Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the NanoXplore quarterly earnings conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Martin Gagné. Please go ahead, Mr. Gagné.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to NanoXplore's first conference call. Today I'm here with Soroush Nazarpour, our President and CEO, and Luc Veilleux, our CFO. We will start with our prepared remarks and then Q&A. Please note that our discussion will include estimates and other forward-looking information which our actual results may differ from in the future. We invite you to review the cautionary language in yesterday's earnings release and in our MD&A regarding the various factors, assumptions and risks that could cause our actual results to differ. With that, let me turn it over to Soroush.
Thank you, Martin, and good morning, everyone. We are very happy to present our first conference call. This is an important step in NanoXplore history and should provide investors and analysts some valuable insight into our opportunities, operations, and financial performance. At the outset, I would like to thank all our team members for their dedication and work ethic throughout this pandemic. It has been a difficult environment for everyone. We're the largest producer of graphene, with 40% share at the lowest cost, which creates a strong moat for our company. Graphene is our lifeblood and will provide more effective and better sustainable solutions in the future. Our material has very attractive attributes to improve the effectiveness of plastics and composites. It is stronger than diamond, lighter than steel, while being flexible. Moreover, it conducts electricity better than copper, has a strong barrier and lubricity properties.
In addition, it's a more sustainable material than carbon black, which is an oil-based material. Case in point, 1 ton of graphene production is equivalent to 0.4 ton of CO2 emission, while carbon black is roughly three times of CO2 emissions. Our vision is to create a better tomorrow by providing innovative, sustainable products and solutions across multiple industries and applications. One of the bigger problems for the lack of graphene uptake in the past was the problem of mass production at low cost. With the help of our strong team here at NanoXplore and several years of engineering and testing, we were able to find a solution with our proprietary technology. R&D and innovation is our strength, and we have one of the best R&D teams out there, led by Nima Moghimi.
NanoXplore believes that the unique properties of graphene will enable numerous new products in thermoplastics, thermosets, other composite products, and lithium-ion battery applications. The market for such products should grow at a rapid pace, creating significant market opportunities. We believe that the future is bright, with a good opportunity to capture the piece of the 1.5 million ton total addressable market of replaceable carbon black. This TAM excludes lithium-ion batteries. There is no doubt that the pandemic slowed down the trajectory of graphene adoption. Testing of graphene-enhanced product was not a priority for operations teams. Procurement of raw materials was difficult. COVID-related plant shutdown and labor shortage were factors which slowed down adoption. Since graphene is a new material, patience is required as product development, testing, and finalizing deals can take four to five y ears with prospective customers.
However, we have reasons to be optimistic about the future. First, we believe that we are on the cusp of an uptake of graphene. We will provide more color on our customer funnel to give you a perspective of where we are in our journey. Currently, roughly 25% of our active sales funnel is in the mid to late stage, meaning that we could see activity within the next two years. Mid to late stage mean that we are seeing graphene performance is validated in customer products. The remaining 75% means that they're still in testing phase and take between three to five years. We are enthusiastic about our relationship with Solmax, the largest geomembrane manufacturer in the world, and the blanket purchase order was just signed last week.
This validates the efficacy, potential cost saving, lower scrap rates, and better sustainable footprint for graphene-enhanced products. Geosynthetic is a large $10 billion market and growing to $13 billion by 2026. This will be tens of thousands of tons of addressable market in the agricultural industry. Thirdly, the supply agreement with Molding Products to produce and sell graphene-enhanced sheet molding compound, SMC, once again validates the graphene efficacy on composite and battery packs, as it helps reduce part weight by up to 15% versus typical composite parts, while also improving surface finish, paintability, and crack resistance. SMC without graphene gives a rugged surface, and by adding the graphene in the composite, it smooths the surface out, which enhance the quality of the paintwork.
Graphene also acts as a physical barrier to crack propagation. Furthermore, battery packs are heavy in electric vehicles, and by using graphene-enhanced SMC, this helps reduce the weight substantially, leading to an improved driving range. Lightweight composites are important for both internal combustion engine and electric vehicles. Countries are becoming more and more stringent on carbon footprint, and having lighter ICE vehicles will help reduce CO2 emissions. According to International Council on Clean Transportation, average new car CO2 emission would need to decrease by 15% by 2025, and 31% by 2030 relative to 2021 based on the European Green Deal roadmap. Consequently, a lighter vehicle is essential, and graphene could be the key to achieving this. On the electric vehicle side, they are typically heavier than internal combustion engine, and graphene-enhanced SMC should improve the range of the vehicle.
Fourthly, we are in the earliest stage of looking at a second 4,000-ton graphene black production module that we anticipate to be operational in early 2024. Finally, we are raising our revenue outlook to CAD 90 million for fiscal year 2022 from CAD 85 million previously announced on better pricing and better product mix. We're exiting the quarter with an annual run rate of CAD 110 million in revenue, and we're anticipating that Adjusted EBITDA to be slightly positive in fourth quarter. We're optimistic about potential of our company and the positive impact graphene will have in the future. After several years of hard work and dedication, validating the efficacy of this product, we are seeing signs that uptake is upon us. Due to the early-stage nature of graphene, we could witness some lumpiness.
However, we are confident that the long-term story is positive and well. With that in mind, let me now turn the call over to Luc, who will comment on our financial results.
Thank you, Soroush, and thank you everyone for attending this call. Moving along, I will start by reviewing the Q3 results, and we'll finish with the financial outlook for the full year. Let's start with the quarter-to-quarter performance. Revenue from customer grew 52% to CAD 28 million compared to Q2 2022, driven by better product mix, including graphene-enhanced products, the acquisition of Canuck in December 2021, and additional price increase. Regarding the Adjusted EBITDA, we saw a good improvement quarter to quarter and met an EBITDA loss of CAD 2.2 million, which is a strong positive variance of around CAD 1 million. That variance is explained by positive product mix and sales price increase, which impacted positively the gross margin on total revenue.
Compared to the quarter of last year, revenue from customer grew 59% to CAD 28 million, explained by better product mix including graphene-enhanced products, the Canuck acquisition, new sales program, and price increase. We recorded an Adjusted EBITDA loss of CAD 2.2 million in Q3 2022, which is a CAD 200,000 improvement over last year. A better product mix, including graphene-enhanced product and price increase, drove a better gross margin. This was partially offset by higher administrative expense, which is mainly explained by the addition of strategic positions, an increase in salary and the addition of Canuck and CSP Newton plant. Moving to the balance sheet. As of March 31st, 2022, we have CAD 62 million of liquidity available, including CAD 56 million of cash and cash equivalents.
Back in February 2022, we raised CAD 13 million in growth proceeds intended for acquisitions, partnerships and general corporate expenses. Finally, we would like to end with the financial outlook. We are raising the revenue outlook for the financial year 2022 to CAD 90 million from CAD 85 million previously announced. Regarding the Adjusted EBITDA, we anticipate being slightly positive in the fourth quarter of 2022. Thank you. Merci. Now, Martin Gagné, you can take over.
Merci, Luc. For this call, we will only answer questions from the sell-side analysts. Operator, we can now open the lines for questions.
Certainly. Thank you. If you have a question and you're using a speakerphone, please lift your handset prior to making your selection. If you have a question, please press star one on your device's keypad. You may cancel your question at any time by pressing star two. Please press star one at this time if you have a question. There will be a brief pause while the participants register. Thank you for your patience. The first question is from Amr Ezzat with Echelon Wealth Partners. P lease go ahead.
Soroush, Martin, thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on your inaugural call.
Thank you.
My first one is on sales. I'm actually pleasantly surprised with the pace of sales from last quarter. If I take Canuck out of the numbers, it seems like your sales grew CAD 5 million from last quarter. Can you help us understand the dynamics there at a high level? Like how much of it is increases in pricing that you guys mentioned versus growth in graphene-enhanced products?
Sure. We are seeing, as you said, about CAD 5 million over Canuck, which is a mix of price increase and product mix, especially graphene-enhanced products. Now, it's more difficult for us to separate the two from each other because some of the products that were previously not including graphene, they are now including graphene. As a whole, two together, we're seeing CAD 5 million increase in the top line.
Okay. I heard especially like graphene-enhanced products, so I'll take that as a positive.
Yes.
Maybe related to that, you know, like you just spoke to a new module for early 2024. Are we to assume that by the end of 2023, you are capacity constrained, or is that being built for redundancy? Maybe you could tell us, you know, like about the economics and costs associated with that module, in view of the inflationary pressures we're seeing.
In terms of the new capacity, we work with the forecast that we receive from the customers. Within the forecast that we're receiving, we're seeing that we are potentially out of the capacity on a run rate basis by the end of next year. That's the basis is for setting up new capacity, a new module, for 4,000 tons. In terms of CapEx and OpEx for the facility, it's pretty in line with, in terms of OpEx, it's pretty in line with what we have currently. We see that the capital requirement is close to $20 million for setting up that facility. In order to receive all the equipment, we're seeing a nine-month process.
We also need a period of time to commission those equipment. From the time that we start this to have the module ready, it should be, you know, in order of 18 months of time, we can have everything done and in place.
Okay, you're starting now. I assume like you've got the location picked.
Yes, we're at this time not commenting on the location.
Okay. Just another quick couple for me. Can you remind us how much graphene would a 2 GWh facility require at a minimum?
For battery application?
Yes.
Yeah. You know, it definitely depends on the formulation that the customer is uptaking. Some rule of thumb is like about 1,000 tons every gigawatt hour of battery. Again, that can vary depending on the winning formulation and the amount of graphite that's going to stay in the anodes. Because we have formulations which are 100% graphene, and we have formulations that graphene is only an additive on the anode. You can pick a like a middle line from let's say 40%-50% graphene in the anode, and then you can assume that 1,000 tons of graphene consumed for every 1 GWh of battery production.
It's minimum two. Lastly, like how is the board thinking about capital allocation, and the best uses of cash on your balance sheet?
Yeah. The priority for us as a graphene company is to enhance the commercial activities and the profits coming from the graphene. Capital allocation has always priority for initiatives that brings more sales and more profits from our graphene activity.
Okay. It's gonna be invested for graphene as opposed to something on the battery side?
Yeah. As we disclosed in the battery day, NanoXplore does not intend to participate in the upcoming financing of VoltaXplore. VoltaXplore will finance the capital requirement for the gigawatt facility by itself.
Fantastic. Congrats on a strong quarter, and I'll pass the line.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Rupert Merer with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions.
Hello, Rupert.
Soroush, you gave us a little color on your funnel. Wondering if you can give a little more color. How many companies are in that funnel? And if I look at the 25% that's mid to late stage, what do the companies look like that are in that bucket? What markets are they in? What's the market potential you see in that late stage pipeline?
We have a sales funnel of north of 200 companies. 25%, let's say about 60 companies or more at late stage. They are within many different markets, but there are common points. We've seen quite a lot of interest and success when it comes to graphene-enhanced plastics, both thermoplastic and thermoset. Like both masterbatch application and also composites. The applications for those products are in different segments. A lot of industrial applications we're seeing. We're seeing interest in the pipe market. We're seeing interest in the agricultural market. Transportation has been pretty strong and continues to be strong in our sales funnel.
There are some newer applications as well that we're looking at which we're seeing success as well in our accounts. These are the early stage, but still we're seeing some success. Those are more of a pigment type application. Those are for paint and coating markets. You know, the applications of graphene really varies in a lot of different markets. You know, the base fundamental material in them are similar thermoplastics and thermosets, but you know, it goes to different applications.
Great. You've announced a couple of new customers over the last week. If there are 50 companies that are late stage and you're looking at, say, one to two years to bring late stage to market, should we expect a cadence of new customer announcements at something like that, one every two weeks?
The reality is that we are in general not really supporting the press releases of the customers. We are announcing only the very important customers. We're just not gonna announce every customer that puts a PO and starts buying products from us. These announcements, there are reasons behind them, and they are very diverse in terms of the market that the customer is addressing. Again, they serve the purpose of proving and showing the product is validated, is getting commercialized in those new applications. Within the same market that we are dealing with different customers in the same market, we're just not gonna pre-include everything.
In terms of commercial interest, as discussed, we have like 50 accounts that are in the late stage and we see activity within the 2-year period from now.
Here's one more follow-up on this topic. You mentioned you don't announce all of the customers. Does that mean that there are some customers that you're advanced with, that you have today that haven't been announced?
Can you repeat the question? Sorry.
Are there some customers that you are more further advanced with and you have contracts with that you have not announced yet?
Yes.
Because of the reasons you discussed? Yes. Okay.
Yeah. The smaller customers or smaller accounts, we're not gonna pursue them. It's just only the ones that are large and the ones that are in the new markets. You know, they have a very good potential in terms of total addressable market. That's those are the type of customers we tend to pursue.
All right, very good. Just secondly, you announced this deal with Molding Products now. It looks to me as though they're going to be selling their SMC to their customers. How are you going to work with them to help develop the market? I imagine they're going to have their own sales funnel that they may need some help developing.
Yeah. Molding Products is an existing partner of the company and they are a supplier to our business already. That was the beginning of our relationship as we saw quite success in introducing graphene into SMC for commercial vehicle space. They are a partner for us first to use those products in our internal operations for those commercial vehicle markets. But they have a very decent exposure to transportation, the passenger vehicle market as well as the residential market. They can actually get the proven product and expand the reach to new markets, which we are not directly active in.
Great. Will you support them with their market introduction plans?
For sure. I mean, the product is branded as NanoXplore product or NanoXplore SMC product. Definitely, you know, the fact is, customers in various markets tend to reach out to the graphene suppliers, means they reach out to us first. We bring partners to help us to commercialize products. For some applications, it's a big supply chain movement steps, and we do not be active in all steps. That's the time that we bring these type of partners to help us to bring the product to the end market. Yes, we will support them in marketing. It is also a similar case for the Solmax. We will co-market the product with them.
Great. I'll leave it there and get back in with you. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from Michael Glen with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Like others, thank you for starting to host these calls. Just first on the EBITDA, the positive EBITDA in Q4, slightly positive EBITDA in Q4. Is this something you view as a sustainable outcome moving forward? Or should we still expect to see some quarters with negative EBITDA?
The trend is positive for us for sure. You know, as a rule of thumb, our graphene-enhanced products provide a better gross margin than non-graphene products, right? As much as we move the products to more graphene-enhanced products and as much as we sell graphene and graphene-enhanced masterbatch pellets to the end users, that changes the product mix, expands the gross margin, and accordingly expands, improves the EBITDA position of the company. Now, as disclosed in my remarks, we definitely see some lumpiness going forward, but the trend for our financials is toward a positive EBITDA and hopefully positive cash flow in the next few quarters.
Now we will provide the guidance for the year at the earnings call for the year end, which is sometime in September. You can get a better view of how the EBITDA is expanding, but we believe this trend will continue.
For the current 4,000 metric tons in place, are you able to indicate how much volume you're producing off of that module right now?
We are not disclosing the information about the graphene, or any side of our business, separately.
Okay. For clarification on the timing for the new module. You say potentially out of capacity by end of next year. Are you talking calendar year end 2023 or fiscal year end 2023?
We're talking calendar year end, yes.
That's calendar year end. Okay, on Molding Products. If we're to think about the end market there and your largest shareholder, Martinrea, how should we think about the way you approach the automotive or passenger car market when you do have a large shareholder who's selling into that market as well? Like, how do you decide on what you'll partner with Martinrea versus what you'll pursue with other companies?
We have business with the OEMs through Martinrea. We have business with the OEMs directly without Martinrea being involved. Also we have business, hopefully, with the passenger vehicle OEM, through Molding Products as well. First and foremost, Martinrea as the largest shareholder of the company really supporting the growth of the business, right? The way we have been developing product with them has been to support the commercial success in the company for the graphene products, regardless of the type of product and application. Now, Martinrea is active in a few applications in the passenger vehicle space, for fuel system and brake lines. We have a joint product with them.
They are active in the structural metal application that really we don't have any content in that sense. We also have products for exteriors, which is in trucks and buses they are more composites, while in passenger vehicles they are more aluminum type applications. I would say it's more complementary than competitive with them.
Okay. Last one on my side. Can you just provide some indications as to how the outlook for Gerdau is? What Gerdau is doing with respect to graphene, where their focal points are? If you could, discuss how that relationship is evolving.
We are a supplier to Gerdau. Unfortunately, we cannot disclose more about what they are doing because it's confidential information of the customer. We know that the customer, Gerdau, is looking at applications in construction market. As well, they're looking at applications for internal use within the Gerdau. We are as a supplier providing product for them and continue to do so.
Okay, thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you. The next question is from David Wolf with Paradigm Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, Soroush, and congratulations on having your first conference call on a quarterly basis. I think it's a really great idea. A lot of my questions have been answered, but I just wanted a couple of clarification points. Number one, the CapEx you talk about of $20 million for plant number two, I assume that's US dollars. Is that correct?
Yes, it's US dollars.
To what degree can you stretch the capacity of the current plant? I mean, it's 4,000 tons nameplate, but can you stretch that to 4,500? I mean, you've been running it now for what? A year and a half, two years.
Any color there?
Yeah, we have about 25% in design already, engineering design already included in this. The capacity can be stretched within the same equipment to another 1,000, but that's actually stretching the equipment and brings extra chance of downtime for our equipment and the shutdown. If we have also space in our facility, if we decide to expand the building, we can actually put more capacity in there as well, but that requires extra CapEx. The same existing facility that we have can really give such a little bit more and bring probably 25% more capacity.
Okay. One other quick question. With respect to the long lead equipment, you mentioned, it's nine months. Have you ordered any yet?
We can't disclose that information.
Okay. I should put a spy down there and see some trucks coming and going, eh. Anyway, thanks a lot, Soroush, and congratulations again.
Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, please press star one on your device keypad if you have a question. The next question is from MacMurray Whale with Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.
Hi, just a quick question on the guidance. Given the strength in the Q3, doesn't the guidance imply, sort of a down quarter in terms of, sequential revenue in Q4? What might be the dynamic there?
Yeah, that's also there's a big chunk of product mix in that, right? Product mix can change the revenue, also can change the gross margin. That's why it may look like a slower quarter in terms of sales, but also we are guiding for expanded EBITDA, right? Again, these are a product mix that makes difference in terms of the Q4 result.
Okay. In terms of modeling that out, we should be looking at OpEx expense, which is sort of flat. That the difference is really flat sequentially. The difference is really all gross margin.
Yes. I agree.
Okay. Just sort of related to that, just wondering whether you can share. I know you don't wanna go into details about volumes and that type of thing, but maybe on your cost per ton that you've talked in the past about reaching, where are you in getting there? I know you're not at 100% capacity utilization, but it would be helpful, I think, just to understand where you are in that and whether you've changed anything given sort of inflation in the industry and feedstock pricing and that type of dynamic. Can you talk a little bit about cost per ton and long-term expectation for that?
Yeah. We are in line with the feasibility report that we published in 2017, if I'm not mistaken. We are still seeing the low few CAD per kilo of cost, remaining in line with our feasibility at the full 4,000 on runway. No difference in that point. In terms of inflation, we are exposed a lot to the graphite pricing and the variation of the graphite price really versus our selling price has been very marginal. We don't see that much of price inflation in the graphite. We believe we are currently on an oversupply graphite market. Accordingly, the price variation even though it exists, but it has been non-significant for our business because majority of the graphite is converting into graphene.
Of course, there is, you know, some wage increases in the production, but again, those of you that have been in our facilities see that there are very little employees are actually working inside production. It's very automated, so you also don't see much of an impact there.
Okay. You mentioned in the past actually about getting people, and I think in the MD&A, you talk a little bit about having to find people is a little bit of a challenge. Has that eased? What's the dynamics on the labor side?
It has. It is still challenging to get labor. Of course, we have multiple locations and they are experiencing different labor market shortages. Like in our facilities, more in Québec City area, we are seeing more aggressive labor market there, which is much harder for us to get labor. It's slightly better in the Montréal area, for instance. In general, you know, we are seeing pretty much everywhere that there are challenges in the labor market. Wage increases are happening and inflation is impacting the wages. We are trying, as before, to continue looking at automation everywhere that is realistic, and we can do that to reduce that impact.
Great. Thanks, Soroush. Thanks. That's all my questions. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next is a follow-up question from Michael Glen with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hey, Soroush. Just wondering if you could give an update on Techmer PM. Are you able to indicate whether or not they were working towards, I recall some sort of specific application. Are they out in the market with that product yet? Or, when would we expect to see that actually in the market?
Techmer is one of the end customers that we work with. Techmer is within our next big sales funnel. They are continuing. They're focused a lot on a few markets. The most important one is the consumer packaging market. They're seeing quite decent amount of success there. Now, converting that to tangible revenue, I think we're still a few quarters away, but the commercial activities are already started and in progress.
Okay. Just to come back on the molding products. One of the applications you talk about in there is the battery enclosures. So if I'm thinking of a battery enclosure, it's a multi-material steel, aluminum, heavily engineered item. I'm just, you know, it's just somewhat surprising to hear, but you talk about use of graphene and a composite in that sort of structure. Is there any issues with respect to temperature in that environment that prevent composites or plastics to be used in a battery enclosure?
Actually, that's the other way around, that we are seeing a very noticeable trend for OEMs and both passenger cars and heavy commercial moving towards composite battery packs than metal battery packs. Now, of course, there would be hybrid solutions to start with, which is a mixed aluminum and composite. The trend is to make the dimension of the battery pack very standard and get to the composite with high volume production and low cost, and also get the weight down, which is significantly lower. Now, you mentioned about the cooling. Majority of the cooling that's needed inside the battery packs are not coming from the material selection. It's coming from active cooling system like air ventilation inside the battery pack. Okay?
That's again, agnostic to the type of material used.
Okay. Thank you.
Sure.
Thank you. There are no further questions registered at this time, so I will turn the meeting back over to Mr. Gagné.
I would like to thank everyone for attending this call, and we wish you a great day. You can now disconnect.
Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.