Good day, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Westport Fuel Systems Annual and Special Meeting of Shareholders. My name is Brenda Eprile. I am the Chair of Westport Fuel Systems Board of Directors, and I'm so pleased you have joined us on this webcast and virtual meeting today. Typically, our annual meeting of shareholders is hosted in person, offering the chance for directors and managers of Westport Fuel Systems to meet some of our shareholders in person while addressing the required business and sharing an update on our global progress. However, today is a very unique moment in time as the world battles the global pandemic of COVID-19, and it was neither appropriate nor possible to gather today in Vancouver, B.C. Therefore, we are shifting this year's meeting and joining you virtually from various parts of North America.
We sincerely hope that all of you, your families, and your networks are healthy and well, and we do appreciate your continued interest and support in Westport Fuel Systems and that you took the time to join us today. This virtual meeting is open to the public by audio and webcast only. Voting and telephone questions are limited to confirmed registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who are registered for the meeting ahead of time. Those who are registered shareholders, not beneficial shareholders, and registered for the meeting in advance should have received private dialing information, which should be used to join this call. If you registered in advance of the meeting but use the guest access dial-in to join, please hang up and rejoin us by way of your private number and pin. This ensures you have the necessary access to telephone voting and participation.
You have until the formal portion of the meeting starts to adjust your access, at which time shares present will be recorded and no further votes will be permitted. Anyone, including guests, accessing the meeting by way of the webcast can submit live questions online through the chat window. These questions will be addressed as time permits during the formal Q&A session at the end of the meeting. In order to handle certain voting procedural matters in an efficient manner, we are requesting that all registered shareholders and proxy holders record their votes for the election of our individual directors with our scrutineers in advance. If you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder who has not yet spoken with the scrutineer to record your vote with respect to the election of directors, there will be instructions during the voting on how to alert the scrutineer.
We are recording today's meeting, and a replay will be available for anyone unable to attend the meeting. Access details for the replay will be available in the press release accompanying the annual and special meeting results. Joining us today are members of the board and members of the company senior management team, which we will introduce momentarily. First, I would like to take a moment to recognize board colleagues Colin Johnston and Tony Harris, two of our retiring directors who are not standing for re-election this year. Both joined us as directors from the Fuel Systems Solutions Board following the merger of Fuel Systems Solutions and Westport Innovations Inc. and have served us very well over the past several years. We will miss their valuable contribution and would like to extend a huge thanks to them for their service.
Rod Nunn, who stood as the nominee of Kevin Douglas, a long-term major shareholder of Westport Fuel Systems, has served the board since 2016 and will not be standing for re-election this year either. We gratefully acknowledge Rod for his four years of service to our Board. I would like to introduce the board members and senior leaders present with us today, following which we will conduct the formal shareholders meeting, hear a business update from our CEO, Dave Johnson, and conclude with a question and answer session with management. As I mentioned, I'm Brenda Eprile, Chair of the Board of Directors, and I've been a member of the Westport Fuel Systems Board since late 2013. I would now like to present the other members of the Westport Fuel Systems Board and Management on the call here today. Dan, let's start with you.
Good day. I'm Dan Hancock, President of DMH Strategic Consulting and Chair of the Westport Fuel Systems Human Resource and Compensation Committee.
Hello, this is David Johnson speaking. I'm a Director and the Chief Executive Officer at Westport Fuel Systems.
Good day. I'm Richard Orazietti. I am the Chief Financial Officer of Westport Fuel Systems.
Hello, I'm Jim Arthurs, Executive Vice President of Westport Fuel Systems and a director of Cummins Westport.
Good day. I'm Lance Follett, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development, Intellectual Property, and Legal with Westport Fuel Systems.
Good morning. This is Karen Hamberg speaking. I'm the Vice President of Sustainability and External Affairs at Westport Fuel Systems.
Great. Thank you all for being here today. I'll now ask Bruce Hibbard, Westport Fuel Systems' External Legal Counsel and Corporate Secretary, to lead the formal part of the meeting.
Thanks, Brenda, and good day, everybody. I'm Bruce Hibbard, a partner with Bennett Jones LLP and the company's corporate secretary. I'm pleased to present the formal portion of our meeting today. Keep in mind, even though we are using a virtual platform, the normal rules of procedure for corporate meetings will apply. If you wish to participate in the formal meeting, you must be a registered shareholder or proxy holder. As per the instructions announced in the company's April 8th press release, have also pre-registered for this meeting and obtained unique telephone access for use in both voting and participation.
If you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder who did not register in advance of entering this meeting, and you did not speak with our scrutineer as prompted by Brenda as the meeting began, you will unfortunately be unable to vote or participate in the formal portion of the meeting. As an alternative, please join the webcast where you can submit your questions online for answer during the concluding question and answer session. Access to the webcast can be found on the company website at wfsinc.com. That's W-F-S-I-N-C.com. At any time, anyone can reach out to the company at invest@wfsinc.com with questions and inquiries. In order to ensure we cover the required business, we've pre-arranged with certain persons to move certain motions. This is not intended to discourage participation.
At each opportunity for participation, the operator will announce instructions for how registered shareholders and proxies can enter the question queue or place votes. During the conduct of the formal business, questions and comments should pertain to the specific proposals that are then under consideration. If you are having challenges with voting during any open vote, you can press star four to be flagged to speak with a scrutineer at the end of the meeting, where you can obtain assistance and confirm your votes are appropriately recorded. The formal meeting will now come to order. I'll ask Jim Arthurs to act as Secretary of the meeting and Deanna Woo of Computershare to act as our Scrutineer. The meeting materials were mailed out to shareholders and filed online on March 27th, 2020. I will dispense with the reading of the notice of the meeting.
The scrutineer has reported that the required quorum is present today because we have two shareholders who are registered and present by phone or proxy, representing 76.88% of the outstanding shares. For your information, copies of the financial statements for the financial year ended December 31st, 2019, are available in the mailed annual report or on the company website at wfsinc.com. Printed copies of the annual report may be requested by emailing invest@wfsinc.com or calling 604-718-2046. That number again is 604-718-2046. The first item of formal business today is the election of directors. The board has fixed the number of directors to be elected at eight. Each of the following have been nominated for election as directors for the ensuing year or until their successors are elected or appointed.
Brenda Eprile, Dan Hancock, David Johnson, Eileen Wheatman, Karl-Viktor Schaller, Michele Buchignani, Peter Yu, and Rita Forst. If there are any other nominations, I will receive those now. Operator, could you please support receiving other nominations by registered shareholders and proxy holders online?
To submit a nomination, please press star and one on your phone now. We will pause a few moments as we wait for any nominations. There are no further requests in the queue.
Thank you. The nominations are closed. Is there a motion?
This is Jim Arthurs, and I move that the persons nominated be elected as directors.
This is Lance Follett, and I second that motion.
The motion is now open for discussion, if any, by registered shareholders and proxy holders that are on the line.
To submit a question for discussion on the motion of electing the directors, please press star one on your phone. We will pause a few moments while we wait for any questions on this motion. There are no further questions for discussion in the queue. We can continue.
Thank you. You've heard the motion, and as there is no further discussion, we'll proceed with the vote for the directors. As previously noted, due to conducting this meeting by telephone voting and the requirement to determine the individual votes cast for each director, we will need to receive your votes for each director individually. These votes should have been previously cast with the scrutineer as you entered the meeting. If you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder who has not yet cast your vote for the election of directors and you wish to have your vote counted, please press star four now and your line will be flagged to speak with the scrutineer at the end of the meeting.
While we await the final figures in respect of the voting for nominated directors, I can advise that based on the size of the management proxy vote which was received, the nominated individuals have been duly elected as directors of Westport Fuel Systems. The final voting totals for each director will be available in the report of voting results to be issued by the corporation subsequent to this meeting. Our next item of business is the appointment of auditors. Management has nominated KPMG LLP, Chartered Accountants to be appointed as auditors of Westport Fuel Systems Inc. and to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of the company, shareholders, and authorizing the board of directors to also set their remuneration. Is there a motion?
I move that KPMG be appointed as auditors.
I second the motion.
That motion is now open for discussion, if any, by the registered shareholders and proxy holders on the line.
To submit a question for discussion on the motion of appointment of auditors, please press star one on your phone now. We will pause a few moments while we wait for any questions on this motion. There are no further questions for discussion in the queue. We can continue.
Thank you very much. Operator, could you please provide instructions for voting for the election of KPMG as auditor of Westport Fuel Systems?
Certainly. Telephone voting is now open for KPMG as auditors. To vote in favor of the motion, please press star one now. To withhold your vote, please press star two now. If you are voting multiple control numbers and do not want to vote the same for all, or if you need voting support, please press star four and your line will be flagged to speak with a scrutineer and place your vote at the end of the meeting. Once again, if you are in favor, press star one now. To withhold, press star two now. To speak to a scrutineer at the end of the meeting, press star four now. Voting will close in five seconds. Voting has now closed.
Thank you. While we wait for those final voting figures to be tabulated, I can also confirm that based on the size of the management proxy vote that was received, KPMG has been newly appointed as the auditors and that motion is carried. We also have before us a special resolution for consideration relating to the amendment of the Omnibus Incentive Plan of the corporation. This amendment is described on page eight of the Information Circular. With the permission of this meeting, I'll dispense with reading the full text of that resolution and refer instead to the resolution as it's set out in the Information Circular. Is there a motion?
I move that the meeting approve the resolution to amend the corporation's Omnibus Incentive Plan as set out on page eight of the Information Circular.
I second the motion.
That motion is now open for discussion, if any, by the registered shareholders and proxy holders that are on the line.
To submit a question for discussion on the motion approving the resolution to amend the Omnibus Incentive Plan, please press star one on your phone now. We will pause a few moments while we wait for any questions on this motion. There are no questions for discussion in the queue. We can continue.
Great. As you have heard that motion and there is no further discussion, we'll proceed with the vote for the amendment of the corporation's Omnibus Plan by telephone voting. Operator, could you please assist us by providing the instructions for voting?
Certainly. Telephone voting is now open for the amendment of the corporation's Omnibus Incentive Plan. To vote in favor of the motion, please press star one now. To vote against the motion, please press star two now. To abstain, please press star three now. If you are voting multiple control numbers and do not want to vote the same for all, or if you are in need of voting support, please press star four and your line will be flagged to speak with a scrutineer and place your vote at the end of the meeting. Once again, if you are in favor, press star one now. If you are against, press star two now. To abstain, press star three now. To speak to a scrutineer at the end of the meeting, press star four now. Voting will close in five seconds. Voting is now closed.
Great. Again, while we wait for final voting figures to be collected, I can confirm that based on the size of the management proxy votes that were received, that motion is also carried. We also have before us the introduction of an advisory say on pay resolution for consideration, approving Westport's approach to executive compensation. The summary of executive compensation is described on pages 26 through 35 of the Information Circular. This resolution does not have binding effect. It is being conducted on an advisory basis only and should not be considered to in any way diminish the role or responsibilities of the Board of Directors of the corporation.
This resolution is intended to provide guidance to the Board of Directors on whether shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation that's been disclosed in the Information Circular dated March 17th, 2020, and the full text of that resolution is contained on page eight of that circular. Can I have a motion, please?
I move that the meeting accept the approach to executive compensation as described in the Information Circular dated March 17th, 2020.
I second the motion.
That motion is now open for discussion, if any, by our registered shareholders and proxy holders who are on the line.
To submit a question for discussion on the advisory note to accept the approach to executive compensation, please press star one on your phone now. We will pause a few moments while we wait for any questions on this motion. There are no questions for discussion in the queue. We can continue.
Excellent. You've heard that motion. There is no further discussion, we'll proceed with the advisory vote. Operator, could you again please provide us the instructions for voting?
Certainly. Telephone voting is now open for the advisory say on pay resolution. To vote in favor of the motion, please press star one now. To vote against the motion, please press star two now. To abstain, please press star three now. If you are voting multiple control numbers and do not want to vote the same for all, or if you need voting support, please press star four and your line will be flagged to speak with the scrutineer and place your vote at the end of the meeting. Once again, if you are in favor, press star one now. If you are against, press star two now. To abstain, press star three now. To speak to a scrutineer at the end of the meeting, press star four now. Voting will close in five seconds. Voting has now closed.
Based on the previous proxies received by the management nominees, I can advise that the advisory vote is carried. We've now reached the end of the formal business meeting. Before terminating, however, we'll take a moment to confirm if any other matters of business are to be brought forward. There will be an opportunity to ask questions relating to the company after the business update. I'd ask that you hold such questions not related to the formal business of the meeting until that time. Operator, can you take questions relating to the formal business of the meeting from the phone line now, please?
To submit any additional matters for discussion as part of the formal shareholders meeting, please press star one on your phone now. I will pause a few moments to allow any matters to be brought forward. There are no questions for discussion in the queue. We can continue.
Thank you. For anyone who pressed star four during a meeting to obtain voting support, your call will be directed to our scrutineer for support at the end of the meeting. Could I please ask someone to move termination of the meeting?
I move that the formal meeting be terminated.
I second the motion.
That motion is carried, and the formal portion of the meeting is now terminated. Thank you. I'd now like to invite Dave Johnson to provide a short business update, which will be followed by a question and answer session.
Great. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you again to all our shareholders for joining us today for our first virtual annual general and special meeting of shareholders. I sincerely hope that all of you, your families, and your networks are healthy and well, and that you stay healthy and well. I'm pleased to welcome our new board members. Eileen, Rita, Viktor, I'm thrilled that you've agreed to contribute your time and expertise to making Westport Fuel Systems a sustainably profitable company that delivers on our promise of clean, affordable transportation. During this unprecedented time, the health and well-being of our employees continues to be our utmost priority. Our teams have shown tremendous resilience during this difficult time. They've been working hard to mitigate risks to our business and to our position and to position ourselves to not only weather this storm, but to emerge strongly post-COVID-19.
We've been closely tracking and providing real-time input to shape government programs to mitigate the economic impact of COVID. Given our operations in Italy, Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands, we're working to leverage available and emerging government support programs, including wage subsidies, loan programs, and more. We're encouraged by the government efforts to act decisively in this turbulent and uncertain time. Despite the near-term uncertainty, I'm confident that the need for affordable, clean transportation solutions will persist. The world needs to mitigate climate change and improve urban air quality, and therefore we need clean, affordable transportation more than ever. I expect continued demand for our products even in a down economy, and we are ready to provide those solutions. Before speaking about our response to COVID and our post-COVID outlook, I want to reflect on what Westport Fuel Systems accomplished last year.
I'm pleased and proud of our team and our latest achievements. The continued sales growth of HPDI, combined with strength in our independent aftermarket and light duty OEM businesses, resulted in annual revenue of $305 million. That's up 13% from prior year and 33% from 2017. T his increase was driven mainly by significant growth in the OEM business of $29.2 million, primarily from higher HPDI product sales and development revenues. Also, our independent aftermarket business generated a year-over-year increase of $5.8 million due to strong demand for aftermarket products and delayed OEM services. Net income from continuing operations increased by $41 million from 2018 and increased $62 million from 2017. We also recorded our first two quarters and our first full year of positive net income from continuing operations. We delivered our first full year of positive EBITDA, $24.9 million, and a year-over-year increase of $38.4 million.
We also recorded a seventh consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, $28.4 million, which is up $18.8 million from 2018. As you can see and hear, 2019 was a great year, a pivotal year for Westport Fuel Systems. Each of our businesses delivered improved operating results on the top line and on the bottom line. I'm proud that in 2019, we made a significant step in our transformation into a profitable and sustainable company, building on our prior year improvements with another year of double-digit percentage gains. It was a good year but we won't rest on our laurels. We have work to do to reach our full potential. Now, COVID-19 has dealt us new challenges for the rest of this year.
Market shutdowns around the world have had a significant impact on our operations, and like many other businesses in the automotive sector and beyond, challenged our ability to fund our operations and meet our obligations. Two weeks ago, Richard and I provided an update to the market, and I'm pleased to summarize our progress and action plans for you today. We've taken the following measures to gather and protect liquidity to ensure we're able to emerge strongly after this crisis. As announced on March 25th, we secured from Export Development Canada deferral of principal payments totaling $6 million. We truly appreciate their partnership and support. Our team is working in real time to evaluate our eligibility and apply for recently announced government support in Canada, Italy, the Netherlands, and all our other operating locations.
We are already accessing a long-standing wage subsidy program aligned with the temporary layoff of employees in our Italian operations. In Canada, we've applied for the Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy, which provides a 75% wage subsidy for qualifying businesses up to a threshold of $847 per week per employee. We've taken a series of austerity measures to reduce and defer expenditures to free up cash flow, but also protect the employment of highly skilled and critical employees. This includes a temporary salary reduction and reduced operating schedule for all sites, including, for example, a 20% reduction for all Canadian employees in all labor categories. We've deferred annual bonus payments for the prior year, and members of the executive team and Board of Directors have voluntarily deferred their compensation. Beside these labor measures, we've also reduced and deferred discretionary and capital expenditures, reducing pressure on near-term cash flow.
We're working with our banking partners to secure bridge and longer-term financing in the range of $20 million-$30 million to ensure we have the short-term liquidity to weather the crisis and to fund our long-term operational and investment plans. We have confidence in the moves we're making to shore up liquidity based on our current projections, various scenarios, and stress tests. We've seen positive signals from China and now Europe getting back to work. There is risk of protracted economic recovery. We also expect further government support, but a lot of that will depend on the duration of those government programs and how quickly markets ramp back up. Over the next year, we'll continue to evaluate our sources and uses of financing to improve our cost of capital and align to the long-term growth plans of our business.
With the government of Italy announcing this past weekend that the industrial sector can now resume full production next week, and with the strong government support in Canada, Italy, and in other markets where we operate, we're encouraged that we'll weather this storm and emerge to serve our customers and resume our progress to deliver and grow our sales of clean transportation products and to achieve sustainable profitability. We are a significantly different company today than we were four years ago. Through the financial actions we've taken in response to COVID-19 and working with current and potential new lenders, we expect to restructure our balance sheet, push out maturity dates, and reduce our cost of capital. I want to extend my sincere gratitude to our global team of employees for their contributions and importantly, their sacrifice during this unprecedented time.
I know there is nothing easy for any of us during this crisis. Across the entire Westport Fuel Systems organization, I can point to examples of leadership, courage, commitment, and care for the community in the face of personal and professional adversity. I'm proud of our response. I'm proud of how we continue to work in the best interest of our customers, our partners, and shareholders, and I'm proud of how we looked out for each other. Beyond COVID-19, we have a very positive outlook. Current macro trends and regulatory developments are all proof points of strong market fundamentals for clean transportation solutions. What differentiates natural gas and renewable gas is scale. Scale means production volume, sales volume, market shares that are material in both economic and environmental terms.
In transportation, scale is enabled by products that deliver what customers require, products that reduce customers' total cost of ownership, and products that enable OEMs to meet regulations at the lowest total cost. I'd like to highlight a few examples of how these macro trends are scaling the natural gas vehicle market, the refueling infrastructure network, and the use of renewable gas. First, the demand for transportation will continue to increase in line with the macro trends of global population growth and economic development. Given the challenge of climate change, we need to take action without delay to reduce the carbon intensity of transportation. This means we must deploy affordable, clean transportation urgently. We are also witnessing a real-time market response to new regulations.
Emissions regulations for both CO2 and criteria pollutants will continue to strengthen as they have in Europe for CO2 this past April, and as adjusted April 1st in India, with Bharat Stage VI emissions regulations taking effect. Competitive economics and lower total cost of ownership are key drivers of scale. Our clean, cost-effective, market-ready technologies are the answer to the increasing global demand for sustainable transportation. For passenger cars or light commercial vehicles, for transit buses and heavy freight haulers, Westport Fuel Systems has the products that reduce emissions, save money, and can achieve meaningful scale. Turning to the refueling infrastructure around the world, in key markets like Europe, China, and India, we're seeing strong growth. There are now 273 LNG stations in Europe, which reflects a growth rate of nearly 90% in the last two years.
There are more than 3,800 CNG stations in Europe, a well-developed network that grew by an additional 10% last year. In China, the five-year plan set a target of 10 million natural gas vehicles, doubling its 2016 NGV population, and 12,000 refueling stations for vehicles by 2020. In the most recent report, the installed infrastructure is around 10,500 stations, so there's still some growth runway in the largest natural gas vehicle market in the world. In India, there are government and energy sector plans to build 10,000 CNG stations. That's on top of, in addition, 1,500 LNG stations by 2030. The use of renewable gas is scaling and enables net zero carbon transportation. In California, 70% of the gas used in transportation is renewable. In Sweden, that number is more than 90%. On January 16th of this year, Shell announced they will build 50 LNG refueling stations in Germany.
These stations will supply a blend of renewable and fossil gas that will make their LNG supply carbon neutral. End of May of last year, UPS announced the largest purchase of renewable gas in U.S. history. It will result in a reduction of as much as 1 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the life of the seven-year agreement. The potential to get to net zero carbon for trucking in Europe and globally using HPDI and renewable gas is available now. It can be done at competitive total cost of ownership and with no compromise in performance, reliability, or durability. Other technologies pale by comparison. Finally, our fleet customers around the world are demonstrating their sustainability leadership and positioning themselves as environmental leaders in a competitive market.
It's important not to confuse trade show announcements and demonstrations with production solutions like ours that can be purchased and used now. Natural gas vehicles are not in a test or experimental phase. Rather, our technology and our products are mainstream, for sale, and in use today around the world. I'd like to remind you of our strategic objectives for the company. Firstly, the successful commercial launch of HPDI in China. We are keenly focused on turning our HPDI business from a cash consumer to a cash generator. Increasing volume and achieving economies of scale is a critical lever in this business. In 2019, we more than tripled our volume in Europe, and this year we will launch HPDI with our second customer, Weichai Westport, to address the Chinese market, the largest market in the world for LNG-fueled commercial vehicles.
Now, China is returning back to work, HPDI production and sales that will follow their certification will provide significant potential to grow HPDI volumes and to achieve some economies of scale. This leads directly to cost reduction. It's our priority. New product launches, market share growth, volume growth, cost reduction, all are critical and work together to improve our profitability. Thirdly, new light-duty and heavy-duty OEM business in key market geographies. Cost-competitive and commercially available products like ours can be a critical component of OEM strategy to satisfy their customers, make money, and meet stringent emissions regulations. Fourth, profitable growth of our light-duty business through both our aftermarket and OEM channels. Economic drivers are a critical part of the decision to purchase or convert a passenger vehicle. People need affordable clean transportation solutions.
With the need to mitigate climate change and improve urban air quality, I expect continued demand for our products even in a down economy. Like you, I've been following closely the commentary about how the global economy might recover. I'm thinking that a new age of pragmatism will dawn following COVID-19. The need to deploy affordable, low-carbon clean transportation in all markets to address climate change and ensure healthy, breathable air in our cities is as urgent as ever. Westport Fuel Systems is market-ready, tested, and gaseous-fueled vehicles have achieved scale in many market segments. With the potential of renewable gas to offer net zero carbon solutions, we are ready to be part of the economic recovery. With that, I thank you for your support of Westport Fuel Systems, and I'd be happy to take your questions.
Thank you. At this time, I would like to open the private lines for questions. If you have a question, please press star then one now. There are no questions on the private lines.
Okay. I think we can begin the general question and answer session of the meeting having taken questions from shareholders. To be sure we can address as many of your questions as time permits, we'll combine similar questions instead of addressing them one by one. I'll ask Karen Hamberg to support us with questions in the queue. With that, I would like to hand it back over to the operator to open up the telephone lines for questions.
Thank you, David. The first question, can you offer detail into the ramp-up of your Italian operations? How has the team been preparing, and how quickly can you get back online?
Yeah, thank you for the question. It's been top of mind to us as we were expecting that it's just a matter of time until the Italian government would allow us to reopen. With the announcement we made this morning, you can see that we're poised to do that early next week in anticipation of this decree from the Italian government. The preparations were quite significant. First and foremost, we have to make sure that we can operate our plant for our employees in a healthy and safe way. For example, we'll be taking the temperature of our employees as they come to work every day. We'll be ensuring cleaning and distancing between our employees. There is an entire protocol, frankly, laid out by the Italian government health officials. We aren't health experts, we're following the advice of health experts locally in each jurisdiction.
We have prepared our factories so that we can respect those requirements and make it a safe working environment for our employees. That's primary. The secondary thing is really to work through our supply chain and make sure that our supply chain is also coming online and can support us. We did some pre-work leading into this crisis so that we built up some stock, so we had some flexibility. That was a really important move that all of our operations made to gather up some additional inventory so that we could be prepared to restart even in this disruptive and unclear time. I think those are the two key ingredients of our restart plans. Of course, all of our employees around the world are eager to get back to work and get back to normal, whatever that new normal looks like.
With the reopening of our factories, protecting our employees, and serving our customers, we're really eager to get going next week.
Great. Thank you, David. A few questions in the queue about China. Does China opening up and ramping up production now mean that, c an you give us some detail into the progress of the certification with Weichai? In what quarter do you expect sales volumes with Weichai in China?
Yeah, thank you for the question. With respect to HPDI in China, I know this is a very important product for our business of HPDI and for the marketplace. At this point in time, we're close to the finish line, but still not there yet. I look forward to being able to make the announcement that we've reached the finish line. As you all know, until you're finished, you're not finished. That's where we are at this point in time, but I'm hopeful that we'll have some news for you in the near future. Following that certification step, that really opens up the ability to take orders and make production. We have an idea of what to expect, but frankly, in the grand scheme of things, it's the biggest natural gas market in the world.
We expect HPDI to be very successful there, but I want to caution all of us that with the launch of a new product like we saw in Europe, fleets have to test this and evaluate it. They're not going to go out and buy hundreds right away. We do expect there'll be a slow ramp as we introduce the product to the marketplace. One of the great opportunities of the market of China is that our customer, our partner, Weichai Power, through our JV, we serve multiple OEMs. There really is a compounding effect, if you will, of this ability to serve the entire portfolio of truck OEM customers in China and to serve the largest market in the world. Just as an example, we talked about 273 LNG fueling stations in all of Europe. There's 10 times that amount already in China.
We have a huge opportunity. Their market, the number of vehicles on the road running with LNG to date, sparking engines, no HPDI so far, are 10 times what it is in Europe, like a whole order of magnitude more. It's really quite a different marketplace. The market's used to LNG, and they're very excited about the potential of what HPDI offers in that marketplace. I'm eager, as you can hear, to get started, get the certification done, and see that ramp progress.
Great. Thank you, David. Can you please comment on your outlook for the future of the joint venture with Cummins?
Our joint venture with Cummins, I think is well in evidence, has been a really great partnership for us over a very long period of time. We're the leader in the marketplace with our near-zero NOx portfolio of engine, three different engines, serving waste and transit, and now over-the-road trucking too. That joint venture, as you know, is scheduled to terminate at the end of next year. We have a little bit more, around 20 months to go in our term. We have ongoing discussions with our partner regarding whatever next phase might come, and we have a number of different alternatives we're in discussion. Frankly, at this point in time, I don't have any news to share, but I'm eager to do so, and when we have it, we'll be sharing it with you.
Thank you. We have a question now about the $20 million-$30 million in new debt that was discussed in the liquidity section. Are you able to provide some more detail on that, please?
I'd be happy to, but I'd probably be better served to have Richard do that. Richard, would you like to take that question?
Absolutely. I was just preparing for that question because we obviously know those are big figures and people would be worried about our liquidity long term. This is actually about two pillars, and there's two things. There's actually creating liquidity in the company so that it actually can meet its obligations and debt service payments. It's also a little bit of liability management. The company historically has a very high cost of debt generated over periods of time when the company was a little bit more vulnerable. What we're trying to do right now is actually create that liquidity. There's about $10 million-$15 million in revolving credit facilities of which that debt is there. We can draw on it as we need it. It's not necessarily that we're going to be drawing that money.
The second thing is that we're looking at about $10 million-$15 million in lower cost debt in Italy and in Europe, where it's very, we'll call it opportunistic debt that's available to actually repay some of our other debt that we have that's very high cost. If you look at our financial statements, we've got a lot of disclosure that talks about a high degree of repayment of debt over the next two years, and part of the funding would also be available to actually do that. We're almost refinancing ourselves to keep our debt levels comparable, but at a lower cost. Over to you, David.
Thank you, Richard. Any other questions, Karen?
No, David, there are no more questions in the queue.
Okay. Thank you very much for all your questions and your interest and support of Westport Fuel Systems. You can always reach us by phone at 604-718-2046. That's 604-718-2046, or through our email address, invest@wfsinc.com. Brenda, over to you.
This concludes our annual and special meeting of shareholders. On behalf of the board of directors and management, we thank you for your participation today and your continued support of our company.