Welcome to the Q1 2023 Financial results and business update conference call for Yield10 Bioscience. During the call, participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presenters will address questions from analysts today. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to your host, Yield10 Vice President of Planning, and Corporate Communications, Lynne Brum.
Thank you, Maria, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Yield10 Bioscience Q1 2023 conference call. Joining me on the call today are President and CEO, Dr. Oliver Peoples, Vice President of Research, and Chief Science Officer, Dr. Kristi Snell, and Chief Accounting Officer, Chuck Haaser. Earlier this afternoon, Yield10 issued our Q1 2023 financial results. This press release, as well as slides that accompany today's presentation, are available on the investor relations events section of our website at yield10bio.com. Let's turn to slide two. Please note, as part of our discussion today, management will be making forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on them.
Investors are also cautioned that statements that are not strictly historical constitute forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include risks and uncertainties detailed in Yield10's filings with the SEC. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this conference call. Now I turn the call over to Ollie.
Thanks, Lynne. Good afternoon, everyone, thanks for joining our call. I'm pleased to report that we are making solid progress across the business as we operationalize our commercial plan to launch Camelina as a platform crop with a near-term focus on the Biofuel feedstock market. Today, we'll provide an update on our business, including recent accomplishments, the market opportunity and trends driving the Biofuel market, our progress developing herbicide-tolerant Camelina varieties, our plan to scale up EPA omega-3 Camelina, present Q1 financials and summarize key milestones. We will open the call to questions. Let's turn to slide three, advancing the business. Commercial launch of our Camelina seed products business is underway, targeting the Biofuel feedstock market. We are expecting our first grain revenue later in 2023 from the grain produced for our winter 2022, 2023 and spring 2023 grower contracts.
I'm also happy to report that our team has met our target for signing up spring grower contracts. Seed delivery and planting has either been completed or will be completed in the next week or so. The photo on the top right side of this slide shows the planting at the grower site in Alberta. Our team reported that our winter Camelina, planted last fall, has demonstrated excellent cold tolerance over the season and is resuming growth now that the warmer weather has returned. Both crops will be harvested in Q3, and we are committed to ensuring grain offtake to crush refiner customers. On the business development side, our team continues to engage with potential supply chain partners. Last week, we signed a letter of intent with Marathon Petroleum for an investment and offtake agreement for Camelina production in a specific growing region.
Discussion to finalize terms for definitive offtake and investment agreements are in progress, sorry. In exchange for a period of exclusivity for that region, Marathon paid Yield10 $1 million in the form of a convertible note. In Q1, we announced the signing of an MOU with Mitsubishi to establish a partnership for supply, offtake, and marketing of Camelina oil as a feedstock oil for Biofuels, for sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF. We continue to progress those offtake discussions. We also announced the signing of an MOU with American Airlines to collaborate to develop the value chain for Camelina for SAF. We are delighted with the efforts they are making to assist us. We look forward to continuing to work with Marathon, Mitsubishi, and American in the months ahead.
Early in the year, we also signed an agreement with a privately owned integrated crusher by a refiner customer for offtake of Camelina grain. This business is located in the key commercial launch growing region and provides a complete seed-to-Biofuel value chain, allowing us to scale Camelina. As 2023 progresses, we plan to continue discussions with additional partner prospects with the goal of creating the option to establish a network of alliances to supply Camelina feedstock oil to this market. In our role as a grain originator, we are continuing to scale up seed to enable contract growing in thousands of acres in the near term, with the ramp-up of acres accelerating with the introduction of herbicide-tolerant Camelina varieties. Our herbicide-tolerant technology will provide multiple benefits to growers, and we believe this will lead to hundreds of thousands and then the first 1 million acres of annual production.
Our goal is to supply the best-in-class Camelina varieties in the industry, providing ease of crop integration into current crop rotations and highest on-farm returns. Let's turn to slide four, the Camelina Biofuel feedstock oil focus. Investments to convert refineries from petroleum to Biofuels in the U.S. alone has created demand for an additional 6 billion gallons of feedstock oil in the near term. We believe this demand for renewable diesel as well as SAF could lead to the potential for at least 45 million acres of Camelina production in North America. Over our last few investor calls, we have mentioned growing tailwinds for increasing vegetable oil production for decarbonizing Biofuels. Let's now turn to slide five to recap two recent policy announcements that underscore the potential for Camelina for this market. First, the European Parliament last week reached an agreement named the ReFuelEU Aviation Proposal.
This agreement embodies a set of new rules to require aviation fuel suppliers to supply a minimum share of SAF at EU airports, starting at 2% of overall fuel. It's around 1 million gallons per day starting in 2024, and rising to 6% in 2030 and 7 8% in 2050. While this initiative still needs the board of EU members, it demonstrates global momentum behind decarbonizing transportation fuels and another potential source of demand for feedstock oils. Last week, the Canadian regulatory body, CFIA, published its long-awaited guidance on genome edited crops. CFIA indicated that they will treat most gene edited crops as non-regulated as long as the plant does not contain any foreign DNA.
The new rule does note that for any new traits for herbicide tolerance, even if in, if produced using gene editing, will need to be submitted for CFIA review, a stance that was anticipated by the ag community. Overall, another very positive announcement for crop innovators like Yield10. Please turn to slide six, oilseed cover crop development approaches. There are multiple new oilseed crops in commercial development for the Biofuel market, including pennycress, Carinata, and Camelina. The common technology denominator has been access to public germplasm, line selection, and breeding. We are committed to that approach, but have also invested significantly in developing proprietary advanced trait technologies to create a path to high performance elite Camelina germplasm.
In addition to herbicide tolerance, our unique capabilities to identify and test new performance traits to stack traits, leveraging the improved regulatory environment in the U.S. and Canada, provide a path to further performance differentiation for our varieties. In the early days of ag biotech, a single gene trait was a large differentiator and essential to remain in the commodity row crop seed business, as evidenced by the subsequent sector consolidation. The Big Five, Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer, Syngenta, and DowAg dominated the sector until the more recent consolidation, which created the top two, Corteva and Bayer, with Syngenta in third, and BASF becoming the leader in canola. Today, elite germplasm with multiple gene stacks in corn and soybean provide high barriers to entry and are the key differentiators for the seed companies.
We believe we are uniquely positioned based on our advanced trait technologies to deliver continuous improvements, drive grower revenue, and secure production acres over time. Now let's turn to slide seven, Camelina-based Biofuel feedstocks. Grower adoption of Camelina as a seamless integral part of the crop rotation is key to making Camelina a meaningful source of feedstock oil. Increasing harvest value of the grain to drive grower revenue is also critical. We are placing strong emphasis on technology innovation to provide growers with continuous improvement in the crop. Finally, growers want to see that the value chain is in place to ensure the Camelina grain has a clear path to market. Simply put, we have planned to make it straightforward and profitable for our growers to produce Camelina grain for Yield10. Let's now turn to slide nine, establishing the Camelina value chain.
There are three components of the Biofuel value chain for Camelina. The first is high quality Camelina seed and contract farming. This is where Yield10 has the capabilities to build unique differentiation in their Camelina seed genetics. The second component is logistics and seed crushing, and the third is refining to produce renewable diesel or SAF. Fuel customers such as American Airlines can also play a role as they commit to the use of sustainable fuels. Our vision for the business is to contract with growers for large scale production and build a network of alliances for contracted offtake of the grain for Biofuels with the meal going into animal feed.
Our LOI with Marathon, as well as our MOUs with Mitsubishi and American, demonstrate the potential for establishing downstream alliances committed to accelerating the ramp-up of Camelina acres to supply the Biofuel market and provide support, sorry, to innovators like Yield10. I will now pass the call over to Kristi.
Thanks, Ollie, and good afternoon, everyone. Please turn to slide nine. We are executing on our early commercial activities in close cooperation with our growers, with a focus on three Camelina varieties. These include the genome-edited spring E3902 Camelina variety, as well as two winter Camelina varieties, WDH2 and WDH3, which were produced by our team using a plant breeding procedure. We are also using these three core Camelina varieties as a chassis for deploying herbicide-tolerant traits for weed control into spring and winter Camelina. Please turn to slide 10. Our winter variety field testing program includes well over 20 sites denoted with the blue pins on the map of the U.S. and Canada.
In our March call, we indicated that we obtained confirmation of the performance of our herbicide-tolerant spring Camelina, the application of an over-the-top broadleaf herbicide in US counter season trials performed at locations indicated by the yellow pins on the slides. Our winter program also includes agronomy trials with winter Camelina. One such study involved planting winter Camelina side by side with winter wheat, which is the benchmark crop for winter planting. The cold hardiness of our winter Camelina was found to be better or equivalent to winter wheat in this trial. As the season progresses, we'll plan to post photos of our winter Camelina fields on our website. Please turn to slide 11. We are conducting our spring 2023 field testing program at 13 sites in the US and Canada. The trials include additional field testing and seed scale-up of our lead spring herbicide-tolerant Camelina line.
In addition, we have generated candidate stacked herbicide-tolerant Camelina events for first field testing. We will evaluate the data from these Camelina lines to enable the selection of lead and backup Camelina lines for subsequent seed scale-up and field testing. We also remain encouraged by the performance of our yield traits and have included C3004 and C3007 in our 2023 field tests. We are not only interested in what these novel traits can do to increase seed yield or oil content alone, but we also plan to evaluate these traits in stacked combinations. Let's turn to slide 12. There has been a profound change in the regulatory environment for crop innovations driven by the impact of gene editing and an appreciation for the safe deployment of new traits in crops for over 30 years.
The deployment of herbicide tolerance in Camelina will involve the completion of a series of performance, regulatory, and seed scale-up milestones to enable the commercial launch of these new varieties in the U.S. On this slide, we have identified the major development milestones and tracked these for spring herbicide-tolerant E3902 Camelina, as well as for our winter herbicide-tolerant lines based on WDH2 and WDH3. For our spring variety, we have checked the box for generating the herbicide tolerance events and have selected our lead and backup Camelina lines for seed scale-up. We filed our RSR package for broadleaf herbicide tolerance to USDA APHIS under the SECURE Rule, a step we took last year in parallel with starting early development of herbicide-tolerant Camelina. We have followed these activities with an application to EPA to request the label amendment for a broadleaf herbicide to allow its use on Camelina.
This application was submitted to EPA by a third-party manufacturer of the herbicide chemistry. We believe these applications at USDA and EPA will be reviewed during 2023 to early 2024. Finally, we will perform comparative analyses of seed from herbicide-tolerant Camelina with those from conventional Camelina to demonstrate compositional equivalency. This is necessary to sell the high-protein Camelina meal remaining after crushing the seed into the animal feed market. Here, we plan to sample and collect compositional data from seeds harvested from our 2023 spring trials. We plan to determine compositional equivalency of seed to allow a sale of meal, first using a self-determination process and then with a voluntary submission to FDA that is reviewed by the agency.
I believe our team has a good handle on the process and the timeline to launch, which will be driven by the timing of completing regulatory reviews in conjunction with building sufficient seed inventory for launch. Let's turn to slide 13. We know that growers want broadleaf and grassy weed control for Camelina. As you may recall from our field trial activities, we have successfully completed two cycles of testing our Camelina for herbicide tolerance. This herbicide-tolerant event is in our elite proprietary E3902 background. We also successfully tested our Camelina for tolerance to clethodim, a product used to control grassy weeds. On the regulatory front, we filed an RSR package to USDA-APHIS for deployment of a well-studied broadleaf herbicide trait in Camelina in 2022.
In the Q1 of 2023, we supported the submission of a label amendment to EPA by a third-party company to allow the use of its broadleaf herbicide on Camelina. The response from both agencies is pending. This spring, we plan to conduct larger scale field work for product development purposes for our herbicide-tolerant spring Camelina and collect, to collect data for compositional analysis of seed. We have also developed winter lines that have demonstrated broadleaf herbicide tolerance in greenhouse tests. In winter 2023/2024, we plan to conduct our first field tests of these lines. Let's turn to slide 14. To tap into the large acreage potential of Camelina, the crop needs to have tolerance to herbicide residues that may persist in the soil from previous applications on other crops. We continue to make solid progress on this goal.
In the Q1, we reported that we have developed multiple E3902 spring Camelina lines with stacked herbicide-tolerant traits and that these plants showed tolerance not only to spray application of broadleaf herbicide, but also to Group two herbicides. Group two herbicides such as IMIs and SUs, which can persist in soil for months following application, are commonly used to control weeds in cereals and other crops. The photo on the slide shows an example greenhouse test in which a stacked herbicide-tolerant event was healthy when treated with Group 2 herbicides, where the control line died with a similar treatment. Based on our proof-of-concept results, we are conducting our first research field tests of stacked herbicide-tolerant E3902 spring Camelina in our spring 2023 field test program. Our team is also making progress deploying stacked herbicide tolerance traits in our winter varieties.
We anticipate our first research field tests of stacked herbicide-tolerant winter lines will begin in winter 2023. With our product development efforts moving ahead at a good pace, we filed an RSR for stacked herbicide-tolerant Camelina in the Q1 of 2023 to pave the way for commercial introduction of these stacked herbicide-tolerant varieties. As I wrap up, I'd like to acknowledge the efforts of the Yield10 R&D team to positioning Yield10 on the forefront of technology deployment in Camelina. In the months ahead, we look forward to field testing of our best commercial quality herbicide-tolerant Camelina lines, advancing omega-3 oils, and securing regulatory clearances for our elite Camelina products. I'll now hand the call over to Chuck.
Thanks, Kristi. Good afternoon, everyone. Let's turn to slide 17. We ended the Q1 of 2023 with $1.8 million in cash and cash equivalents. Earlier this month, we added to our cash position based on receiving $1 million from Marathon Petroleum in connection with an LOI, and we raised approximately $2.7 million net proceeds from a registered direct offering. We expect that our cash on hand will support our operations into the Q3 of 2023. Our net operating cash used for operating activities was $2.7 million for the Q1 of 2023, as compared to $3.1 million for the Q1 of last year. For 2023, we expect total net cash usage in the range of $12 and a half million to $13 million to fund our operations.
This represents a revision from our last call based on a recent review of our plans for 2023. Also in 2023, we expect to report our first Camelina product revenue from Camelina grain sales to our offtake customer. Now let's review the Q1 of 2023 operating results. For the Q1 of 2023, the company reported a net loss after taxes of $3.8 million, as compared to a net loss after taxes of $3.3 million for the Q1 of 2022. Total research grant revenues in the Q1 of 2023 were $0.1 million, and this was consistent with the Q1 of 2022. As of March 31st, we completed our work under the 5-year subaward under the Michigan State DOE grant.
In the Q1 of 2023, R&D expenses were $2.2 million, as compared to $1.8 million in the Q1 of 2022, and our G&A expenses were $1.7 million in the Q1 of this year, which was consistent with the Q1 of last year. For more details on our financial results, please refer to the earnings release. Ollie, back to you.
Thanks, Chuck. Let's now turn to slide 18, upcoming milestones. This is an exciting time for Yield10. Over the last few months, our team has made significant progress, and we've established agreements across the Biofuel value chain. We're excited to work with the teams at Marathon and Mitsubishi in the months ahead on developing definitive offtake and investment agreements. We're also excited by the discussions we've had with growers, including their enthusiasm to gain access to our HT varieties as soon as they are commercially available, because they see additional benefits for their crop rotations. These factors, together with the growing interest from additional value chain partner prospects, are all good reasons to be excited about the future of our business.
We've executed on the development and scale-up of new Camelina varieties for commercial production, advanced discussions with companies committed to the Biofuel space, and have committed to our commercial path forward with omega-3 Camelina. We are approaching the scaling of our Camelina grain production business using our current lead varieties tactically over the next one to two years, with a strong focus on building the relationships with growers and demonstrating the full value chain for our partners. We believe this will position us to accelerate the adoption of Camelina onto hundreds of thousands of acres as our new varieties with robust weed control become available. Essentially, we plan to walk slow so we can run fast based on building a solid foundation over the next couple of years.
As 2023 progresses, we will continue to focus on executing our key milestones, including working with Marathon and Mitsubishi to finalize investment and offtake agreements, engaging with American Airlines to support the Camelina value chain for SAF, expanding our commercial activities targeting the renewable diesel and SAF markets, engaging with growers to introduce the benefits of growing Camelina and expand our grower network, building seed inventory of current and HT varieties for future grower contracts. We'll also progress the commercial launch plans for Camelina omega-3 oils, continue business development with outreach to prospective partners across the entire value chain with the goal of executing strategic industry collaborations. We'll continue to expand our intellectual property portfolio. With that, I'd like to turn the call back over to Lynne for questions.
Thanks, Ollie. Maria, we're ready for questions.
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question comes from Ben Klieve with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
All right. Thanks for taking my questions. First one around the herbicide tolerance traits. First of all, congratulations. Looks like there's been an awful lot of progress there. Curious about kind of the outlook here over the next couple of years. You noted that commercial launch in 2025 for spring variety is your expectation, and Ollie, you expect that this is going to really be what allows you to scale. Given that herbicide tolerance traits in other crops will typically launch at a pretty material scale in year one, I'm wondering if you can kind of directionally help us understand kind of the magnitude of an initial launch of herbicide tolerance varieties in Camelina relative to kind of what you're expecting in 2023 and 2024 from an acreage perspective.
Yeah. I mean, obviously, it's a little premature to provide guidance on that. I think, generally speaking, you're quite correct. When companies have launched these types of technologies, there's two things that happen. One, they tend to be launched at a reasonable scale. Two, they then essentially take over the entire space. That's been the track record, starting with Roundup Ready soybean, and essentially canola was the same thing, and I think cotton was the same thing. They clearly are highly valued by growers, and we understand that. I think for us, as Kristi's indicated, you know, we've got to work through this RSR. We've got to get that approved. We've got to get the EPA label amendment.
We've got to generate the data to confirm for ourselves that basically the meal is essentially unchanged. All of this work is ongoing and will take some time. We've got to scale up seed to have sufficient seed available for the growers. That's why I think the guidance we've provided on walking slow over 2023, 2024 based on non HT varieties is the right path for us to take. Once we've got more clarity on these key questions that need to be resolved, I think at that time we'll be willing to talk more about what the scale could be when we launch this.
Okay. Very helpful. Oli, on your prepared comments, I heard you loud and clear about your kind of assessment of, you know, germ plasm and the importance in germ plasm. I'm wondering if you can elaborate at all, if, you know, the potential commercial partners, you know, be it Mitsubishi, American, Marathon or anybody else, you know, to what extent those partners see this value as well? Is this something that is, you know, really appreciated on a commercial scale from these parties, or is this something that, you know, kind of agnerds like you and me enjoy talking about?
You know, it's a little bit of the latter, mainly because, you know, keep in mind, these folks are used to running, either buying oil and, you know, running pipelines and refineries and essentially getting, you know, getting fuels into the transportation sector. It's a very different environment. That is actually one of the challenges, is that they really are looking at this value chain, which is inherently based on seed genetics and, you know, many, many contracts with growers as the foundation for supply. I mean, the whole value chain is dependent on this. What they do appreciate is they really appreciate our approach with the growers.
I think everyone in the value chain, including the fuel companies, fully recognize that the role of the growers is key, and that the growers have to be rewarded for doing this and protected in the early years to make sure that they stick with this for the long term. Quite frankly, without this feedstock, then the Biofuel sector is gonna have some real challenges.
Got it. Got it. Very helpful. One last one from me, and I'll get back in line. The last couple of years, around this time, you've talked about kinda some kind of acute issues with precipitation in some of your growing areas and the need to truck in water to certain plots. Can you just kinda update us on the general conditions of your plots from a precipitation standpoint?
I think it's still early days, but so far I haven't heard of any negative issues that have come up, you know, we're still very much in the midst of planting right now.
Okay.
And just wanna-
Very good.
... maybe one additional piece of color on that. I was visiting Kansas field sites with one of our potential partners, a potential strategic partner, looking at some of our winter Camelina lines in those areas. They had actually had no snow cover, and yet the winter lines, even though there'd been very severe, you know, you know, -30 weather, the winter lines were actually looking very good. We're very pleased with this sort of robustness of the winter trait in these crops. It's quite remarkable actually. That's been something.
Got it.
We're very pleased with.
Got it. Good to hear. Very good. Well, thanks for taking my questions. I'll get back in line.
Thanks, Ben.
Our next question comes from Anthony Vendetti with Maxim Group. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you. Yes. I just wanted to talk about, Oli, the, these what I would categorize as statement deals with Mitsubishi, American, and Marathon Petroleum. I know they're MOUs, but can you talk about what the milestones are that have to be achieved or, and what the expectation is of getting these to definitive agreements, some type of general timeline or milestones or expectations that they're waiting for or looking for? Thanks so much.
I think, I mean, I think a couple things. I think with, you know, obviously with Mitsubishi, you know, we're dealing with an international company, and essentially, you know, managing the fact that most of the folks we're dealing with are Japanese, and they're just a great team to deal with. We're just working through the details of things. Again, like other companies, their, you know, their goal is to be in SAF production with ENEOS, starting the launch of a plant sometime in 2025, 2026, I believe, in Japan. Obviously they probably will look at other investments in this area as well.
There it's a little, you know, it's obviously it's more a matter of, you know, convincing them of the fact that we are able to do this, site visits to the R&D facilities in Saskatoon. You know, they've done a lot of technical due diligence, obviously, to get comfortable around this. In general, I would say the outcomes have been very positive, which is really a credit to the technology team, led by Kristi, and obviously the work that we're doing into the growth projects. You know, that's all going, you know, obviously, pretty much on the timelines that they've indicated initially. Marathon's a little different in that Marathon has a refinery up in North Dakota.
It has about a 200 million gallon per year capacity. They also have a partnership with ADM in a soybean crushing facility in North Dakota, obviously to supply feedstock for Biofuels. We believe they're the joint venture partner with Neste in a California refinery, which I think is somewhere around 700 million gallons of feedstock oil. Obviously they're really in this. They're in this now. They're obviously, you know, from the interactions we've had with them, they're very keen to see this scaled to be seeing Camelina oil made available for those facilities in the shortest period of time.
Now, we are working with them, and, you know, we've been working with them since we announced that last week on definitive offtake agreements, and we'll continue that process over the next three to four months with the goal to get it executed as soon as possible.
Work with them the next three to four months. It's possible that, you know, some of these could result in definitive agreements or Marathon particularly could result in a definitive agreement before the end of the year.
Well, our goal is to get it done in the timeline I indicated.
Yes, the three to four months would get you by the September.
I'll let you-
-timeframe. Yeah. Okay. That's the hope, but okay. That's great.
Well, that's what we're working against, both companies.
Right. Right. You said there's 13 sites that have already been selected for spring Camelina growing season. 13 sites, are they, you said in Canada and the US, or is it mostly Canada?
Those are.
It's on Anthony, that's on page 11. That's the field testing program.
Okay
... that Kristi provided an overview of. We have not put pins on the map for the spring contract growers.
Okay
... a different set of farms where their acres planted were between 45 and over 200. We've not provided pins on the separate spring growers.
Yeah. One of the-
Okay
... one of the things that's happening is clearly, you know, when you look at this industry as a whole, obviously, you know, there's a number of factors driving interest in oilseed crops. One is just the sheer volume demand for vegetable oil. The second, of course, is really getting to the lowest CI scored feedstock possible. Of course, spring and winter Camelina will have potential to drive that very, very low. The third, of course, is in some areas or at least some regions, there's already beginning to be pushback on the use of palm and soybean oil. As you look at all of this, you realize that, you know, oilseeds, particularly oilseeds that can be planted when the land would otherwise be lying fallow, are going to play a fairly critical role in this space.
In addition to the companies we mentioned, we have indicated inbound inquiries from other partner prospects, which we've been responding to. Right now, our goal is to work hard with the Marathon guys to get something done in the timeline we indicated and to continue the work we're doing with Mitsubishi. Those would be in six different geographies, so there's no real conflict there. We believe that both could ultimately be done, but we can't provide, you know, firm guidelines on Mitsubishi. We can assure you that both Marathon and Yield10 fully understand the goal.
Right. Right. Okay. No, that's, that's helpful. I guess that was a good segue, and what you just touched on is you're very focused on these three, but you're having additional discussions with other potential partners, as, you know, simultaneously or concurrently while working to close these two definitive agreements.
Yes. I think, you know, obviously our intent, with these, with the existing partners is to close the deals. Again, until a deal is closed, we need to make sure that we are continuing to work on the various partner prospects we have and develop, you know, the best options for Yield10, which is what we're doing.
Okay. Excellent. Thanks so much. I'll hop back in the queue. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Anthony.
Our next question comes from Sameer Joshi with H.C. Wainwright. Please proceed with your question.
Yeah. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a clarification on the tens of thousands of acres to be planted. Should that be expected in the 2024 spring or fall season? Can you just give us a little bit of.
Yeah. Sameer, what we really said in terms of, you know, I think we've said hundreds of thousands of acres once, tens to hundreds of thousands of acres once we have the HT varieties, and I think Kristi's indicated that that would potentially be a 25 event. Likely spring 2025 at the earliest. Yes.
I would say also Sameer, like in the time between now and then, we're gonna continue to outreach to growers, engage them in our program, engage them in spring and winter contracts so that we can build and transition well over time into the HT launch.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think one of the-
Yeah.
One of the key points here, you know, Samir, is basically, you know, we're really having a great working relationship with this private company that we've mentioned, who basically is contracting the grain offtake from us and processing into oil and getting the oil into Biofuel. Obviously, in the early years of this business when we won't be at I would say full commercial scale, they're a really valuable partner for us in that we can scale to, you know... Well, I can't say because we haven't agreed what we can say yet. The point is we can scale from where we are today, continue to build the grower network, build the interest, not only in what we're doing with spring and winter, but also particularly in the HT lines.
I will say the growers in the region were active, are pretty excited about that. Again, it was for reasons I didn't quite understand until I talked to them, that is because, you know, a lot of the crops they grow in these areas, they don't have good weed control and therefore when they grow those crops, they create increased weed pressure. Something like this Camelina we're developing would be a great way to, A, get a valuable crop, and B, actually to reduce weed pressure for the following crop in the rotation. There's multiple reasons that growers do things, and we're learning a lot about this as we work with them.
What we're seeing is that we definitely made, or not so much we, Kristi and the team made the right decisions on the herbicide package, and the farmers are pretty excited about it.
Got it. Thanks for that. Just another clarification on commercial launch and revenue expectations, in later in 2023. Are these revenues from the growers or is there another party involved, from whom you will receive these revenues?
Basically, you know, because these are grain, you know, we are basically buying the grain from the grower, and we are selling the grain to a crusher refiner. Our revenues will come from the sale of the grain to the crusher refiner.
Oh, okay. The when you say the spring grower contracting completed on slide 3, that's the purchase-
I mean-
-from the grower.
No, that means that the growers have signed contracts to produce Camelina grain for us. That grain will be harvested in the fall of this year.
Understood. Got it.
At which point we will essentially, you know, over time, we will essentially acquire it from the grower and essentially sell it to the grain crusher refiner.
Understood. no, a part or any of these, grain, are they going to be used, as seeds, for the next year's crop, or how does that work?
We did plant some for... You know, we did plant scale-up acres last year as well, or last fall. Some of this will be used for that purpose. You know, what we have to do obviously with... You know, we've got to we're trying to very carefully manage, I would say, planting seed inventory and not scale the existing lines too big because obviously we want to be able to switch over very efficiently to the herbicide tolerant lines. We're trying to manage the that 23, 24, you know, shall we say, seed inventory for core contracts. We're not trying to produce, you know, vast quantities of this. We're trying to manage it fairly carefully.
That's why we've indicated that, you know, over these two years, we're gonna walk very slowly and continue to build the grower network, build interest in the crop. Really we see 25 or whenever the herbicide technology becomes available, as really when we'll start to ramp up.
Understood. My last question is about costs. It's sort of three questions in one, related topics. The reduction in net cash usage, is it because You're expecting some cash flows from sales, or is it because you are rationalizing some of the costs? A corollary to that is, are there more areas of cost rationalization that you would be targeting in the future, especially given that you are engaged in these MOUs and LOIs, and those will also need some resources. Just wanted to understand how you're managing that.
As you know, Yield10 has always been very judicious in cash management. I mean, that's been one of the real strengths of the company. We've managed cash very carefully. Obviously in the current financing environment, and given the sort of magnitude, the level of partner interest we have, we are obviously continuing to do so. As part of our process in this last quarter, we did rationalize some of the activities. We haven't pared back anything in terms of Biofuels. We are progressing omega-3. But we decided to wait on some potential hires for the growth of the business at this time, pending essentially securing additional partnerships and then obviously financing.
The net cash usage, does it involve any proceeds from the sales, revenues, I mean?
The sales? Yeah. Do we anticipate sales of revenue contributing to the net cash usage?
Yeah. It's reflected in that estimate...
Yeah.
We'll have some cash coming in later this year from harvesting the grain and selling it.
Yeah.
Yeah. I don't think that was the driver of the revision though, Samir.
No.
Yeah, it wasn't the driver of the revision. It was more of kind of taking a good look at the business, looking at budgets and, you know, moving forward the way Ollie said.
Yeah. We, you know, essentially, you know, we recognize that the Biofuel opportunity right in front of us, and with the number and the high quality of the partner prospects, obviously we're focusing our energies and our resources around that area in the, in the time being. Obviously as we execute on some of those, then we'll look at, you know, reactivating some of the other activities if and when it makes sense.
Understood. Yeah, no, thanks for clarifying. I just wanted to make sure that the cash was net cash and not just operating cash. Thanks for that.
Okay.
That's all from me. Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you, Samir.
We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Lynne Brum for closing comments. Go ahead.
Thanks, Maria. I'll now turn the call to Ollie for his closing remarks.
Yeah. I'd like to personally thank all of you for joining us on the call tonight, and especially our shareholders for your continued support. I want to thank everyone at Yield10 for contributions that are keeping us on track to reach our commercial and product development goals. Have a nice evening, everyone. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.