tons, but we could go beyond that, and we could go to two hundred, three hundred, or even five hundred thousand tons in the future. That will allow a cost reduction, a CapEx reduction per ton, and obviously a cost reduction overall. The competitiveness with virgin plastic is also a question of size in the future. Okay, then I have a question: Are you in contact with strong investors who want to invest in Carbios? Maybe Pascal, you want to answer that one.
We are always for years in contact with the strong investors by meeting you and meeting brand owners. Then they say that they want to invest. They have to build their own strategic vision about investing in Carbios. They do not invest in Carbios just because as a brand owner, they are willing to buy the monomers or the rPET. So we are talking to a lot of strong investors, and so far we keep on moving with the Michelin, L'Oréal, L'Occitane, and we try to maybe strengthen the strategic group of investors in the coming months, but there is no guarantee about that.
Okay, so that being said, I want to thank everybody. I don't see any more question in the chat, but obviously, if you have questions, please, we'd be happy to answer later on or to organize follow-up meetings with key shareholders and key investors, and I want to thank you for your support and your attention for Carbios. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones and devices.
... Hello, good morning, good afternoon. So I would like to welcome you for this conference. So as a reminder for those who are joining for the first time, Carbios is a biotech, clean tech company, which has over 10 years experience in R&D, developing enzymes and processes for processing plastic, biorecycling and biodegradation. We have 59 families of patents to date, a bit more than 150 employees, and we have two technologies at maturity. One, on the biorecycling of polyesters PET, and the other one on the biodegradation of PLA, and we'll come back to that. So really our expertise is to develop enzyme and processes to process enzyme at large scale, to depolymerize polymers, and to go back to the original materials, what we call the monomers of the plastics.
The operation of repolymerization is not done by Carbios, but by its partners. So over the years, we have developed a significant network of partners. We just mentioned the brands which are willing to adopt Carbios technology in their products. L'Oréal, PepsiCo, Suntory, Salomon, the group PVH, Nestlé Waters, Patagonia, Puma, and of course, many others in which we have discussions. We have strategic shareholders. Of course, we have many shareholders, but among them, we have companies in cosmetics like L'Occitane and L'Oréal and Michelin, which are very active in supporting Carbios technology. And we have developed over time a network of industrial partners like De Smet, which is executing our plant. Novonesis, where we have an executive strategic partnership, exclusive strategic partnership to supply our enzyme worldwide.
And we have developed recently a partnership with Selenis, and of course, Indorama, which is a long-term partner for our operation in France. Beyond the two activities I mentioned, we will have three streams of revenue. One is, of course, the licensing activity on our PET biorecycling technology, where we are right now starting to have partnerships announced and soon contracted for this activity. The first plant, Longlaville, which will produce monomers in 2026, and for which we will generate revenue from 2026 onwards, and the PLA biodegradation activity, which will start commercial activity at the very beginning, at the very late of 2024 or very beginning of 2025. So that's the current activities.
Obviously, Carbios, with its enzymatic expertise, is developing other polymers and other innovation activity beyond those PLA and PET activities. I will not mention them today, but they will be source of revenues for the future, and I'm thinking about the polyamides, the nylons, I'm thinking about the polyolefins and others, where we have a good breakthrough in terms of innovations. In terms of partnership for licensing, I will come back to them, but we have already announced three LOIs, one with FCC for a plant in the U.K., one with Sasa, Turkish textile, the Turkish PET producers, large PET producers, mainly focusing on textile for Turkey, and one with Zhink Group, for in the Zhejiang province in China... Let's move on.
So Carbios currently is located between three sites: Clermont-Ferrand, where we do everything from industrialization of the enzymes. We have the pilot plant in Clermont-Ferrand. We have also the demonstration plant, which is now operating for three years and giving us a lot of significant positive results to move forward in licensing and in building our own plant. Toulouse, where we develop all our innovation and all our new enzymes. So in Toulouse, we have a large team of PhDs developing the enzymes of the future. And Longlaville, where we build the first biorecycling plant for PET worldwide, and the construction is ongoing. So let's move on. So what happened in twenty twenty-four? So first of all, we are developing on track for the activity.
As you know, we started as a lab thirteen years ago. We were in picoliters scale. We moved to a pilot plant in 2018 with 100 kg of waste, which could be treated. Then we moved to the demonstration plant, where we can process 2 tons of waste in the batch, which is equivalent of 80,000 bottles, so that start to be very significant. And the good news of our process is we have the same results and the same kinetics in 20,000 tons and in picoliters, so there is no surprise on the scalability of our technology.
In our first-of-a-kind plant, for 50,000 tons of waste per year, we will be able to accommodate two billion bottles or 300 million T-shirts, and we expect exactly the same kinetics than in our demonstration plant. The plant is up and running. It is in Longlaville, at the border of Luxembourg, and we are planning to commission the plant late 2025 and start operation and start production in 2026. Move on. Right now, we are on track with this plant. We have got, and we are still the only plant of chemical recycling, advanced recycling, to have a permit in Europe. We have been granted the permit in October last year. We have finalized the acquisition of the land to Indorama in February 2024.
We started the land preparation. We have done the groundbreaking, and the construction keeps moving. As I said in the earlier slide, we will be complete-- making the mechanical completion by 2025. We have the engineering team of Desmet supporting the project with us, and we will start the operation and the production in 2026 to deliver our customers, which are expecting our product as soon as possible. Let's move on. Here is a little bit of details of everything which has been completed already. As I mentioned, we have make the acquisition of the land to Indorama. We have contracted Desmet as an EPCM to do the project and to manage the project. We have finished the land preparation. We have done the soil pollution activities.
We have built the water retention reservoir. We have already signed with Dalkia to contract for the water treatment systems, for the utility units. We have already received the first equipment on site, from Schneider Electric, and we have already done our second wave of recruitment. We have already more than 20 people which have been employed in order to prepare a fast ramp-up of the plant. In April, and you have a picture on that, with all our key partners and stakeholders, we did the groundbreaking ceremony at the end of April.
So I just want to mention that we are working on this project very heavily, and we have, as announced, in our year-end results, we are continuing our discussion with Indorama Ventures, with a view to reach an agreement on the financing of the plant. And there are several discussions ongoing with Indorama, from feedstock supply, offtake agreements, commercial discussions with to serve our brand owners and customers, and their brand owners and customers, and the financing. So each of these discussions are progressing and are in progress, but of course, to ensure the proper execution of the schedule, we have also initiated discussions with financial institutions for alternative financing, notably debt financing. Please move on.
So, on the upstream part, we have secured a lot of the waste we would need to operate the plant. As a record, in 2023, we had an agreement with Citeo for 30% of the food trays and produce for France, which will be giving us a volume of about a bit more than 5,000 tons yearly, on a yearly basis. That all of that are long-term contracts. This year, in 2024, we have formalized some agreements with Landbell Group for waste also. Again, this is mainly plastic waste and this is mainly food trays, so less expensive waste. We have a similar kind of agreement with a company named Hündgen i n Germany.
And for the textile part, we did, we signed two agreements, one with Tomra Textile and the other one with NFT, Nouvelles Fibres Textiles in France, in order to be able to support our textile ambitions and have the feedstock. As a reminder, this is a very significant competitive advantage for our technology, is our capability to accommodate waste that are not processable by other technologies like mechanical recycling. So we are mainly targeting those kind of waste from food packaging, food trays, multilayer food trays, the residues of conventional recycling and the textile waste. So this is really our strategy, is to get the cost benefit of those kind of cheaper waste. Let's move on. So in terms of revenues on the licensing part, we confirm the model.
We have several discussions, and this is the model we are implementing, which is basically this. There are some licensing fees at the time of signing, at the time of commissioning the plant, so there will be a process of getting revenue upfront before starting the operations, and then we have recurring fees, recurring revenues, which are coming on one hand from selling the enzymes. We are not selling the enzyme. Novonesis is selling the enzyme to the licensee, but we have a sharing of the revenue on this enzyme commercial activity, and then we have what we call premium royalties, which will be royalties we collect from the production of the licensee. Move on. So where are we in terms of commercial agreements on the licensing side?
As I mentioned, we have, and I will come back to that in the next slide, we have already one agreement with Zhink Group in China for a project of 50,000 tons. This is a LOI, and we are discussing the next steps to go to a binding contract. Same with Sasa in Turkey, but for a larger project of 100,000 tons in their location in the south of Turkey. We have a discussion with the FCC for a capacity which is not yet disclosed, which would be in the U.K. We have discussions in many other countries which are progressing. I can mention Japan, Taiwan, Korea, India, Europe, of course, several European countries, and North America.
Zhink Group is a large company based in Zhejiang in China, so they are one of the top 500 private company of China. We had a signing in the summertime, and we are now in the process of moving towards a final contract, final binding agreement, with a team very involved, with our team very involved to get there. Move on. Next slide, please. Same with Sasa. Sasa is a very large textile provider from Turkey in polyester, and they have the PET production facility. Sasa is also with us in the next stage, moving from the LOI to a final contract, and we have a team committed to get there quickly.
Last but not least, the FCC. Although Sasa and Zing are PET producers, but we have also with FCC a first waste management company. Waste management company are interested in our technology because they have easy access to waste, and with FCC the interest is on the U.K. market, where FCC has a significant presence. FCC being a Spanish company, but their presence in the U.K. is quite large. Sorry. Move on. With Selenis, we did the announcement last week, but Selenis is also a very active PET and PETG producer, and they are interested in Carbios technology to provide recycled PETG to their customers, and their customers are mainly heavily present in the healthcare and the cosmetic, so that's where the PETG is developed.
So that's opening a new venue and a new activity for Carbios, is to expand our capability beyond PET to new polymers like PETG. So two words on our PLA activity. So PLA market is mainly driven by demand in North America, and especially in the food market applications. So it was key for us to have the FDA approval and the BPI certification that we obtained this year. And since we did a new publication in Nature, we had a previous one on our PET application in twenty twenty. But this year we had a second publication in Nature, and since we did that publication in the month of July, we have a growing level of interest for our technology.
And beyond an announcement, we did. Please go on the next slide with Sleever, which is a partnership we are doing for the actual product on the biodegradable tamper-evident seal. We have several commercial agreements that should be concluded soon. When I say soon, it is we are at the edge between end of twenty twenty-four or very beginning of twenty twenty-five for start of commercial activity. So this is where we are on the biodegradation activity for PLA. So let's move to the next slide. I will leave the floor to Pascal Bricout to highlight the financial results of the first half.
Thank you, Emmanuel. So first, on the balance sheet side, I will start with the cash evolution. So from EUR 191 million, we moved to EUR 120 million, so we consumed EUR 71 million. And as Emmanuel was mentioning, the key events of the year is the plant starting. So over these 71 million, we used 55 for the plants. So if you see the footnote number one, there is around 27 for the tangible assets and part of the financial assets. And the current financial asset, you have 28 million deposit that we have to put as a guarantee for the purchase order for the plant. So it's 55 over 71.
The remainder is the loss of the first half, which is on track, I mean, as expected. On the liability side. On the next slide, sorry, next slide. You can see that there is no big move on the liability side, except that we do have this 18 months, 80 million EUR loss for the first six months, which is, if we go on the next slide, is on track. It's against our budget. So if we move to the next slide, we can... The next slide, please. Yes. So this 80 million is made of 20 million from operation. So it's 6 million more than last year. And we have three main drivers.
Number one is a big effort on the staffing, on all respects, I mean, R&D, industrial and commercial, including full-time employee, but also consultants to go for licensing. And then we have also a one-off event, which is an ERP to digitalize the company. That accounts for 1.5. And then we have also around 1.5 for long-term incentive amortization, which is not a cash item. And then you see that on the financial income, we move from a loss to a profit because the capital increase was closed July 2023, and since then, we have this deposit that generates some financial income. And I have to mention that this deposit is fully liquid and at no risk.
On the cash situation, on the next slide, we will find again, investing activities is the EUR 55 million I was mentioning for the plant. The 14 million that you can see here is if we move from the EUR 20 million operating loss, we have six million of non-cash items, especially amortization for the demonstration plant in Clermont-Ferrand, and also the long-term incentive amortization. I think that's the main items that should be highlighted for the period.
Okay, now I propose-
Sorry.
I propose we move to the question and answers, and I have already received a few questions in the chat, so thank you for all your questions. The first question is: Could you confirm that your cash situation will avoid a new capital increase should you get your own financial autonomy? So I will leave Pascal answer that question. Pascal?
Yeah, it's clear today, as of today, a capital increase is not a favored option considered by Carbios.
Second question is: How long will it take to go from a LOI, sorry, toward a real contract with a paid upfront? Obviously, to explain, when we sign LOI, we have already had several negotiations and we are not starting from an LOI. There is always the LOI is when the partner believes we can sign a license. Now, to finalize a full due diligence before a final investment decision, all the technical due diligence has to be completed. The economic assessments, and economic assessment means also localization, of course, and CapEx, which takes a bit of time. There is always an aspect on location, so where to build, how long it will take to get the permits, can we have subsidies?
That's also a part of the timing, which is beyond. And last but not least, do we have enough feedstock to feed the plant, whether it's a fifty thousand, one hundred thousand, or more? That's why it's taking some time before a final investment decision and a binding contract. Not all of that is in our hand, but what I can tell you is on the projects we have already announced, we have teams from both sides, from us and from the customers, working actively on making that happen as soon as possible. I would say it's more a question of months, but obviously, once we will have a binding agreement, it's a very serious project ready to start construction, permitting and construction fast.
So the question is, how do you explain that the funding of Longlaville is still in discussion with Indorama, while the plant is already in progress? Is there any disagreement about these subjects? So as I mentioned, we have several discussions with Indorama. We had one on the land acquisitions, which is now completed. We have discussions with Indorama on the supply of feedstocks for a certain part of the volumes we need for the plant. We have discussions on the commercial side, on the offtake, which brands and where we will sell the brand and which brand will be sold. We have discussion on the offtake agreement, so how to repolymerize and at which conditions. And then we have discussion on the financing of the Longlaville plant. Each of these discussion is ongoing and are progressing.
But obviously, Carbios needs to make sure the timing of execution is going to be respected, and that's why to ensure the proper execution of the schedule, we have also initiated discussions with financial institutions, for alternative financing, notably debt financings. So our board will evaluate the best option to respect the interest of the shareholders and the timing. The third question is: Could you make an estimate, even approximate, about what will be the EBITDA of the turnover generated by Longlaville and the one generated by the activity of your licenses, which will be necessarily different? So, Pascal, I will let you answer that question.
Yeah. So for the Longlaville, we do expect in our plan to be above 150 million EUR revenues. And at the full ramp up, once the ramp up is at nominal, which is fairly quick, and for the EBITDA, we will be above the 50 million mark. But and for sure, if you look at the unit, like Sasa in Turkey, the return, the IRR would be expected to be over the 20% mark and the EBITDA over the 40% mark. This is our calculation based on the CapEx, on the cost of goods sold, we do have now in our model.
Okay, then I have some questions in French, or maybe I will try to translate this, translate them. So can you give us news on the sale of license? Only means to reestablish your accounts in the green and give confidence to the shareholders. So yes, so let me restate that. So as I mentioned, we have now commercial presence in various countries, about ten countries, where we have commercial presence, people which are representing Carbios. We are progressing very well in certain geographies, in particular in Asia and Europe. And we are now starting avidly the exploration of the North American market. We have three LOIs which are announced. Others we should come in the next months, a few months.
and the transformation between the LOI and binding contracts, so basically meaning sales of license, is a process on which we are ongoing very actively with the teams and with the customers, which we have already announced. So the when will be... I cannot disclose the when we will sign license, because I don't have 100% of the decision in my hand, but I can tell you that we have active works and active streams with the customers where we have already made announcements. In particular, Sasa and Jing, which are the first one we announced, where we have active work streams and active activity to get to conclude quickly. So then I have somebody has two questions.
I thought the financing of the plant was secured, or I see you need to make debt. Why and how much? So maybe, Pascal, you want to answer that one?
Yeah. So it's as you've read in the press release, we are looking for alternatives. So the amount is not totally defined because it depends what will be available on the Indorama side.
Okay, concerning the hiring I mentioned, why do we hire so early for starting the plant only in one year? How many persons are concerned, and what are they going to do during that year? Why do we need to hire people early? It's a question of speed of ramp up. When you want to start your operations and get revenue quickly, you need to have the people not only hired, but trained and ready to operate the plant in the best conditions. The chance we have at Carbios is we have a demonstration plant. Why did we already hire 20 people for the plant? First, we hired the management, which is going to be the one making sure we deliver the results.
And secondly, we hired some of the first technicians and operators to make sure we have a fast ramp up. Securing the production and the turnover of the plant that will be generated in 2026 and 2027 is a key priority for Carbios, because that will be first significant revenue for Carbios, and that operation is going to be fast cash positive, but we need to make sure the production ramp-up is fast. That's why we need to hire the people in advance. Okay, so somebody asked me. So somebody asked: "I have invested six months ago in Carbios, and the share price is going down despite the promising announcements concerning the future of the company.
Do you have elements that could estimate when the curve could go up? So my answer on that is, obviously, I'm very concerned about the share price, like anybody, but my job at Carbios and the job of the management team of Carbios is to execute the project and make sure we execute the project in the best possible conditions. So, the focus of Carbios is to execute its industrial plan and make sure we are on time on delivering the products the customers are expecting. Make sure we secure all the conditions around the plant to make the operation and the ramp-up fast. I mentioned about all the work we did on the feedstock.
I mentioned all the work we are doing to secure the fast ramp-up with the training of the employees, so that's a very important part of the future revenue of Carbios. The second part of the activity of Carbios is the licensing, and that's where I'm making sure we have all the capabilities to make concrete plans on selling license, and that we get that. The last but not least activity is right now we are entering in the final phase of securing the commercial activity of the plant to make sure we have not only production in twenty twenty-six, but all the secured agreement with the different customers, and that we will deliver the customers at the expected turnover and expected price. So this is really where I focus the efforts of Carbios.
My guess, but I'm not a shareholder, but my guess is when this will be happening, announced to the market, the share price should go in the right direction. Question on: Do we have discussions with giants in recycling, such as Veolia or Suez? My answer is yes, we do have contacts with Veolia and Suez for different kind of activities. I mean, those companies have interest in recycling. They are also feedstock providers, so I'm not going to disclose what kind of discussion we have, but yes, we do know those companies and have discussion with them, and continue to have discussion with them. Okay. Another question is: Why the action is falling down? Once again, I'm going to answer.
I mean, I don't have all the answers on why the share price is going up or down, but my key focus as a Comex member and as a CEO of the company is making sure we have the capability to deliver and to deliver our industrial and commercial plan, and I should reassure the shareholders as soon as we get those announcement made. So then there is a question, which is: What exactly do you mean with start of plant production in 2026? Is it the first quarter or the fourth quarter of 2026? We don't disclose yet that very precisely because we are still 18 months from the. No, sorry, we are 15 months from commissioning.
What we know is we will have a high volume, significant volumes to deliver in 2026 to our customers, but obviously, like any plan, we try to improve, and we try to make better. The full speed of the plant is not in 2026, and to be clear, because we, although we are putting efforts on the ramp-up, the full capability will be achieved in 2027, but we will have significant volumes in 2026. Now, the exact timing will be disclosed later because we still need to progress on the construction before we can give that. What do you intend to conclude the contract with Indorama regarding the 110 million EUR stake in the industrial plant? And on which point are you still not in agreement?
So, as I will repeat what I already said, we have negotiations ongoing. There are a lot of contracts in the agreement with which are under discussion in the agreement with Indorama, so I will not disclose where we are in term of negotiations points, because this is ongoing, and we are doing, I think, in both ways, from both parts, all our efforts to conclude in the best possible timing. Okay, then the next question, I think, Pascal, you already answered. What do you intend to do if Indorama cancels the contract? Would a capital increase be an option there? So I think Pascal already answered.
If we don't get to an agreement with Indorama, the alternative we have, we are working on is financing through financial institution, notably in debt. Another question is: Is there any deadline to finalize the discussion with Indorama Ventures, when we'd have full visibility on the total funding of the plant? So the discussions are progressing. They are progressing well. I'm not going to give a timing right now because we are not the only ones in those discussions. But obviously, I think both parties intend to conclude in the best possible timing. When will we have full visibility on the total funding of the plant? This is mainly linked to this previous question on when we will conclude with Indorama.
Pascal, a question for you: What kind of annual sales could you generate with your agreement with Sleever? No, sorry, with Sleever. So again, we have a volume expectation with Sleever. We have. This is part of the contract. We have decided with Sleever not to disclose that, but Sleever is very active in promoting this technology, which is very innovative. So that could be a significant volume for the PLA biodegradation activity. But, I cannot give a revenue estimation on that particular contract. Now, there is a question: Is the competitive landscape changing? Do you see any new players coming? In term of chemical recycling, we don't see a huge activity in Europe. There have been a few announcement of projects.
Many of them are not yet really in the state of activity, and none of them have permitting at this stage. So we are the only... Sorry, we are the only depolymerization activity to have a project ongoing in Europe. That's why, of course, we have a lot of interest from the brand owners and from our customers. So we don't see a big activity in Europe. There are a few projects moving on in Asia and in North America. But obviously, as I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of contacts in Asia, and it seems our technology is reaching a lot of interest, particularly in the fiber to fiber in the fiber industry, in the textile industry, which sees Carbios as really a breakthrough technology.
So, we do have chemical competition in glycolysis and methanolysis, but at this stage, we believe our technology has really a lot of benefits to offer to the customers. In terms of enzymatic full enzymatic depolymerization technology like ours, we see zero competition at this stage. There are no activity at industrial scale on enzymatic depolymerization. So we are the only ones to be fully enzymatic with biorecycling claim, so. Another question is: Are you in the research concerning new plastics, nylon polyamides? So yes, I mentioned that very early, maybe a bit too quickly, but yes, we are in the R&D phase and discussion phase with some industry players for certain polymers, in particular, polyamides. And we are also contemplating other polymers.
I think we'll make some announcements in the future on other polymers, but the enzymatic solution is very promising for other polymers and polyester and PLA. So that's why we have, at least on the nylon, a good hope, and we have other polymers where we could make some announcements soon. Okay, so I think the next question has been already answered. When do you intend to conclude the contract with Indorama for the industrial plant? Okay. So Pascal, a question for you: When do you expect to reach the break-even point?
From the cash perspective, it will be twenty-seven from operation. We do expect revenues from the Longlaville plant, which is very much contributive, but also from the licensing activity with the upfront payments we're gonna receive from the licensee, and also the royalties from the plant.
So a question on what are the risks and opportunities we see regarding the 2026 expected launch of production? So at this stage, and it's a program which is ongoing, obviously, but at this stage, in October 2024, we have no delays, and no bad news on cost and no bad news from suppliers on the execution of our program, of our project. So obviously, the project is not finished. We are still engaging suppliers, and we have contracting every month, so we cannot claim everything is going to be done. But at this stage, there is no delay in the execution of our program, and we are comfortable to have significant volume in 2026.
Now, we need to keep updated the market if any delay would occur, but that's not the case in October twenty twenty-four, and we have no visibility of any risk, any major risk on completion of our project at this stage. The last question I see on the chat is: Could the recent change in government call into question the government's support for Carbios? So I would answer, I don't think so, because we had promise and commitments from the governments, previous governments, on the support to Carbios. It has been submitted to the European Commission. We expect the return of the European Commission before end of this year, and it should be positive.
So we don't see any risk on not getting the France 2030 subsidies and the region subsidies that were promised at this stage. But again, I'm not a politician, so I cannot guarantee that the money is not in our bank account, but that would be a very surprising change of strategy from the France 2030 if anything would occur on that, and I think I see your last question, which is the overall CapEx budget for the plant confirmed. So, the last estimate we did on the budget was done in mid-2023, when we did the final engineering design of the plant. Right now, we are in the contracting of all the elements of the plant.
There is no cost deviation at this stage, but again, we will finalize the CapEx amount when all the contracting is done, and this is too early to answer. But at this stage, there is no deviation on cost compared to what we initially planned. Yeah, it's a very good question. How much more expensive is Carbios technology compared to the production of plastics from crude oil? Will it be possible to reduce the cost of Carbios technology in the future? So my answer to that is, obviously, like any maturity, like any technology with maturity, there will be a cost reduction with time. Now, to be absolutely clear, what there is already a very strong price premium for recycled content in the market, for two reasons.
In the packaging industry, they need to incorporate 25% by 2025, and 60% by 2040, so the demand for recycling goods is already much higher. The second thing is, in the textile, there are very few technologies which are compatible with the textile-to-textile ambition, fiber-to-fiber ambition of the brands, of the big brands, and we are one of the few, of the happy few. So, so there is a price premium for our technology compared to crude virgin plastics, where the demand is expected to be flat, while the demand for our recycling products is growing very fast. So how will we reduce costs with time? We keep improving, of course, our process and our enzymes, and of course, there is a question on the size of the plant.
The first plant we built in France is a 50,000 tons, but in certain discussions we have in Asia, for instance, we could go far beyond that. So in Turkey, we have announced that the project would be a 100,000 tons, but we could go beyond that, and we could go to 200,000, 300,000, or even 500,000 tons in the future. And that will allow a cost reduction, a CapEx reduction per ton, and obviously, a cost reduction on overall. So the competitiveness with virgin plastic is also a question of size in the future. Okay, then I have a question on: Are you in contact with strong investors who want to invest in Carbios? So maybe, Pascal, you want to answer that one.
We are always for years in contact with the strong investors by meeting you and meeting brand owners. Then they saying that they want to invest. They have to build their own strategic vision about investing in Carbios. They do not invest in Carbios just because as a brand owner, they are willing to buy the monomers or the rPET. So we are talking to a lot of strong investors, and so far we keep on moving with the L'Oréal, L'Occitane, and we try to maybe strengthen the strategic group of investors in the coming months, but there is no guarantee about that.
Okay, so that being said, I want to thank everybody. I don't see any more question in the chat, but obviously, if you have questions, please, we'd be happy to answer later on or to organize follow-up meetings with key shareholders and key investors, and I want to thank you for your support and your attention for Carbios. Thank you very much.
Thank you.