Hello everyone, and welcome to the Cielo Waste Solutions Fireside Chat. My name is Robert Blum, Managing Partner at Lytham Partners, and today I'll be moderating a fireside chat here with Ryan Jackson, CEO of Cielo. Cielo trades under the ticker symbol CMC on the TSX Venture and CWSFF in the United States. Ryan, welcome.
Robert, thanks for having me.
Fantastic. For those who may be new to the Cielo, could you spend a couple of minutes giving us the quick, you know, sort of what do we do and why it matters overview? You know, what are the problems you're solving? What makes your approach distinct? Maybe a little bit of background on yourself.
Great. Well, I'll start with the last thing first because it's the easiest one to answer quickly. I've been in a business capacity over the course of the last 30 years of my career. I've built and turned around businesses of different sizes and types through different, I guess we'll say, sectors as well. So there's a lot of similarities with respect to how to build a business as to rebuild a business. The order of magnitude is different, and Cielo is no exception to that. As it relates to Cielo, and part of that evolution that Cielo has taken over the better part of the last, well, three and a half years since I've been in the chair, is that we've gone from being a technological developer to a project developer.
What that means is that our feedstock drove our narrative as it related to how we come out the other end with a low carbon fuel. Throughout the genesis of the last number of years and all of the technological steps that we took, what we found was that there were existing technologies that were in place that would allow us to achieve our end goal, which was essentially to take care of the feedstock stream that we had in place. Further to that, what it also allowed us to do is deliver a lot more value to shareholders without unnecessary dilution through a project focus versus doing something within the four walls of the company, if that makes sense.
Let's come back to sort of the company specifics here in a moment, but you know, when you sort of think globally, you know, waste is sort of increasingly regulated like a liability and carbon like a cost.
Mm-hmm.
What are the two or three policy or regulatory trends, and think of it by region or globally, whatever makes the most sense, that you think will matter most over the next 12- 24 months for accelerating sort of this waste to renewables ideas?
Well, in Canada, three trends stand out specifically. The Clean Fuel Regulations that are now fully in effect, creating mandatory credit obligations for liquid fossil fuel suppliers, and British Columbia's Low Carbon Fuel Standard remains one of the most mature frameworks, quite frankly, globally. It's expanding its scope actually to include aviation fuels, which directly supports our SAF pathway. In the United States, the Inflation Reduction Act created a durable production tax credit for SAF, and we're watching how those interact with state-level Low Carbon Fuel Standards in California and other states, as well as Oregon and Washington and some emerging programs elsewhere. In Europe, the aviation mandates blending obligations starting in 2025 and ramping up aggressively. Those are the three trends that stand out, and the common thread is that carbon is no longer voluntary, and it's a compliance cost.
Waste-derived fuels sit at the intersection of waste diversion mandates and carbon reduction obligations.
Okay. You know, energy, obviously it's very timely here. Energy security is back as sort of a national priority along with sort of this decarbonization, right? Where do you see the strongest push for sort of this domestic distributed liquid fuel solutions and how does that shift change the strategic value of sort of this waste to renewables?
Well, Canada is a particularly interesting case because we have an abundant biomass feedstock and a strong carbon policy and a federal government increasingly focused on energy sovereignty and economic reconciliation with indigenous nations. British Columbia specifically checks every box, feedstock policy, port access for export if you want it, and provincial government that has been a global leader, as I mentioned earlier. The broader trend, though, is that governments no longer want to see decarbonization and energy security as competing priorities, so waste to renewables fits mandates, both mandates rather, simultaneously. You're looking at producing domestic liquid fuels from a local waste stream, reducing a landfill burden if there is some in certain cases, and creating rural economic activity like we are in Prince George, and generating low carbon fuel credits.
All right. You know, with sort of refinery rationalization, you know, sort of the evolution of fuel specs, you know, you talked about SAF capacity ramping up here. Do you think demand stays structurally tight in sort of the back half of the decade here, or do you see sort of supply catch up faster than people expect? You know, what are the indicators that might change your view on this?
Well, a lot of this is driven by policy. A lot of policies tend to, once they get adopted, tend to then have investment follow, and that's exactly what's happening there. The availability of the feedstock, particularly as it relates to HEFA production, which is using animal fats, used cooking oil, and crop feedstocks or food feedstocks, that's where the choke point is as it relates to our availability to fill that gap. What is in abundance and is, quite frankly not being used is waste streams, especially in a biogenic way with respect to forest, forestry residuals. We're using scrap railroad ties as it relates to a fuel source, as well as, other feedstock or waste materials from the forestry sector. The catch-up is going to. It's not, you're not gonna see a steady curve meet demand.
It's going to be a little bit lumpy. What you will see as, especially, project developers like ourselves start to fill the gap, if you will, you'll see that feedstock shift occur as well, because you can only have so much feedstock and make a profit. That's the thing, we're profitable because we integrate carbon capture and storage as well.
Let's dive into, you know, you just talked a lot about feedstock there, which is, I think, the single most important input for sure. You know, what are the waste streams that are proving most reliable at scale, and what are sort of the operational telltales you look for that separate, you know, a great feedstock region or a partner from one that may disappoint?
Well, it's really quite. Without giving away the Colonel's 11 secret herbs and spices here, I want to be a little bit careful. It is, we're targeting a waste stream that is wood residual based or biogenic based through wood waste. The regions that drive that are clearly the ones that have sawmills, pulp and paper mills that are in fiber baskets, whether it be in the southern part of the United States or in certain cases, in our case, in northern BC, but also out east into New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, along the East Coast, further down into areas that are plentiful as it relates to the wood and sawmill industry.
That's an interesting take because there is a definite change as it relates to the ability for sawmills to maintain profitability based on the lack of market for their product. I'm not talking necessarily about the finished product, I'm talking about the waste byproduct. That's our focus. Without, again, being too specific, I want to maintain a certain amount of we're gonna certainly let everybody know as it happens because we have to as a public company, but we are obviously going to be targeting those waste streams. We're not going after food sources, I guess, would be the best way to put it.
Okay, great. You know, you sort of started off at the very beginning and you know, in most of these situations, technology is sort of the headline, but ultimately it's the execution that is really the story here, right?
Mm-hmm.
You know, where is Cielo's real edge when conditions change and whether it's sort of handling the variability, producing outputs, deployment, operational uptime, sort of, you know, walk through where you guys have an edge compared to others out there in the space?
Thanks for asking that because that is a differentiator between a technology company and a project development company. We have an edge on that. We are technologically independent of what it is that we do when we source this waste stream, and also the output. Let's use an example of it might not be Sustainable Aviation Fuel, it might be biomethanol, it might be renewable natural gas, it might be some other form of output. The ability for Cielo that uses its existing data that we have within our platform, we are able to use that data that we already have used for other projects to be able to inform and build at scale the next one.
Our edge, quite frankly, is in our ability to manage and develop a project using existing historical data that we've acquired in certain cases as it relates to our previously announced deal with Canadian Discovery Ltd., but also building on that platform. Think of it as the foundation, and we can build whatever kind of house we want.
Got it. Okay. When you're sort of looking to engage with potential offtake partners, right? You know, refiners, blenders.
Mm-hmm
... you know, various downstream partners here, what do they actually prioritize in today's environment, right? Is it carbon? Is it volume? Is it reliability, compatibility? You know, what are some of the things that they are looking for? Where are you seeing sort of the strongest must-have demand versus those that are just sort of politely interested?
I'm gonna go back to SAF or Sustainable Aviation Fuel, because in conversations we've had with those off-takers, in Canada it's their license to fly. Their words, not mine. It's really an understanding of yes, they do wanna decarbonize. Here's the kicker. We're going to be able to sell to those off-takers at the same rack cost as what they buy regular Jet A for now. We make our money, quite frankly, through the decarbonization of the credits we receive because we're below net zero, right? Their choice is to not increase their fuel cost because that always is a competing priority. I mean, the voracious nature that airlines attack their fuel cost and fuel savings is significant. It's their second if not top line item expense. Their priority is cost.
At the same time, the license to fly is that they have to blend a certain amount if they're gonna fly out of, for example, the province of British Columbia. By 2030, they have to have 2%-3% blend mandate, period. Right? That is the priority that they have, and that's the conversations we're having. Other renewable natural gas or any of those other decarbonization priorities are secondary, quite frankly, to the Sustainable Aviation Fuel conversations we're having.
Okay. Makes sense. You know, sort of coming back to the execution part, what is the hardest part of scaling that outsiders, investors just simply underestimate? You know, is it permitting? Is it engineering? Is it contracting the feedstock? You know, and maybe as an extension to that, you know, what is the one risk that used to be a major concern of yours, but you've sort of materially de-risked it here going forward?
Well, there's four that come to mind, and the first is feedstock and the feedstock security. Without that, you don't have a business model. That's the first thing that we have taken care of as it relates to Project Nexus in Prince George. Any other things in the pipeline, feedstock drives almost all of it. The second is the ability for us to have a market to sell the product that we're putting out the other end, and the ability for us to be able to manage that and put those technologies together that are already mature and have no pilot, we'll say, output capability. We can scale as much as the feedstock will allow us.
The third thing is our ability to have a bankable project, which informs it from the previous two, which is also the fact that we have the offtake and the feedstock secured. The fourth is location, where we have a location that has the most appropriate amount of, we'll say, residual feedstock availability should any of the other regular feedstock contracts or agreements that we have aren't going to materialize. We hedge against undersupply in feedstock just like we hedge against the sale on SAF with respect to an offtaker. Those are the four that essentially create a bankable project. I guess bankability is the other thing that we need to have as it relates to being able to finance it.
All right. Talk about sort of the Indigenous and community partnerships, which I know are critical here in your business, you know, and talk about maybe the recent strategic partnership framework that you announced.
Yeah. It's we're quite excited to be working with Tano T'enneh Enterprises. My opposite number is the CEO over at Tano, is Evan Salter. Evan has been a great partner, quite frankly, in working with us on a number of fronts that have the project be able to be de-risked significantly. What's more important to this is that it is a true partnership with the nation and with Tano, and that Indigenous ownership of a project of this scale, I don't believe, and I've looked around, I believe this is the first one of its kind in North America. This is a significant milestone for not only Cielo, but also for Tano and also Indigenous communities across the country. We're quite happy to be able to call him our partner.
Subsequent to that, it avails the project, a significant amount of, we'll say, non-dilutive grants that are available, low interest, and in some cases, federally guaranteed loans. A number of different factors also come into play as it relates to the bankability I talked about earlier.
Yep. Okay, very good. You know, something you mentioned at the beginning, capital structure, financing. You know, investors at this stage always wanna understand how you're gonna fund development without sort of over-diluting. You know, talk about sort of the capital stack, as you move from development into sort of this construction and how things will play out.
Right. I'll take a step back and say that throughout the course of our development model are stage gates. Imagine that as we move forward through each stage gate, and we're in pre-FEED now, we've completed our, we'll say, conceptualized and feasibility work already and are now into pre front-end engineering and design work. All the way along through these stage gates, certain capital budgets are allocated for this. Two things around how we're going to be able to raise the financing that we need. A lot of it comes through non-dilutive sources in a limited partnership structure that we will be forming with the nation, with Tano. Also as it relates to the debt available on that project as well.
The cap stack looks a lot like BC LCFS initiative agreements that we will be moving forward and applying for that allow us to have non-dilutive capital in an equity standpoint for Cielo, with the other side of it being additional grant availability from those that are accessed through our partnership with Tano T'enneh, and whether it be at the federal and the provincial level. In addition to that, probably a very small amount that will have active direct partners in that partnership that will not be dilutive to Cielo whatsoever. We're able to build a significant CapEx project without having to raise you know 10s of millions of dollars in Cielo corporate. It all sits off the balance sheet.
All right. Very good. You know, as you sort of look at the next phase of the company here, you know, what parts of the value chain are you sort of deliberately choosing not to own? Maybe you just sort of alluded to a couple of those, right, in the way you're structuring some of the agreements, you know. What are those partnerships or structures that sort of allow you to scale, without taking on sort of that wrong kind of complexity, if you will?
Right. It's important to distinguish the two, certainly, because as you whether it be a legal liability or a financial one, you don't wanna own either, quite frankly. While we have, we'll say DevCos or subsidiaries that will be running and owning these projects, of course, Cielo is going to carry an interest in all of them. In addition to that, with the platform I mentioned earlier, receive a royalty stream as well as a carried interest in the project. We're able to then develop a number of projects within the same timeframe. Prince George was announced first, and Project Nexus was announced first, and the partnership with Tano T'enneh.
In addition to that, we have a pipeline of projects that we will be furthering and going through that, again, identification feasibility step before we obviously have to disclose them publicly. We're actively adjudicating those right now. We can do multiple shots on goal, if you will, with that platform I mentioned, and build that shareholder value through a compounding way of doing the business that we're doing.
All right. In the final couple of minutes that we have here, you know, what should investors look for from the company over the next number of years?
Well, for the first time, I can say this, growth. It's been a labor of love for the better part of the last three years, bringing this company around to this point in time. A couple weeks ago, I was presented to another conference, and it was the first time I was able to provide a fulsome explanation of the Cielo business model. If there were anything that we learned in the past, it's that we know we're not gonna make those mistakes in the future because we've learned from them, and that's an important distinction. They'll look for three things, quite frankly. They'll look for anything that we do with respect to the Cielo balance sheet will be accretive in nature.
We'll always be looking to build the company's value and the investments that it holds. The second, we'll have multiple projects over the course of the next number of months and years, and all of those projects will be profitable. They're not going to be a project for the sake of having one. We're gonna take a relentless approach at adjudicating these and ensure that they're actually cash flowing, which is a novel concept for clean energy. I understand that. That's what people can look forward to, shareholders and potential investors alike.
All right. Very good. Well, Ryan, thank you so much for your time today. Greatly appreciate it, enjoyed our conversation. Thank you to everyone who's watching here right now. If there are any questions for Ryan or perhaps you'd like to schedule a meeting with him, please send me an email. That's Blum, B-L-U-M @lythampartners.com. I'd be happy to try and make a connection there for everybody. We have additional presentations and fireside chats coming up, everyone, please stick around. Again, Ryan, thank you so much for your time today.
Thanks for having me.
Fantastic. Take care, everyone. Thank you, Ryan, for the discussion on Cielo. If you're just tuning in, don't worry. All of our webcasts will be available to watch on demand after the summit. Up next, my colleague Roger Weiss will moderate a fireside chat with Aduro. Stick around for more.
Hello and welcome to the Aduro Clean Technologies Fireside Chat. My name is Roger Weiss, and I'm a vice president here at Lytham Partners. Today, I'll be moderating a Q&A discussion with Ofer Vicus, the CEO of Aduro Clean Technologies, which trades under the symbol ADUR on the Nasdaq and the symbol ACT on the CSE exchange. Ofher, welcome to the Lytham Summit.
Hi Roger Weiss, thanks for having me, and hello to your audience. It's a pleasure to be here, and I'm excited actually.
Our pleasure too. Let's start. Maybe, Ofer, you could give us the five-minute overview of Aduro and how it's revolutionizing the solutions to things like recycling plastic waste, upgrading of tar sands bitumen, and enhancing renewable fuels.
Oh-
More importantly, can you discuss with that, your Hydrochemolytic™ technology, if I pronounce that correctly?
Oh, Hydrochemolytic™, this is what happen when you give scientists the marketing, you know, the marketing job. That's what you get. Doing it in five minutes, that's absolutely a challenge, because we need to summarize more than 15 years of work in the area. In a nutshell, Aduro is based on a phenomena we discovered somewhere in 2011. The phenomena is such that if you put some material such as heavy oil under our conditions, which is a little bit with water and a catalyst that is nature, it's in embedded in the heavy oil already, it's actually break down the molecules in a very finesse way. Once molecules in hydrocarbons ...
Okay, molecules in heavy oil or in others, once they break down, they become very reactive, and they would need hydrogen. We discovered that, we do not need actually hydrogen. We can stabilize this material if we just had some source such as glycerol or ethanol. Suddenly this phenomena become a platform technology with lots of patents, because we could basically take catalyst that is embedded in the heavy oil and other catalysts in other applications, and maybe size or cut the molecules or create a low-value to a higher-value liquid, and we could stabilize it without the need of hydrogen. Very cost-effective, cheap machine to do something the refinery and others are spending a lot of money and a lot of energy.
Fast-forward 10 years after that, we have applications in the heavy oil upgrading. We have applications in chemical recycling, where we take low value rigid material or flexible waste plastic, and we turn it into circular oil that could be used to production of new plastics in a very cost-effective process.
Got it. In terms of the addressable market for both plastic recycling, for upgrading or enhancing bitumen or renewables, you know, kind of how big is the market and, you know, in five years, what do you think you guys could capture of that market?
I mean, the market is north of even each aspect or each sector, say bitumen upgrading, chemical recycling or waste plastic or renewable or others that we have in the back burner that we're not even doing right now. We're probably in total north of $200 billion. How much money have you got? It's really significant. This speaks a little bit to the rarity of the phenomenon that we discovered, and that speaks a little bit to the direction that we can reach. Specifically each application, when I call application, chemical recycling would be an application, bitumen upgrading would be application. It's a company maker by itself. That's just in general. How far do you wanna go with this? The sky is the limit for us. We're just starting.
Moving forward, we had the commercialization phase starting from April 2021, and we're moving forward through a pilot and actually now building or starting to think about the first industrial process. Five years from now, we wanna be in a full processing capacity of chemical recycling. We think we have the capacity and nature to do that. We're probably gonna have one or two other applications in the making. Very much into commercialization. I'll say that not lightly. The nature of the technology is that you can do scale up rather than scale down. It's quite cheap, small process, and our thinking is that if in parallel, maybe, in chemical recycling a normal operation would be 100,000 tons of processing capacity every year, for us it's 25,000 tons.
If you need 100,000, then you'll have four units, right? Our ability to scale up is quite significant. We think very small, but then we think how can we increase that very, very quickly, and this is where there may be confidence of ability to be there in five years.
It's also a very flexible technology too in terms of kind of meeting people for what their needs are.
Yes, that is the modularity here, it's significant. The phenomena itself, this is based on the phenomena that we discovered. Just the concept, the fact that we have low cheap catalyst available out there, and the fact that we do not need hydrogen, management of hydrogen is significant capital cost, you basically break down a refinery-like operation to more of a small scale, you know, container type. It's a petrochemical process. It is complicated. It has a lot of advantages compared to the peers. We can take material that is a little bit more tolerant to contamination. We have many nodes. We operate in a lower temperature.
We can add and upgrade the process to deal with very, very complex material feedstock, but also we can take dedicated solutions, create dedicated solution, and we give on our, you know, day-to-day discussions a specific market such as Synthetic turf or Agricultural waste, which is basically a very unified material that could be processed, but it must be addressed in a smaller scale, otherwise it goes to the landfill. On one hand, we have a solution that is very capable and scale it up. On another hand, we have a market, a very dynamic market with many types of feedstocks out there, and we can configure a solution to those on a very small scale, which is, you know, in competitive peers is quite significant.
That's very cool. You touched on it just a little bit, and specifically can you talk to your intellectual property and, you know, kind of talk about the IP moat here?
Oh.
The-
Yeah. It's, we feel it's very, very strong. That phenomena. We're dealing, you know, the first patent when we did our research on the phenomena, first patent we discovered in that space was as early as 1930. It's absolutely saturated market by the biggest and the bravest, you know, the Shell, the Total. Everyone has been there one way or the other. For us to build, literally almost on average every year patent, you know, we have about 10 patents right now. One of them we bought, just because of, you know, creating some picket fences, but everything else we develop in line, it's quite unique. In our environment to create that IP, understanding and that patent portfolio, it's quite significant. Over the last...
As an example, over the last maybe since 2011, since the company conceived, we've been looking around at competitors, we've been looking around at what others has been doing. What we found is basically that they are operating on the similar DNA, I'll call them Legacy Technologies.
Mm
where often our phenomenon is quite new, and this is where this DNA which we call pyrolysis, for example, is about 75 years old. It's quite a rarity to find something like what we do and develop it into a full commercial process.
Got it. Basically, you know, the competitors are out there are all on, you know, the existing and certainly very old technology.
Yes, never say never. You know, we have to be humble about those things. In chemistry there's no free lunch and it's a little bit like baking. You add some sugar and you add some flour, you get challah. You know, you make it different, you get some bread. So far we haven't seen anything similar to what we've been doing. We always keep our eyes open. We feel very strong that if anyone around us will want to compete with this, they better work with us rather than try to find another hole in the patent application that they could materialize on commercial level. We feel quite safe around it, yet we stay very humble about it.
Very good. Kind of moving along, as Aduro transitions from a development company to a more mature commercial entity, how do you foresee the company's business model and where do you think that will go?
It's a fantastic question. I'm excited every day by what's going on around us. We literally started from an idea, that's the background and a thesis out there, and we just had to move around through the journey of commercialization from, you know, lab test to pilot to industrial unit. From what we see right now, you know, it's a road that you have to take in order. We cannot jump scale some of those activities, but it feels that we have our hands on the right stuff. I mean, we're looking at commissioning our first of a kind machine sometimes in the mid to the end of 2027 already, which will generate revenue.
From that point forward, I think, it's more of a cut and paste situation. We're starting with what we call a simple to complex, so the simplest material that we will operate on initially, but the unit is set to be upgraded already for more complex materials. Coming forward as we are doing scalability, we will upgrade the unit. Overall, I think it's quite exciting journey for the company. We're at the verge of making an industrial machine that could actually later be licensed, although we're doing a lot of build and operate on ourselves as well.
Got it. Just to clarify, the next gen pilot plant is going to then be not supplemented, but you're gonna add a second demonstration plant.
Yes.
Which will be a larger unit.
Yeah.
You know, kind of how should we think about those two, you know?
Yeah
facilities?
The next generation pilot plant is a, let's say 10 kg an hour machine. It's a machine that overspec, so to allow us to do more than we need. This is at the level of our site, our pilot site in London, Ontario. That machine is dedicated to work on for customers, for R&D, and for our design for our industrial unit, our what we call first of a kind unit. It's not a demo unit, it's a unit already that will generate revenue, will confirm reproducibility, we'll be able to show it to customers. Our intention is to upgrade this unit immediately to a larger size so we can immediately move into commercialization. The relationship between the existing pilot to the larger pilot is very close.
The team working on the existing pilot investigate aspects of on industrial scale many aspects of the process in order to confirm that we can have a smooth rollout to the industrial unit. It's fascinating because we started from an idea initially, and now we're looking at things on industrial scale, which is you know really for someone to see things coming from an idea. I can't tell you how exciting it is you know looking at it. It's growing to that level.
That's, that's-
Then later on seeing the organization that are joining in because of that, actually making you know, you at some point of time you feel, "Am I the only drunk? I need other people to be" you know, to look around you, to make sure, and they're joining in. It's very, very exciting.
That's great. Now, what are the advantages of having that demo plant located in the Netherlands and in Europe for you, as opposed to just building it, you know, in Canada or here in the United States?
Right. We'll call it first of a kind rather than a demo plant. This,
Okay
Just be with me on this. Europe is very advanced on recycling in general. Mechanical recycling was the first, and chemical recycling came second. European compared to other areas in the world have pushed in some, I guess, rules to establish chemical recycling, and mechanical recycling. It's pretty much advanced in many ways. About four or five years ago, we been engaged with an organization called Brightlands Chemelot in the Netherlands, which is a chemical hub that has two phases. The first phase actually is hosting pilots, just like our next generation pilot. The second phase is actually have industrial site where you place your machines. By the way, Eric, our CRO, is used to, you know.
We got him converted from that place to work with us after we've seen many technologies. The decision to be in the Chemelot area is perfect, although we actually investigated three or four other sites. It's ideal place for us because it's in the center of Europe, it's very receptive to the regulation that is coming. It gives us a place where in the future we could expand. Although we're focusing very much on the first of a kind unit right now, we are building already resources and the utilities should we see everything works well to be able to expand. I think the rest of the world is coming forward into this. In Canada definitely where we are in Canada and we see the regulation coming in.
Europe is basically a really, really good place for us to start on industrial scale. That particular place give us the ability also to scale up should we need. It's double whammy on this.
Very good. Thank you. Let me move on. I think when you announced your second quarter 2026 results, you also noted in the release that you had a successful pilot steam cracking of waste plastic.
Yes
... or I should say of, uh-
Naphtha cracker
hydrochemolytic oil that was derived from waste plastic.
Yeah.
Can you talk about that, and what's the significance of the?
Since then we
of both the cracking and where the oil came from?
You know, when I speak to you now and I go backwards, I'm thinking every year there is a really significant announcement almost from that moment forward, almost every month since then. The recent announcement that we make is that we have engaged an EPC to start looking at our licensing process, and I'll touch on that later. The significance of that is that basically Europe demands that a portion of every plastic that is made will be with circular material inside. Those machines are called Naphtha Cracker. Basically, when you do chemical recycling, all of our peers and us are handing over some liquid oil to these guys to mix it with new oil, so later they could make new plastic out of it.
There's only a handful, probably four companies in the world that are producing those licensing machine. To be able to show on a very early stage that our process demonstrate adaptability, so in fact it can be accepted as is because they simulate it on their pilot, is a significant message to the world that we are on the right track. Being on the right track is something we try to be transparent and show our investors ever since. We told, and we're telling investors where we're heading, and then we're coming back and executing on that. That specific moment suggests that our technology demonstration unit has been able to produce material that is fit to that circularity level.
If I take it forward later, the regulation dictates that this portion of material will be mixed with the regular virgin plastic. Where our peers, let's say yield on this, is relatively. Let's say on the final calculation, it's called mass balance calculation, somewhere around 40% or 50%, our ability or yield is somewhere around the 75%-80%. What does it mean? That you can take more of our material without blending it and dilute it with virgin plastic in comparison to our peers. Because our peers probably almost half of the material that our peers is doing is considered to be liquid fuel and it doesn't count in the mass balance regulation that Europe is introducing.
They suffer much more than we do on that end, and that gives us another advantage on top of the performance and the yield and everything else that the technology has been doing. Quite fantastic, and strong message.
Got it. Just, you know, we kind of maybe good segue, you know, in terms of announcements, because the company recently announced a memorandum of understanding, an MOU.
With the EPC
... with a quote, unquote, "leading global engineering procurement.
Yes
and construction company,
Yeah
... for commercial licensing of your technology. Could you talk about that and kind of-
Yes. Roger, we have two business models that we are moving on, and one of them is build-own-operate because we think the licensing part may be, well, may take some time, and we've been very transparent on that from early day to our investors. While we are working in the Netherlands to build the site, to build the first of a kind and potentially build expansion where we will own, we already engaging. It's a very significant press release. I know it got lost, maybe perhaps a little bit with the whatever goes on around the world right now.
It's basically an acknowledgment and a validation that the EPC that is working with us, which is no surprise, they've been looking at us and working with us in the last few months, a little bit more than that, are ready to take on and build, work with us on a process that could be licensable. Now we're starting to develop our second path for licensing. When you are licensing machines in our industry, you have to place some performance guarantee, and only EPCs of that size, you know, can actually sell and create assurance for refineries or for other organizations that our process will work the way they would ask. That's called a performance guarantee. We're so excited. We are now looking at an industrial-scale machine that will be licensable.
It will take some time, and we're working on it. It means that EPC we could later utilize its marketing power to sell it across the world, and this is in parallel to our build- on- operate. Quite a lot of things happening at the same time in our little company. Quite exciting.
Right. As I understand it, so this is, you know, this is a big company, you know.
Yeah
that is basically partnering with you and basically saying to other very, very large, perhaps petrochemical companies, et cetera, that we're vouching for the technology and the ability to apply it and save you money or help you make more money.
Yeah. I wanna be very careful with any forward-looking or any statements on that.
Yeah
On that end. I wanna stay humble as we continue to stay. At some point of time we will disclose the name of the company and I guess the vouching will increase. Fair to say is that they are agreeing in with our model of a smaller scale unit that could be scaled up. They're agreeing with the concept of the configurability. They're excited to take a look at that in comparison to what is available in the market. All of those things are really good things that the company you know that they have to kind of agree with that in order to move forward on that.
In the coming months we have already a plan, and in this plan, of course, we'll start develop the important item that related to all the items that you just mentioned, Roger. It just in the making, just getting a process like us into a refinery and tell the refinery manager or the owner, "Don't worry, it won't explode," that's not something that is happening. You need to do some work around it, and I think this is the work we're doing right now with the EPC.
Got it. Ofer, when companies do these kind of things and meet with investors, one of the big questions people always ask at the end is, "Gee whiz, you know, how much money do you need to accomplish all these things?" I know that the company at the end of last year raised about $20 million on a gross basis. How long a runway does this give you to accomplish a lot of the goals that you're looking to do?
Yeah. It's a very, very good question, and we're very much cashed up right now, at least for sure for 12 and more months. Everything that we wanna do in this is already budgeted. On that end we're good. Of course, we always plan that way, Roger. We take money when we are actually raising money, we're thinking of our existing investors first and foremost. Dilution is very, we're very, very sensitive to dilution. What we wanna do is to raise money where the stars align. We have a runway right now to do whatever we need to do, and if time comes and, you know, the stars will align and the price of the market will
The share price will be fine and we'll have a lot of excitement all around us, then maybe there'll be others, but we don't see any need right now to raise money. It's fair and square. We feel cash up. It's given us a lot of strength to do what we wanna do and to focus on our execution, which is something we told always to our investors. We, you know, the way we're working is and I should say here that, you know, our CFO is leading really, really in a strong hand here, our financial aspects, and you can see it. It's been presented, it's very strong. The chart is healthy. We have a loyal base of investors that are joining in. We keep it simple. Whatever you see, this is what you got.
There's no any overhangs or any financial instrument on top. There's no debt. Company is clear. We're really thinking long run, adding value in every stage, and making sure that, you know, within every three or four months you see something new, so you understand that we're adding value or creating some opportunity or de-risking the company.
Very good. Well, I think we're about out of time.
Oh.
So
I enjoy that.
I do too. Ofer, thank you. Thanks to everyone out there who's watching this Lytham Summit segment. If you have any questions or would like to schedule a meeting with Aduro, please send me an email. My address is weiss@lythampartners.com. We have additional presentations and fireside chats coming up next, so please stick around for more. Thank you all, and have a great rest of the day.