Hey, Josh, are we good to go?
We are good to go.
Excellent. Well, listen, welcome everybody to the March 26th strategic update from Northstar. Listen, I've got a bit of an apology to make. There should have been a PR that is still currently spooling unfortunately that is covering everything that we're gonna chat about in this call. Of course, you can follow up with us directly afterwards once you get a chance to read the detail on the PR or talk about, you know, what we're gonna talk about or, you know, kinda contact us on what we're gonna chat about today. Apologies for that. I'll be covering everything in the PR on this call. We'll be able to kind of answer any questions at the end.
As always, thanks to Ken for hosting it and the usual admin. We've got Josh collecting the questions, so tag in your screen and pass the questions through to Josh and then we'll chat about. He will ask those questions at the end. Listen, when you see the detail of this, you'll understand why we moved this a couple of weeks. We actually instead of calling it an operational update, we called it a strategic update because, like, this conversation is really about the strategy of the company as well as some operational updates. The first element for me on this strategic journey is the path that we've been on and what it's prepared us for today, but also what it prepares us for in the future.
The second element is all around the performance of our first commercial asset. I know there have been lots of questions that have been coming in around performance, and today is all about the transparency for that, and what we're doing next. The third's about Northstar, so that's both about finance and organizational. The last thing is kind of the rollout of the technology in the new facility. We're gonna cover all of that today. Forward-looking statements as always. Look, in the Delta Pilot Plant, I mean, this covers Calgary, but in the Delta Pilot Plant, we learned from kind of three things. We learned from the equipment vendors, we learned from our partners, i.e., you know, the McAsphalt and TAMKO.
As you know, they were part of the design team, part of the technical feedback, and of course we learned from the engineering that we did on the Delta Pilot Plant to get it into the Calgary facility. All of that was incorporated in, into the design for Calgary. For context, from my background, you know, from kind of an operational and engineering perspective, there is no amount of pilot plant operation or engineering that fully prepares a business for full scale commercial plant. Every single commercial plant that starts up from a pilot plant and engineering runs into what we describe here as kind of bottlenecking and processing issues. That's what I want to talk about today, and what we're actually gonna do about it.
The number one deliverable of any of these technologies and this plant is number one, does the technology work? Number two, what's the product that's coming out the back end? You guys have seen me present many, many times about the value proposition that Northstar has in terms of its commercial model. 35% from the tipping fees, 65% from the outputs, and all that, 95% or greater is the asphalt price. The most important thing that this facility can do is deliver asphalt. That's it. That is the critical point, and of course have the throughput to make sure we're moving shingles through and getting tipping fees. The really good thing is that from an investor perspective, you can be very secure in the output from this facility because the specification of the asphalt is great.
It's great from a number of the specification criteria that our customers expect. In actual fact, interestingly, TAMKO reflected recently that it's way better than they thought that the first facility would be. That is great from an investor perspective. The most important thing in this plant is asphalt. You can rest assured that our customer feedback and our feedback is that that's in great shape. We have had bottlenecks. We ran the 80 tons a day, as you know, in November, and that identified three processing issues. Two of them were the transfer of material, so from like unit to unit transfer, and one was with water processing.
Now, as I've always mentioned, given the attendees on this call and that we know from the distribution list, I'm not going to go into the technical detail of what those are. I know that, you know, a number of we've had a bit of feedback that says, "Hey, we want you to go into the in-depth detail of kind of your any issues you've had and how you're fixing them," and we're just not gonna do that. I can tell you that this is not a technology issue, it's a transfer of material issue, which is excellent. It's all about moving stuff around. It's not about does the technology do what, you know, do what we need it to do.
We have now resolved these issues, and they're gonna be addressed in two steps. The first step is the interim production step. We'll be able to shingle process 100 tons- 150 tons a day, but the asphalt yield will be lower than we had originally planned. That's the interim production step. The upgrade step, which will happen in the fall of 2026, we've identified an upgrade that will actually take us, we expect, beyond our original asphalt yields, but that has to be both engineered and the equipment procured from it. That will keep us in the 100 tons- 150 tons a day of processing, but it will actually provide a higher asphalt yield. The interim production we expect in Q2 to move into cash flow breakeven and into profitability after that.
We expect steady revenue generation in April. After the upgrade in fall of 2026, we expect to return to the kind of full cash flow and profitability model that we outlined in Calgary. As you know, we've had, you know, kind of the EBITDA numbers we've used for Calgary, and the commercial models and the presentations is CAD 5 million worth of EBITDA, and we expect that to be after the full production number. The interim production will be profitable by the time we get to Q2. There's a delay, I would say, in the kind of profitability from the facility, but the facility will be profitable in the interim production step.
That's where we are with kind of the operation and kind of financial impact. This is all about, you know, identifying processing bottlenecks from the full commercial facility. To be expected potentially, we of course, as we've thought about it, and we've looked at it, we are behind the curve from delivering revenue. You know, that's clear. But we absolutely know we've solved the kind of the bottlenecking processing problems, and we have the upgrade ready and kind of developing it, engineering and procurement for equipment ongoing. Let's talk about Northstar.
The optimization of this business is both financial and organizational and, you know, lots of detail, more details of this in the PR. The most important thing, with respect to the financing is what we've announced today. We have announced a convertible debenture. For $10 million, there is a non-binding term sheet that is being executed. You can imagine that that is also one of the reasons why we have delayed this presentation for a couple of weeks, because that was being finalized. $10 million, interest of 8% per annum, five-year term, and a conversion price of CAD 0.2755. Obviously premium to yesterday's market. But yeah, premium to market today. Financing fee of 6% issued in stock based on a 30-day VWAP.
It's really important to understand who we have done this with. This is done with strong financial investors who have global presence and reach. This is a group of long-term investors. This should feel like great support for the current shareholder base because this is a strategic financial investment for the long term. This is not a short term delivery. You should also have a great vote of confidence in addition with respect to the terms. five years, obviously, you know, great from a term perspective, a conversion price at a premium to market, no warrant included in it. We have the ability to have payment in kind for the interest at a 75-cent acceleration clause.
All of those are really strong terms for Northstar, but also long term. This is not a short-term investment. This is a long-term investment from, you know, strong financial partners. On the other side of the page, you can see the near-term strategic capital support. That's all around hitting ERA Milestone four. And obviously with that comes the TAMKO Phase 2 funding, and we expect that all to happen in Q2. As we look at the performance of the facility, that then brings in, you know, the near-term capital from our strategic partners. The last thing is the organization. One of the things that we've been looking at as well as optimizing the finance is optimizing the organization.
This is all about right sizing, and this is all about focusing on delivery and efficiency in a kind of a cost-effective manner. How we're going to do that is, Lynda Paananen is appointed CFO. She's stepping up from the controller role, and she'll have a focus on financing and accounting. What I will be doing is, you know, kind of, I do that anyway, I will be leading corporate development, supported by Lynda from a finance perspective, but I will be taking the full mantle of corporate development. The second thing is that Mark Bishop, who a number of investors have met, who was a consultant for us, is appointed the VP of Projects and Engineering. He's going to lead the Calgary upgrade.
As you see in the next slide, he will lead the project management for new facilities. This is exactly where we have talked about before, where we learn from each one of our facilities to integrate it into the next. You know, by the time we've done the fifth or sixth facility, we've always said this is gonna be absolute rinse and repeat. From the pilot to the first commercial facility, there's a lot to learn. From the first commercial facility to number two and number three, again, the same thing. All the stuff that we've learned around the development of Calgary, engineering, construction, commissioning, operations, long-term operations, maintenance, et cetera, that gets integrated into the design for the next two facilities. That's what Mark will be able to do.
Not only transition from where we are now and the lessons learned here, also kinda lead the Calgary upgrade, but then take us into the new facilities. As we think about 2026, we deliberately adjusted the size of the font in this slide to be clear about what's really important. 2026, the most important thing from our perspective in the marketplace and from our perspective, my view from the feedback from the market's perspective, and the strategic direction of this company is Empower Calgary. We will absolutely focus on the ramp up, upgrade, and full commercial production as we go through 2026. Baltimore and Hamilton, the thing that we're going to do there is we'll continue to permit and engineer.
As you know, that doesn't take a lot of capital. You can see minimum expenditure through 2026. Construction and commissioning, 2027. I'll talk about our plans in a minute. This is about being absolutely transparent in this strategic call, and that's saying, we don't expect commercial production from those two facilities until 2028. If you look at the 2026 priority and you look at the big font of Empower Calgary, what we will have is, we will have absolutely full-scale commercial production ready to roll out to both of those facilities. You can see second bullet down, new site engineering, and that kind of goes to Mark's new role or sorry, Mark's role.
New site engineering to include process upgrades, engineering, construction, commissioning learnings, and the operation of debottleneck in the new design, which will be tested and integrated into the new design for the new facilities. That's what 2026 is all about. Again, transparency of kind of moving through, you know, what is a realistic process. You know, commercial facility built in 2026, operating in Calgary still in 2027. Construction in 2027 and three operating facilities in 2028. We have adjusted this forecasted growth slide in the slide deck on the web to be absolutely transparent about what this actually means with respect to the kind of delivery through 2026.
The potential, as we've always said, of, you know, 80,000-ton-a-year facilities, is, you know, nine operating facilities by 2030. The potential, of course, for the delivery of CAD 19 million worth of EBITDA. That's all about the kind of transparency of what the implications of our current operating facility, how that affects the growth plan. This is a bit of a summary slide. Again, I'm kind of going through the stuff that I chatted about before, but it's super important, I think, from my perspective, as we are thinking about the strategic considerations for this business. This is a first of a kind commercial facility, and it is operating at commercial scale volumes.
This is how we find out all of the bottlenecks that didn't come through the pilot plant, didn't come through the engineering, couldn't have been predicted. This is what you get when you run full scale through these facilities. The processing debottlenecks are transfer of material. It is not a technology issue. The asphalt quality is better than expected. This technology actually works. Interim processing will give us break-even cash flow, time for the upgrade. From a finance perspective, investors should take real support in the fact that we have a, you know, a global group who are supporting us with a five-year structure of $10 million in the convertible debenture. That convertible debenture, as I said, has no warrant and a conversion price above market.
That is an absolutely huge driver, as you guys know, of the way that I have run this business. No financing can take place without some dilution, but this is, we believe, a very effective financing and very strategic as we think about it. That's the overall takeaway. The technology works, the plant's being debottlenecked and moving into interim production, you know, above cash flow break even. From a financing perspective, we will have in shortly $10 million of capital in the business. Josh, I think that's it.
Okay, excellent. Just to let everybody know, the press release has crossed, so I encourage everybody to take the time to read that. If you have questions, please put them in the Q&A box, and we'll just sort of answer as many as we can to the extent that we can. Starting off here, I guess it's more of a macro question. With the volatility in oil pricing, how does that relate to asphalt pricing?
That's a great question. It depends on the kind of. There's three answers to that question. Number one is, it depends on the pricing structure of our contracts. As you know, our pricing structure has some almost like literally oil-related pricing in it, which will be directly affected by the change in oil price. And then the second part of our agreements and often have asphalt-related prices in it. Now, derivative prices are kind of interesting. Derivative prices can outstrip oil price increase when going up, and so they can overshoot. Like gasoline often does that because people are worried about scarcity. Sometimes the oil index price. Sorry, the index price for a derivative product will overshoot, and then when the price comes down, it undershoots.
It's actually there. There will be some direct correlation to oil price for our contracts, and then there'll be some derivative product, I suspect, overshoot and undershoot based on the oil price as well. As the oil price goes up, our asphalt price goes up, but those two components would have a slightly different volatility in the index.
Perfect. Thank you. We've got a few questions with the term sheet here, so I'll try and sort of summarize. I think the first one's a, I'll just answer it. Yes, the CAD 0.275 conversion price is in Canadian.
Yes.
I know there's, you know, because the $10 million, but yes, the conversion price is Canadian. Jumping in here, we have a question: what is the use of proceeds for that $10 million?
The use of proceeds for the $10 million is to, number one, obviously support Northstar corporate. Look, let's step back. If we were in the position whereby the Calgary facility was delivering CAD 5 million worth of EBITDA a year, you know, I've often said our run rate is kind of CAD 5 million-CAD 6 million a year corporately. Calgary operating would fully cover that. Some of it is kind of, you know, working capital and the company. Secondly, as you saw from the slide earlier. Sorry, I should have probably pointed that out a little bit more clearly. You saw from the slide earlier that the CapEx for the upgrade is probably in the order of kind of CAD 3 million.
That covers the capital for that. It gives us runway for the operation of the facility, of course, and spend at the plant. As we said, we expect to be a cash flow breakeven on the plant kind of positive in Q2. At the end of the day, it provides some kind of coverage for that. The second thing is, we've said we are minimizing the CapEx spend on Baltimore and Hamilton. What this does is, depending on when the engineering for the upgrade is finished and that will be integrated into the new designs, this CapEx also gives us the opportunity to order long lead items.
It gives us great optionality and financial flexibility, without having to adhere to kind of any balance sheet pressure at all.
Excellent. Another question here. Just circling back to that upgrade, will there be no production happening or full production, or what does that look like in terms of revenue generation during the upgrade period?
From start to finish, we suspect that to be kind of around about a 4-week duration. Now, Mark Bishop is on the call, he would probably be like, "Okay, don't make any promises here 'cause it's not fully engineered yet." I'm sorry, I should apologize and not make any promises here until it's fully engineered. We actually think that the production can be optimized. I would say of the four weeks, you know, what? Like a week to 10 days or seven days-10 days worth of operation. Remember, the real advantage about being able to do this is you can work 24/7. That's the way. That's the model that we're talking about deploying so we can minimize production.
As Mark would say, we have not finished engineering this yet. It's an interim answer, but certainly the drive is especially kind of, you know, in the fall, which is also peak asphalt season, we wanna ensure we're producing as much as we can. That will be a consideration with respect to kind of timing and working weekends and all that kind of good stuff.
Great. Thank you. We've got a few questions here about the expansion, and I think, we'll just jump in kind of with an overview in helping investors understand what that sort of timeline looks like from today for Hamilton and Baltimore to commercial production, which has been pushed out slightly.
Yeah. Look, I think my view is that let us step back. The most important thing is to integrate the lessons that we've learned in Calgary. That's the most important thing. We do not want production delays, commissioning delays, et cetera, in our next two facilities. You know, Calgary should take all of that because this is where we should learn it all and apply it. There's two ways we have to do that. Number one is to actually, you know, learn from it, number one. Number two is engineer it out. That's what Mark's job is to absolutely understand the upgrade, absolutely understand the yields that are coming out of the facility, and absolutely understand the final engineering that goes into Hamilton and Baltimore.
That to me is worth delaying the implementation of those facilities for. I think that engineering will be completed, you know, as we come out of Q3 into Q4. Let's be clear, there are a number of different pieces of long lead items that we can order today because they're doing exactly what we expect them to be doing at the facility. We're producing high quality asphalt, so we know that the hydrocarbon system is working really, really well. We could literally design that and order it tomorrow. The handling of materials that we've now optimized at the facility, those.
The engineering for that needs and integrated into a plant layout and a plant design, et cetera, et cetera, that's the stuff that needs a bit more consideration with respect to kind of engineering and procurement, et cetera. That's likely not ready to be deployed with new pieces of kit ordered until Q4. If I was estimating, you know, a perfect kind of like from today, I would say procurement in Q4. I would say construction in the second half of 2027. I would say Q1 2028 for first commercial production. That's what. Sorry, Josh, that's what we reflected on the slides. The updated slide reflects that. I think that's our best view today.
Perfect. Just to build on, you had mentioned specific learnings from the first commercial facility are being incorporated into the standardized design. Can you comment at all on sort of what sort of things are being included and how they help to reduce cost or risk of these future facilities?
No, I'll go back to the. Of the 130 people on this call, there are a number of people who would like the detailed answer to that question, which I will not give.
That's fair. Let's see. I think there's some questions here about stock for Calgary. Are there any updates on feedstock for Calgary or anything that you can share currently?
No. Still the same. We still have the Ecco contract, City of Calgary and Ecco. Yeah, all the same. The only update with respect to the question that I get regularly asked between 40,000 tons a day and 80,000 tons a day, as we've talked about before, 80,000 tons a day, which would be the potential of the Ecco emptying their landfill, is still in the permitting process with both the City of Calgary and the province. No clarity on timing on that yet. The discussion's ongoing, and we're trying to support that obviously, because we'd be the destination for recycling all of that.
Yeah, our three contracts remain in place. You know, very secure for 40,000 tons a year or the, you know, CAD 5 million worth of EBITDA we have in the presentation on the web.
Great. Very helpful, I'm sure. One other question here with respect to the expansion of facilities. Do you expect that the Baltimore facility will have a shorter timeline considering there is an existing building, or are there other factors to consider?
I mean, I expect all facilities to have a shorter timeline in construction and commissioning. Now maybe it's not the fifth and the sixth one where I expect them to be ramped up in three months and commissioned in one week. Mark and I have talked about, of course, what the project schedule looks like, what the commissioning schedule looks like, et cetera. There are other considerations in terms of getting the equipment in, et cetera. Sometimes it's easier to build on a greenfield and just put a building around it. Sometimes it's easier if the building is there. It depends on the size and the scale and the layout of the building.
Lots of considerations which don't say it should be that you'd say it should be faster, but the fact it's the second one and the third one actually means it should be not only faster but more efficient and commissioned earlier. Oh, and sorry, and commissioned without our three bottlenecks. Actually commissioned straight to full commercial performance.
Perfect. Maybe just one last question here. The company's been quiet for a few months. What sort of announcements should investors look for in the near term?
I look at. We've had lots of feedback that we have been too quiet. I understand that. This presentation. Of course we've been working on the three strategic elements that we chatted about today. We've been working on the plant, we've been working on the organization, and we've been working on financing. As many of you that I've chatted to directly know, I mean, I want to come to the market and present exactly where we're at. There's no point in me coming to the market to say, "Well, we think we find a transfer of material issue, but don't worry, we will fix it." It's way better for me to come to the market and go, "We did find this. It's not surprising.
It happens with all first scale-up facilities, and it's fixed. Now you can expect to see product moving, and now you can expect to see asphalt coming out more, and now you can expect to see, you know, financials that we can chat about. Yeah, it all does feel that we have not been as transparent, and that's been deliberate. I will not apologize for that, it's a fact, but that's honestly where we've been. I think you'll see some. In Q2, of course, one of the next targets for us is Emissions Reduction Alberta, the milestone. That's got you know kind of production milestones in it.
As you guys all know, the thing that's key about that is it's 20 days worth of production over 100 tons. Now, there are other criteria that are in there, but that's a major milestone. You know, TAMKO debenture at the same time, of course, is a major milestone. Actually, the close of this $10 million in the next couple of weeks is a major milestone from a financing perspective. Yeah, that's what I think you'll see. Probably number one, the closing of the $10 million in the next couple of weeks. Then you'll see, as I say, Emissions Reduction Alberta in Q2, Emissions Reduction Alberta and TAMKO.
You know, we will be transparent about the feedback on the planning for the shutdown or the turnaround and the upgrade and when we expect that to happen. You know, great question about, well, what's that really gonna do to your production? We'll have a much better idea for that when the engineering is completed, which again should be in Q2. I think we'll be able to be transparent on what that looks like. Also be able to feedback on the production levels at the plant.
Great. Thank you. I think that's all the time we have, so if you have any closing remarks, go for it.
No, I mean, look, three things to walk away with today. Again, apologies for the press release coming out, you know, five minutes after the presentation started. Look, number one, this journey is getting us to a place whereby we, you know, this is an operating commercial asset. Now, having operated it, we absolutely know the improvements to make. Three have been done, one to be done in the upgrade. That's the honest, transparent assessment of where we are as a business with our first operating facility.
The second one is, you know, with long-term financial investors, who have stepped up in terms of support us, but also are strategic and $10 million coming into the company, that's a phenomenal place for us to be, and should make shareholders happy. I think that the probability of success of the Hamilton and Baltimore facilities is increased significantly by what we've learned in Calgary. This is the first full-scale commercial facility we have built, and that's exactly what we've done. I think we are setting this business up brilliantly, for the rinse and repeat of rolling this out, across cities in North America. I think the learnings from Calgary will be applied everywhere we go. Thank you for the shareholders for, you know, bearing with us.
Maybe not being communicated to you as regularly as you wanted to. Hopefully this is a good line in the sand with respect to transparency and performance of the Calgary facility.
Great. Thanks everyone for joining, and we'll have a replay up, shortly.