Welcome to the annual shareholder meeting of Comstock Inc. Our host for today's call is Corrado De Gasperis, Executive Chairman and CEO of Comstock Inc. I will now turn the call over to your host, Corrado. You may begin.
Thank you, sir. Good morning and welcome to the 2025 annual shareholders meeting of Comstock Inc. I'm Corrado De Gasperis, Executive Chairman and CEO, and now also Executive Chairman of our newly separated private company, Bioleum Corporation, where we recently closed on the first tranche of a remarkable, highly valuable—certainly more valuable than the $700 million cap we talked about a few weeks ago—where we took in a highly strategic direct Series A investment of $20 million for what we expect will be about 2% of Bioleum Corp, and where we are now engaged with the most advanced and relevant oil, aviation, and geographic-savvy strategic investors who have now recognized and want to be an active part of this Bioleum system.
You finally answer the question of why someone would pay more than 10x of our market cap today in cash for direct ownership in a subsidiary, and the answer is Bioleum. The answer is access to our technology. The answer is access to these seed stocks and our oil, a new standard in oil. This is a watershed moment for all of our stakeholders, and as the broader energy community is starting to realize also a landmark event for the sustainability and sufficiency of global energy, mark these words—this is not an exaggeration—we will update and discuss all of this and more about both of our operating businesses and our investments as we complete the formal proceedings of this meeting. It's my pleasure to welcome you all to this meeting, and I thank you again for joining today.
We will conduct the business portion first and answer questions at the end. We'll do our best to answer as many questions as possible. We've got a whole bunch in the queue already that Zach is accumulating, but if not, we've already planned to dedicate a lot of the next few weeks to be following up and directly making sure that all of our investor base, all of you, are in clear and complete understanding of what these transactions, these transformative transactions, mean to us. We couldn't be more excited to share those details with you, and we will be filing an 8-K. As you can appreciate, I think we've been working around the clock over the last few months to get to this incredible milestone. All right. It is now 9:04 A.M. Pacific Time on May 22nd, 2025.
That would be 12:04 P.M. Eastern Time, and I'm officially calling the meeting to order. Let me first introduce and acknowledge our always and recently very hardworking independent directors, all of whom are present either physically here with me in Reno or online with us today. First, let me start with William J. Nance. Bill is our longest-serving director. He's got extensive real estate experience and even more extensive financial experience. He chairs both of our nominating and executive and strategic planning committees. He also guided us through our special committee work just recently, of course, for the Bioleum separation. As of our board meetings today, he will be nominated to be designated as the lead independent director. Bill emphasizes and always focuses, certainly with me and with the rest of the team, on alignment. Alignment with all of our stakeholders above all else.
The single most important variable in governance is the speed of which we achieve the goal, and alignment is the thing that gets us there. Next is Del Marting. Del's currently leading one of the most innovative neuroscience-based companies that is especially transformative in treating and curing life-destroying addictions. Remarkably, he also has extensive metals and mining background and extensive financial and capital markets experience. He served in the Navy after graduating Yale and Harvard, where he also served on SEAL Team Two. Del is currently the chair of our audit and finance committee, and we thank him for all of that service. Leo Dozdoff, the former director of Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. He was responsible, frankly, effectively for all natural resource extractions, environmental protections, water resources, forestry, state lands, and even the state's historic preservation office. He chairs, logically, our environmental and also our compensation committee.
These three gentlemen have also been designated as the future directors representing Comstock Inc, along with myself as chair of Bioleum Corporation going forward. We also have Ms. Kristin Slanina with us today, a leader and transformational professional in mobility after spending over two decades with the Ford Motor Company and also led Fiat Chrysler's fuel economy, greenhouse gas, and propulsion strategy, among so many more things. She is an MIT graduated engineer who was actually, ironically, interestingly, the first person to flag to me one of the lignin cellulosic breakthroughs by Dr. Yuriy Leshkov at MIT that ultimately, coincidentally, led to our NREL-MIT collaboration on aviation and other extremely low-carbon fuel activities. Dr.
Güez Salinas, now also a veteran of our board, Güez served as a United States Marine, holds multiple bachelor's degrees from Stanford University and a master's degree and PhD from the University of Southern California with cybersecurity specialization and certification from their School of Engineering. He also founded, quite proudly from my perspective, and currently serves as the director emeritus of the Polymathic Academy for Teaching and Human Sciences, where he mentors and develops students of multidisciplinary entrepreneurial pursuits, young leaders. Last, but certainly not least, Kevin Kreisler, most recently Comstock Fuels' chief innovator and longstanding senior executive and spiritual leader, and now a new Chief Executive Officer who is always a serious and grounded fiduciary for LODE shareholders.
Because of this incredible, I would say, herculean, I would say, systemic, I would say, incredible fuels team effort after the annual meeting today, we'll be stepping down from the Comstock board as it takes the full reins of Bioleum Corporation as their new CEO. I really enjoy that extended introduction. Thank you to all the directors for the hard work and diligence. It's always underappreciated by most people, but not by us. We know how much work it takes to be a good governor and a good fiduciary. As of your attendance today, even if and when we do accept Kevin's resignation, we're beginning a whole new chapter of serving as Comstock directors and Bioleum's largest shareholder. Regarding management, let me just say, in addition to Kevin, we have David Winsness, Chad Michael Black, Rahul Bobbili, Colby Korsun, Mike Riebel.
These gentlemen represent the original founders of the three companies that were amalgamated originally, from our perspective, to form Comstock Fuels and now, again, of course, becoming Bioleum Corporation. David, Chad, Rahul is actually here with us in person today. These men are not employees. They're not even just innovators or entrepreneurs. In some contexts, considering the battles we've been through, warriors, they're, of course, all of that. We do feel, as a team, this company has been battle-born. I couldn't be prouder and, frankly, sincerely more humbled to be part of this Bioleum-derived team. Let me also welcome back to the Comstock management team, Judd Merrill, our returning Chief Financial Officer, now also President of Comstock Mining.
Judd's proven experience in metals, mining, clean energy, financial, and public company governance and reporting makes him an incredibly valuable leader and, critically, a huge contributor to Comstock, which enables a huge capacity increase for the rest of our team and especially me. We will be prioritizing the capital needs for now the explosively growing Comstock Metals above all else and also look to optimize our mining assets for productive use. Speaking of Comstock Metals, Dr. Fortunato Villamagna, also here with us, the President of Comstock Metals, who's also an innovator, an entrepreneur, and in many, many ways, the epitome of a leader who leads by example, be it science, be it materials, be it quality, be it process, be it supply chain, or just being in the mock decommissioning panels for major customers.
I'm quickly learning how consummate this man is in all those respects, especially as a leader. We also have Zach Spencer, our Corporate Secretary and Treasurer, who's also been foundational in many aspects of our corporate governance, but certainly our proxy to AGM delivery process, and Clyde Tinnen, who is our very special outside counsel who will be serving today as our inspector general. Almost there. Bear with me. I'd like to acknowledge Ms. Delaine Gruber, who is our lead partner at Assure CPA, our independent registered public accounting firm, who's also in attendance for today's meeting and is always available to shareholders for questions. We welcome you all to the AGM. We plan on conducting an informative, constructive meeting. We very much appreciate your cooperation in observing the rules that allow us to provide equal opportunity for all shareholders. I'm going to just review the agenda.
I've done the introductions and announcements. I've done the introductions and the announcements. Following that, I'm going to shift this over to the secretary's report. Then we'll go through the business of the meeting, which has three items on that agenda. We'll get the report from Clyde as the inspector general. We will conclude the annual meeting adjournment. I'm going to give a brief overview of the state of the union, wherein we will then go into questions and answers, all of that, of course, following the adjournment of the meeting. From a rules perspective, please submit your questions in the designated field in that web portal. Please, out of consideration to others, if you could limit yourself to just one or two questions, we would appreciate it. As I said earlier, we'll try to get to as many of them as possible.
Also, please note that the meeting is being recorded. With all of that, let me introduce Zach Spencer, our Corporate Secretary, for the Secretary's report.
Thank you, Corrado. The Board of Directors set March 25th, 2025, as the record date for determining the shareholders entitled to notice of and to vote at this meeting. Shareholders of record at the close of business on March 25th, 2025, were provided with notice of the meeting and may vote either online during this meeting or by duly authorized proxies. As Corrado just mentioned, Clyde Tinnen is acting as the Inspector of Election, and he has taken his oath as the Inspector of Election. Based on the information from our transfer agent, EQ Equinity and Broadridge Financial Solutions, as well as the bylaws of the company, a quorum is present, and this meeting has been duly called for business. Our Chairman, Mr.
De Gasperis has reviewed the agenda and the rules of conduct for the annual meeting. In fairness to all shareholders and in order to permit an orderly meeting, we ask that participants abide by these rules. There will be time to address questions immediately following Executive Chairman De Gasperis's presentation. Corrado?
Thanks, Zach. Okay. There are only three matters of business on the agenda. We consider them all routine. Shareholders of record and their duly appointed proxies are entitled to vote on all three of these matters. The votes will be tallied after the resolutions have been presented and discussed. The first matter that is open to voting is the election of nominees to serve as directors on the board of the company to expire at the 2026 annual meeting of shareholders.
The following individuals have been nominated for election as directors of the board of directors of Comstock: myself, Corrado De Gasperis, Leo Dozdoff, Kevin Kreisler, Del Marting, Bill Nance, Güez Selinas, and Kristin Slanina. The second matter on the agenda is the proposal to ratify the appointment of Assure CPA LLC as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2025. The third matter on the agenda, which is customary, is the proposal to approve a non-binding advisory resolution relating to the compensation of our named executive officers. It's just a non-binding advisory resolution. There are no compensation matters that are specific to speak of on any agenda item here today. Those are the three matters that are now before us, and we are ready to vote.
It is 9:17 A.M. Pacific Time, 12:17 P.M. Eastern Time, and the polls are now open. Any shareholder who has not yet voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web portal and following those instructions there. Shareholders who have sent in proxies already or who have voted via telephone or online on the internet and do not want to change their vote, you do not need to take any further action. Sorry. We are going to pause to allow for any and all voting that needs to proceed at this point before we turn back to the inspector of elections. Just give us a few minutes, please. Okay. All right. Mr. Inspector, it is now 9:19 A.M. Pacific Time, 12:19 P.M. Eastern Time. I want to declare and will declare that the polls are now closed. Mr.
Tinnen, can you make your report at this time?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Clyde Tinnen. As inspector of election, I've reviewed the report of Broadridge as to the proxies submitted prior to the meeting and all information that I've received thus far regarding votes submitted during this meeting. Based on the preliminary reports of the voting to be certified to me, I wish to announce the following. All seven individuals who are nominated to serve as the board of directors of the corporation have been elected by a majority of the votes cast. The appointment of Assure CPA LLC as the company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ended December 31st, 2025, has been ratified by a majority of the votes cast.
Finally, the non-binding resolution relating to the compensation of the company's named executive officers has been approved by a majority of the votes cast.
Thank you, Clyde. I will now entertain a motion to adjourn the formal meeting. Even before I do that, I just want to acknowledge that all the directors were voted in, including Kevin, even though we will be accepting his resignation so he can fully dedicate his services to all of the Bioleum stakeholders, including, of course, Comstock. With that, do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting?
Yes. This is Bill Nance. I move that we adjourn the formal meeting.
A second, please?
Yes. Del Marting, I second that motion.
Outstanding. I have a motion from Bill Nance and a second from Del Marting. This does adjourn the formal agenda of the annual general meeting.
I am going to now turn to provide a business update. Let me caution everyone that certain information that I will be presenting may contain, certainly will contain, forward-looking statements as stated on, hopefully, the slide that is on the screen and certainly contained in our press release and certainly contained also within our previously filed 10-Q and 10-K reports. Before I dive in, I just want to repeat that I am personally genuinely thrilled that we were able to separate fuels into this highly valued, now well-capitalized, independent company. We now have both Marathon Petroleum and a new, highly strategic, extremely high-net-worth investor in our Series A as well for Bioleum Corporation.
Everyone, I think, understands that Marathon has partnered with us in a highly engaged, jointly developing manner for our products, with a focus on ensuring the quality of Bioleum oils, the pathway approvals, and all of the relevant product-related offtakes that come from the first facility that we are planning to build in Oklahoma. Less understood, of course, is that our new investor and their extended Oklahoma network, their team based in Oklahoma, are extremely high on oil and gas. They're extremely high on Oklahoma, where they currently make most of their investments, and they're extremely high on our Bioleum management team. It was, in fact, our Oklahoma-based team that made the connections with that team and really positioned us.
Over the course of the last three and a half months, which has included many trips to Oklahoma, which has included corroborative efforts on site selection, this Oklahoma team together is who secured the $3 million incentive grant. It is the team that secured the $152 million bond application and, as I just mentioned, is working diligently now to finalize the site selection from a number of remarkable sites. We are acting almost already as one team, and it feels highly strategic. The agreed-upon valuation for this tranche is much higher than the $700 million that we capped or that Marathon wanted to be capped at, which we are very thrilled with. It is not the final, final, because the way that we have structured this thing is that the final Series A valuation will harmonize to this incredibly strategic group of investors that we are engaged in.
The rest of the Series A, which we expect will be at least $50 million, has already been circled with the other strategics that we are engaged with. In every case, like people understand with Marathon, joint development agreements, offtake agreements, all which are moving forward and in progress and probably will take longer than the end of this month to finalize because we all put aside that activity to get this monumental transaction done for the benefit of all of our Series A investors, including Marathon, including the Oklahoma-based team, and including the ones that we are trying to get to the finish line. We did say that we would get this tranche done in the second quarter. We have done that. We will move expeditiously to get the rest of the $50 million block done. It may or may not be in the second quarter.
It certainly would be in the third quarter. I do not think we ever said we would get the whole thing done in the second quarter, but people might have thought that. We are also getting a lot more interest, right? For us, the threshold of interest is not financial. It is strategic. If someone adds a feedstock angle, a geographic license, an offtake, anything that strengthens and extends and builds our system, we are all for doing that. We expect all this to be complete over a number of months, and we are very, very excited about it. Just as importantly, with $20 million in the bank, not only is Fuels now funded and accelerating its plans, but a substantial majority, let's say 55%, 65%, 70%, depending on the week, of Comstock's liquidity needs have now been fully funded.
When we first structured Bioleum Corp, of course, we had 100%, but we have granted and incented our founding management team 20% of the equity, exactly the way that we're doing it with Comstock Metals, but it's based on performance, and it's fully restricted until we achieve the IPO of Bioleum Corp. One of the things that came out of all of these deliberations was that it was a unanimous consensus that Bioleum Corp should be a public company. It was equally unanimous as we went through the right and best ways to do that, is that we should take it public at the best possible time and the best possible valuation. Doing it prematurely before certain milestones, certain revenues, certain productions really, truly have been proven could be disastrous. That was something that we aligned and agreed on certainly was not dictated to us.
We're excited about that. The equity markets for Bioleum, the private equity markets, are strong. The public equity markets for renewable fuels, not so much, right? A premature public spinoff could have been a disaster, but quite frankly, we never really faced that because there wasn't a real efficient and effective way to get it anyway. We retain 80% of the underlying common. The founders get 20% restricted. Until when? Until the IPO is successfully completed. We did another thing. We also fully protected our investment to date. This preferred instrument of $65 million represents every penny that we invested, including the recent shares that were issued for settling some of these commitments. You saw some of that with the AST transaction. I mentioned there's some more of that with finalizing all of the acquisitional aspects of the Fuels businesses.
Not us, not the Series A, not anybody wanted to see any legacy issues move forward, and not anybody wanted to see any misalignment, right, with all stakeholders. It is not so obvious. It is not so clear. Sometimes it is just too nuanced, but we worked ridiculously hard to get that alignment. Now let's talk about the upside. We have a range of value now from $700 million, which is what Marathon capped their Series A investment in, and which I have pretty consistently since that time said people should consider that as the floor. This closing was well higher than that. Yes, well higher than that. It will not be finalized until the rest of the Series A comes in. Was it over a billion? Yes, it was. Okay. It is not relevant until the final Series A comes in.
You have a range that you could now work your head on. Wherever you end up in that range, the Series A is going to end up, I don't know, 10% ownership or less of Bioleum when we're done. We might upsize the Series A because the value is high and the interest is high. When people digest all of this, when they can validate it, when they can confirm it, LODE will move up. Judd and I are personally committed to ensuring that this is well understood with both existing and new investors over the next few weeks and the next few months.
As additional sophisticated strategic names start entering the Series A book, you're going to recognize these names not only in this higher value range, but with offtakes, but with new license agreements, but with new feedstock agreements, and more, then I think the market will probably start to adjust and understand. I'm telling you, despite all the work that's been done, we're just getting started. Let's be clear. The companies are fully separate. This was a requirement of the Series A investor, but it was also what we envisioned we would want to do when we published the shareholder letter in January, right? We believe soundly, strongly that it's the best possible outcome for both companies. Fuels has a higher risk, higher capital, longer lead time to revenue, although maybe not as long as people are thinking. Metals is here now and today. Sales are booming.
Panels are flowing. With over 12 months of operation under our belt, expanded permits submitted and progressing, relatively much lower capital requirements, and cash-positive outlooks in place once the industry-scale facility is up and running. Despite all of our initial plans, these two businesses matured very differently, very positively, very largely, right? We believe there's really no value in our stock for Metals today, like zero. I don't know why that is. I mean, this split was originated in concept at the board level because people don't know how to value us. We are making it simpler, right? We want to see that to start. We want to see that change starting today, right? Because we're now more capable, more able to clearly demonstrate the value position of these two companies. I saw some of the questions coming in already. I want to be clear.
I'm going to be the only employee of both companies, of both Comstock, continuing with no change as Executive Chairman and CEO, although Judd relieves me of my principal financial officer responsibilities. In Bioleum, also as the Executive Chairman, but also as the principal financial officer, Chief Financial Officer, leading the rest of this dedicated recapitalization, both completing the Series A together with the Fuels leadership team, which has pretty much done 100% of the work to date themselves, remarkably, and also the bond offering and the capital required to build that first facility for Oklahoma, serial number one. Kevin is the CEO. Chad Michael Black, President. David Winsness, Chief of Technology. And frankly, chief commercializer, chief monetizer, chief integrator. Rahul's the Chief Engineer. You've seen some of the expansions that are going on. Elvis is going to direct aviation. Colby's leading Oklahoma.
Now Steve Gellner, who represented the Series A investor and is designated by them as the first Series A Bioleum board member. The team goes on and on and on. There are too many to name. I mean, Wendy Owens directing Hexas and the critical farm feedstock growth strategy. It is global. It is real. It is big. It is a whole system. This separation and the capital fulfills the first phase of the plans that we outlined earlier this year and positions us with two high-growth companies, one focused on renewable metals and mining here in Nevada and the other on renewable fuels headquartered in Oklahoma. It is enabling two extremely different businesses and capital profiles. It provides now the platform for each to thrive in their own markets. In doing so, I believe we are unleashing unprecedented opportunities for growth and value creation.
Comstock now holds 65 million of preferred stock in Bioleum, convertible into 32.5 million common shares, nearly the exact number of total outstanding shares that LODE will have, assuming the full conversion of our remaining $4 million in convertible notes and an additional $2 million that we've committed to issue and settle in the restructuring of these final remaining legacy commitments associated with the acquisitions of the fuel business. This was another requirement of the Series A, as I just mentioned, but we did it in a way that increases our protections, fully aligns the team, eliminates all legacy issues. Look, with 32.5 million shares, even at a $700 million floor, we're pushing almost $20 a share for LODE, determinable now. As I said, Series A ownership's not going to exceed 10% of the company. It may exceed 10%.
We may raise more money, but that's a good benchmark. I mean, consider all that, especially if you compare it to what I agreed to do last summer, which was to sell 40% of the Fuels business for $300 million pre-money that SBC was offering. And I accept it. We could easily triple that value when we wrap up the Series A this and next quarter. The infusion of growth capital, which has happened, validates Bioleum's strategy, and it provides it the real resources to accelerate the next phase of development. I'm sick and tired of people complimenting us on how much we did with so little. Okay? The fact remains that we were constrained. If you're constrained by capital, that means management's doing something wrong. We're fixing it.
These funds will support the continuing development as we complete our engineering, the financing, the construction of this first 400,000-barrel-per-year commercial facility in Oklahoma. We expect that facility to do over $30 million in annual operating income once it's up and running. More importantly, it's going to showcase commercial viability to everybody. We've already showcased that commercial viability to industry-sophisticated, competent, knowledgeable oil and gas producers. We want to demonstrate it to everybody. We've already advanced the site selection. We're almost there. Engineering has already been constructed for the two or three sites that we're narrowing in on. We're working on and have full schedules for project-level financing, permitting, regulatory approvals, everything needed, right? Now fueled by the Series A capital.
I'd love to remind people that when the first corn ethanol bill was built, the first facility for corn ethanol was built in the United States, almost 200 more followed in about seven years. That's 16 billion gallons of ethanol just in the United States alone, with just a quarter of that kind of a build-out, right? Our value proposition is galactic. Again, just in the U.S. markets alone. Now, we're talking about Bioleum ad nauseam, but with Bioleum separated, our metals business is now positioned to grow stronger and faster than ever. We're proud to report that Comstock Metals' revenues continue growing rapidly, and Fortunato is leading us to the highest levels of industry recognition. We recently became the first company in North America to earn the stringent R2, Version 3, and RIOS certifications for zero-waste solar panel recycling. This is a groundbreaking certification. It's never been done before.
It validates that our recycling facility and processes meet the highest global standards for everything: for safety, for environmental stewardship, but critically, for total waste elimination. In fact, under this R2 standard, we demonstrated a 100% landfill-free process. Every single component of an end-of-life solar panel: the glass, the aluminum, the fines, the other metals, fully reclaimed, repurposed into new raw materials. Nothing goes to waste. This achievement's an extraordinary testament to our team's not just innovation, not just diligence, but foresight. I remember when we first started designing this first facility, Fortunato was like, "We should pursue R2 certification." It's going to have some challenges because no one's ever really done this before. I kind of just went in one ear and out the other. This proves that this proprietary thermal recycling technology, the delamination, the elimination of contaminants, can deliver commodity-grade outputs from solar trash.
Some of it is trashy, with all parts of the panel being fully recycled. Maybe more importantly, or just as importantly, it gives our customers the validated assurance. It gives our regulators, our partners, the validated assurance that Comstock operations meet the absolute highest bar for responsible recycling. What does R2 stand for? Responsible recycling. Without any reliance—this is key. This is key. This business has zero reliance on government incentives. Zero. It is highly profitable on its own two legs. We have essentially built a new kind of mine above the ground that harvests these critical materials, these critical metals from retired solar panels instead of digging ore from the earth. To be clear, we do not mind digging ore from the earth. In this business, we are taking it out of these solar panels. It is literally a world-class silver mine. It is not a world-class silver mine today.
It's a world-class silver model. It's going to be a world-class silver mine pretty damn soon, right? It just keeps going. With that in hand, our teams are aggressively—and Fortunato is aggressively scaling up our sales and marketing competencies. We're adding sales. We're adding marketing to meet this surging demand. Our people cannot keep up with the customer demands for all of these solar panels. We've been expanding all of the above while maintaining that zero landfill promise. We're also securing and expanding new permits. We're expanding permits for more adjacent storage. You'll hear about that in the next few weeks. We're deep into the process for getting the full approval of moving up to the industry scale.
I'll tell you, once we've got the capital dedicated and secured for the industry-scale facility, we're going to be very quickly looking at site number two and site number three. We want to scale. We don't want our fair share of the market. We want to dominate the market, just to be clear, right? That's our goal. It's proven. It's sustainable. It's robust. It's positioned for exponential growth. I just want to sort of summarize and wrap up with the emphasis from all of us here, the entire board, that we have the highest level of confidence for both of these businesses moving forward. We spent the last four years investing in new technology, sometimes being mocked about what we were trying to do. Unbelievable, we hear.
Overcoming these challenges, relentlessly driving not just towards TRL6, not just towards TRL7, but full commercialization of two, frankly, revolutionary platforms. The effort's now culminated in a historic achievement. We've launched Bioleum as an independent company, and we've fortified Metals as a standalone powerhouse. We're now operating with a sharpened focus in each business. Our commitment is to enable energy independence. It's a big thing. It's a huge goal, enabling energy independence. It's mind-boggling when David Winsness or Kevin or someone is sitting there talking to the leader of a country and does the math as to how much biomass is required for us to convert to fuels to give a country energy independence, and it pencils. It's remarkable.
We emerged Comstock, the residual company, for lack of a better description, as a much more streamlined enterprise, much lower capital needs, much more focused, whereas Bioleum is charging ahead to reinvent fuels as we know it with this world-class technology. We are literally leading, literally, literally setting new standards as we move forward to attack these markets. I am just going to summarize, and we will go to questions. A, we have completed the separation of fuels into Bioleum earlier than planned, albeit differently, while preserving all the value and options for our shareholders. We have a $65 million stake. It sits on underlying 32.5 million shares, as I said before, 80%, with management restricted at 20% plus the Series A. We are positioned for the IPO. It is on everybody's radar screen. When people ask me, "How long can we expect it?" I do not know. Hopefully, it is three years.
Hopefully, it's less than three years. There's a lot of factors that can make it go faster. At the end of the day, the market and the board will decide what maximizes the value and puts the company in the best position to go far, far, far beyond whatever that IPO value will be, and it will be tremendous. Metals is extraordinary as a first mover. It has the advantage. It has now doubled down on that advantage with R2 certification in North America. No one's done that before, and it's moving fast. That's it. Let me wrap it up. Let me move to Zach, hopefully, who is handling all these questions. Zach, do you have our first question?
Yes, Corrado. We've had several questions submitted.
The first one is, "When do you believe you will complete the Series A, and how much of Bioleum do we own today?"
I know some of these will be redundant, okay? I think that for the people who are already in the queue, who are already working towards the $50 million, could be June, could be July, could be August, it will not be once. It will be tranche two, tranche three, tranche four. It will all be identical. It will be the Series A. If it grows, if it expands, if we did more, it could go to September. I do not see it likely going past September.
The beauty of what's happened now is 95% of our teams put the pencil down on Series A and go to work into Oklahoma, go to work into monetization, go to work into integrations, and a little tiny team finishes off the Series A to the finish line because all the hard work, all the heavy lifting was done with this first closing and this separation, okay? I don't think that Series A will end up to be too much more or less than 10% of the company.
Okay. When will you start capital raising for the first Oklahoma refinery?
That work, everybody, I think, appreciates. Oklahoma allocated $152 million of tax-free municipal industrial bonds. People might not appreciate those bonds are only eligible for use if you're taking waste and making a reusable product. Footnote, metals does that too, but fuels does that.
We're talking with major banks, recognized names in Wall Street. We will be solidifying those agreements very shortly here. The project plan is really nicely in front of us. I mean, it could be six months. It could be nine months to get all of that work done. The faster we get on it, the better we are. However, it will not hold up site selection for Oklahoma, nor will it hold up final engineering for Oklahoma. If we could keep the reins on Rahul, it might not even hold up putting deposits on some of the equipment for Oklahoma. There's the gray line there where we want to make sure that the project-level financing is really in place to start deploying hard assets.
We have a question from James.
Is Marathon's $13 million-$14 million contribution part of the $20 million Series A, or is it all cash? What percent of Bioleum does LODE own? What valuation is the $20 million?
Thanks, James. No. The $20 million is cash, that investment directly into Bioleum Corporation. The $13 million was in-kind, state-of-the-art, world-class pilot facility in Madison, Wisconsin, which has now been integrated with our Wausau, Wisconsin facility. Think about Wausau doing all the front-end work with the feedstocks all the way to a certain point of material that will then go to Madison, where it is taken all the way through to the final product. Madison is extraordinary. I mean, I'm certain we could not have built something like that for $13 million, for $39 million, for $50 million. Even if we could have, it would have taken us forever.
We hit the ground running now with a fast track to TRL7, even potentially producing up to one and a half, two barrels a week of materials. This accelerates everything we want to do, from customer validation to ASTM certification to pathway approvals, etc., etc. Marathon, of course, is intimate with that facility. As a joint development partner, there is a monster synergy there. Those Series A might be like Series A1, right? Because if we exceed the valuation cap, which I feel certain we are going to, then there will be a slightly different designation on the underlying common, but everything else will be identical. We will have $50 million of cash from Series A plus $13 million of in-kind of Series A-1, $63 million-$64 million, all said and done.
Okay. When would you expect an IPO, and why not just spin it out public today?
Yeah.
I think I commented on this peripherally a couple of times, but there's a tremendous amount of work that Bioleum needs to do, okay? Unlike metals, they don't have a TRL7 facility running three shifts for over a year. Unlike metals, it's not $12 million for a facility. It's $1.2 billion for a facility. Now, obviously, the first one we said is $200 million because it's going to be smaller scale. It doesn't have the same path to revenue, okay? There's a lot of immaturities that we are maturing. Taking a company public in advance when it has no revenue, when it's developing technology to TRL6, anybody have an example of that? Anybody know what a valuation for that kind of company looks like? It sucks.
We did not want to take the chance of repeating that situation until, and let me be very strong on this, neither did the Series A investors. Why would you want to go public before? Why would you want to put at risk the capital stack and the valuation that you're building so methodically? The answer is we do not. We will do it when the market's screaming for it, and then it will be a very strong valuation if we execute that well, which we will.
Thank you, Corrado. We do have a question from Bill. Do you feel vindicated that the share price is higher today than at the point of the reverse split?
No. No. That is a weird question. Let me tell you, I feel abused, from where the share price is today.
The fact that the share price is at three bucks and that's higher than after we did the reverse split, right? They both suck. Let me put it that way, okay? I will say, though, I will say, though, that what was most frustrating and what I appreciated the most in February, the frustrating part was the analogical thinking. If every reverse split is terrible, then you must be terrible, okay? That was frustrating. What I really appreciated is every one of our investors that I reached out to willing to spend an hour, two hours, three hours understanding what we were trying to do. And that time was, I hope everyone feels, very well spent because I was really able to explain why we were different than every other reverse split, which was simple. We have two extraordinary businesses. They both need capital. Without capital, they're worthless, okay?
We don't like how we got there, but we are ecstatic that we got there. To have these two opportunities sitting in front of us now, to have strategic partners wanting to join the system, and look, at the end of the day, I think I've already said this, but I'm going to repeat it. Why are people willing to pay exponentially more to invest in Bioleum than what we are valued at overall? Because they want the oil. Because nobody else can deliver this amount of oil. It's the only company on the planet that has cracked the code on lignin on an industry scale. Inverting the curve is practical. Enabling an independent country to be energy independent is feasible. And everybody is now, as they realize and validate, of course, they have to do their work. They want to go at it.
If there's any lesson out of it or an appreciation, it's thanking the investors who said, "I don't want to be analogical. I'd rather understand the cause and effect of what's going on here, and then I can make my own decisions." You know what? Frankly, some understood it and said, "I want to sell because this is riskier than I thought it was." Some were like, "I want to buy because this is bigger than I thought it was." That's fair.
Corrado, we have a two-part question. Will you be announcing additional offtakes and license agreements for Bioleum Corporation? Will you be filing an 8-K for all of these transactions?
In the latter question, we will be filing an 8-K. There's a lot of complexity here.
I think I've done my best effort to try to hit both in the shareholder letter and in this call the most salient points. I don't feel like I missed any. I'll think about that as we're finishing up here because if I missed any, I want to mention it. That 8-K should be ready tonight. Certainly, it will be ready by tomorrow, and then we will file it. We will get right to work next week, making sure that people really understand everything that we've overviewed here. Can you repeat the other part of the question? I forgot what it was.
Yes. Will you be announcing additional offtakes and license agreements?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think everybody knows that we're working with Marathon because it's publicly been noticed on joint development agreement, offtake agreement.
I mentioned earlier that all of us in the Series A universe had to put that aside for a minute and get through what we just got through. That will be extended and continue. The work and the partnership with Marathon is special. Their competency in renewable fuels is off the charts. The people are just really good people, really smart, really dedicated, really win-win minded. Everyone and their mother, though, wants an offtake agreement, okay? We will have many, many, many offtake agreements. When Elvis hits the ground, hopefully many, many, not just for Bioleum oils or renewable diesels, but aviation fuel as well.
Corrado, we have a question from Scott, actually two questions. Is the solar panel recycling pilot plant running a steady state and two shifts? I guess there is a third one as well. What are silver sales?
Oh, Scott, Scott, Scott.
I wonder what Scott that is. The metals facility is fully staffed for three shifts. Currently, those three shifts are handling two cycles, two full cycles. As we tighten up the operation of those two cycles with our new scrubbing equipment and with our new enhancements for crushing, it will move to three cycles, right? We are even expanding some capacity in the demonstration facility because of the demand in advance of the industry-scale facility. We are selling all—I know this was not the exact question—we are selling all of the aluminum that we produce. As soon as we have a truckload, we ship it. We are selling all of the glass that we produce. As soon as we have a truckload, we ship it. What we have is silver-rich fines. We are not refining pure silver.
We do not have silver sales, but we sell all those fines as soon as we have a truckload. Now, having said that, we do intend to develop ultimately downstream refining, but industry-scale facility number one, industry-scale facility number two, maybe even industry-scale facility number three has priority over that because we are capturing and trying to dominate the market. I want to say one other thing. No, let us go. Our time is short. One more question. Just take one more question.
Okay. Let us see. Will you be announcing—wait, let me make sure I get the right one here. What does the rest of 2025 look like for metals and are the permits progressing?
Good question. Yeah. We targeted the end of this year for—this is a great question, actually, Zach. Thank you. We targeted the end of this year for the permits. Mostly, those are state permits.
We have already achieved the county's conditional use permit for the operation and storage at 600 Lake Avenue. We are expanding storage with another county permit very near 600 Lake Avenue. The state permits, though, those are the mother load, right? The state permits are what allow us to ramp up to industry scale. In conjunction with that, right, we need to start putting deposits in June or July on those equipments so that the equipment lead times sort of land close to or within the boundaries of when the permits land. The plan seems to be on track that all of that, both permits and equipments, would be received before the end of this year for commissioning in Q1 of next year.
Okay. Thank you, Corrado. If you submitted a question and it did not get answered, we will follow up.
Our investor relations team will follow up with those investors and their questions.
Outstanding. Thank you, everybody. I know this is a lot of information that was released this morning. Just really made the best effort to highlight almost all of the salient points. As Zach said, if you have questions that were submitted or if there are new questions that have come up through this dialogue, which we would expect, please do submit them. We have dedicated a meaningful amount of capacity to follow up and make sure all of our investors really understand the magnitude of what we just completed here. Thank you, everyone.
This now concludes the meeting. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. The host has ended this call. Goodbye.