Aqua Metals, Inc. (AQMS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Greetings, and welcome to the Aqua Metals investor call. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Glen Akselrod. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

Thank you, Victor, and thank you, everybody, for joining our webcast today with Aqua Metals. The purpose of today's presentation is to give our audience a better understanding of the business through our PowerPoint presentation and then a question-and-answer with management. That discussion will be led by CEO, Steve Cotton, who is also joined by CFO, Judd Merrill. You should see the presentation via the webcast, and I also would have e-mailed it earlier in PDF. If you don't have a copy and want one, simply email me, or you can download it from the Investors section of the Aqua Metals website. We will break for Q&A at the end of the formal presentation. And when we do break, we encourage questions. As a reminder, we're only taking questions via the web portal. If you're listening over the telephone, please access the web link sent earlier to ask a question. Remember, you could submit a question, use the question text box within the web portal at any time. I will ask the questions on the air for anyone to hear, and Steve or Judd will then answer. I'm not going to reference any names but simply read the questions asked. As we have a very large audience today, if I can't get to your question online in time and it can't be addressed during the call, I will come back to you via e-mail. If for some reason you're experiencing any issues, go to start, please remember you could e-mail me [email protected], and I'll be happy to assist. I'm not going to read the forward-looking statements, but I do state that they apply. And I reference them on Page 2 of this PowerPoint. With that said, once again, thank you for joining us. Remember, this is fairly informal, and we do encourage Q&A to help you better understand the business and its growth path. And now I'll turn the call over to Steve to start his part of the discussion and presentation.

Thank you, Glen. Welcome, everybody, and I will begin by saying that we're going to take everybody through our updated corporate presentation with new information in it. That will be inclusive of 2 exciting announcements that we made this week. One about our partnership with BASF, and the other about the ability of our technology to produce metal oxides, beginning with lead oxide, which we'll take you through as we discuss today. So this is the safe harbor. I won't read this for everybody, but I will encourage you to read this in your spare time. So we'll start with Aqua Metals at a glance. What you see is the right there, for those of you that haven't seen it, is what it looks like, you see lead made one atom at a time. And that is a group of cathodes that spin around that you can see in the upper part of the picture and the lead that flows off of each one of our electrolyzers ultimately onto a conveyor belt. And we'll describe the process as we go through the webinar today. So what Aqua Metals has done at a glance is, we've developed a commercially demonstrated and sustainable battery recycling technology that's called AquaRefining. And what's different about AquaRefining compared to the incumbent methodology is that we use water instead of fire and organic acids. And we actually create a really high-purity lead at 99.996-plus percent purity, and we really do that one atom of at a time through our innovative electronization process. And that is something that we think that the $20 billion lead recycling industry, which feeds into the overall lead acid battery industry, which is a $65 billion and growing battery industry with a transformative upgrade that both the industry, which we'll describe, really needs and that the earth really needs. And those 4 tenets of what we do are really important to internalize, which is, it's very environmentally beneficial to recycle lead through rock refining versus the incumbent processes, and we'll talk about that. It improves greatly worker safety because it's tanks, pipes and pumps and a closed system that remains wet with the lead to be processed. It's an opportunity to really increase battery performance and life cycle with the ultra pure lead. It's the impurities in lead that can impact the life cycle of a battery. And then the economics of AquaRefining, both from a capital expenditure per tonne of lead producible perspective as well as a conversion cost when you take into account the benefits of AquaRefining throughout the facilities that we would be deploying or refining in, it's very competitive with the incumbent methodologies. We are on the NASDAQ. We are based in Tahoe, Reno -- excuse me, we're originally based in California, but we're based in Tahoe, Reno, Nevada. Our AquaRefinery is in Tahoe Reno industrial center. And the company was founded in 2014. Cash on hand at the end of the last reporting period was $5.6 million. And we did also recently announce that we are debt-free, so our cash runway leaves the company with a very well-capitalized position for the future. So before I go to the next slide, we're going to play a video for folks to see what lead looks like to be made one atom at a time. Okay. So this next slide is a description of the incumbent methodology of smelting, which is what's deployed in the environment out there with all battery recycling facilities other than our refinery to this point versus AquaRefining. The incumbent methodology is one where it's dirty by its nature because you have to take the paste that comes off the batteries that you break apart and turn those into a lead dust. That's dried and carbon flex burn materials are brought in, and then you spoon feed those materials plus the paste that's now dust into a 3,000-degree furnace. And so you're using a dirty process to begin with, a lot of heat and fire and it's dangerous for the workers. You compare that to AquaRefining, which is an alternative to the smelting process, where we have a very clean process with tanks, pipes, pumps and wet process that keeps the lead out of dust form, much less worries about fugitive emissions and worker safety. And it's water-based with an organic biodegradable acid that we can recycle to recycle the batteries. And we'll talk about that in a future slide in terms of our relationship with BASF that we just announced. So here's the key business drivers for the company. And it starts with the fact that we're commercially ready now to sell AquaRefining equipment. We've completed our pilot demonstration plant. We've improved it and productized our solution, our electrolyzers, and we're ready to begin licensing and equipment supplying and providing services. We have a sales funnel with multiple candidates, and we are continuing to seek to announce the first site in the Q1-Q2 time frame of this year. And as we work through that sales funnel, we'll keep investors posted and the marketplace posted accordingly. The second point is that the industry and planet really do badly need an environmentally friendly recycling technology. Because it's all about sustainability. And what's the good news about lead acid recycling is that lead acid batteries are 100% recyclable, unlike any other battery chemistry, and we'll talk about that a little bit. But there are really important improvements needed in order to improve the recycling, environmental impact, worker safety and product quality and things like that. So we think AquaRefining is in a good place to help with that. The next point is AquaRefining has been derisked. This isn't a lab scale technology. This isn't a demonstration technology and a pilot scale. We've demonstrated this technology at commercial quantities, and we produced, in 2018 and 2019, 35,000 AquaRefined ingots at a premium that we sold to Clarios primarily, who is an investor and partner in the company who's the world's largest battery manufacturer. And demonstrated that we can consistently run those electrolyzers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and produce a consistent product that is qualified as a product that can be -- batteries can be manufactured for giants like Ford and Toyota, GM and others. We also have a very strong broad intellectual property portfolio. We've invested over $200 million to date towards the commercialization of Aqua Metals. And we have 62 patent applications filed and pending and 51 patents issued and allowed already in the U.S. and internationally. We'll show you a map a little later of the latest status. And I'd like to point out that, that's not only for lead, but it includes other metals. And we'll talk about other metals. There's obviously other batteries like a lithium-ion battery recycling opportunity that Aqua Metals thinks we can apply our technologies to. But even other metals such as zinc, copper and other potential things like precious metals, which we can talk about. Recent IP filings for the oxide that we just announced today, which I'll talk about in a future slide, really aim to transform not only lead acid battery manufacturing but the potentially to manufacture very high-purity oxides for any type of battery manufacturing in the long run. Our go-forward business model is to take our core technologies and process and commerciality of the AquaRefined lead already being proven and get into that equipment supply and licensing opportunity to get AquaRefining in the hands of the industry in the form of upgrades to existing facilities. And inclusive of that is builds of net new facilities, which we are seeing in developing portions of the world that are rapidly considering and building battery manufacturing and battery recycling facilities to feed that growing demand. So a little bit about our announcement on Monday. We did announce a partnership with BASF, which is the world's largest chemical company, and we established a global partnership together with BASF. And the real tenants of that partnership and relationship are as follows. The companies are going to cooperate to offer AquaRefining to battery recyclers. So BASF has relationships with many of the existing battery recyclers throughout the world because they do buy chemicals to refine the metals and to feed into other parts of their braking and separation and water treatment and management of their entire process. So BASF has an interest in helping AquaRefining be successful. So BASF can have more of a chemical relationship with those clients that they also view as a sustainability improvement in the offering. The companies are going to explore enhanced BASF-made electrolyte and additives for AquaRefining. So much like the Chairman of the Board of Aqua Metal, Shariq Yosufzai, who is President of Chevron Global Marketing, was responsible for Techron, which was an additive to Chevron, which we've all heard of, which makes engines perform better and last longer. We're talking with BASF with the opportunities that we see and they see to improve AquaRefining and life cycle, maybe using less corrosive parts to further reduce costs, even improve throughput further from our doubling of the throughput that we just announced in December from our version 1.25 electrolyzers as compared to what we ran before them in 2018 and 2019. So that's a very important technology cooperation. And Aqua Metals is also, as the third point, going to be supplying the BASF electrolyte for AquaRefining. So it's a key ingredient to the AquaRefining electrolyte. And we will have a revenue stream from that, but we'll also be able to provide ongoing supply of the chemical and working with BASF through our peer metrics, which I'll discuss later, which we're -- is our web-based capability where we are monitoring all the systems, kind of like HP Instant Ink being able to work with the chemical supplier to coordinate getting additional chemical adds as needed. And so really, the bottom line of the BASF relationship is it truly is a collaboration of sustainability through ever-improving chemistry. And if you look at BASF's mantra that we've all seen and heard over many years, is the BASF many times doesn't make the product. They make the product better and they make the product work better. And we're very excited to be working together with BASF to improve our technologies on a go-forward basis. Next, it's been a bit of a busy week of announcements, is we announced today a new capability for streamlining the link between AquaRefining and battery manufacturing. This is a very important development for Aqua Metals because our technology is now capable of making in a whole additional product that can really accelerate the interest and application of AquaRefining in the lead recycling industry making lead oxides, but also potentially, to leverage this into other battery chemistries over the longer term. The traditional process that you see up on the right is that the AquaRefining briquettes, as you've seen in videos on our website, are then melted to make ingots. And that's an energy-intensive, costly and labor-intensive venture to make those ingots. And then those cool off and get shipped. And to get shipped to oxide manufacturers that take those ingots and melt them again, and put them into an oxide reactor, which makes the active material that goes on the plates of the batteries, which is then used to manufacture new batteries. Now what we have confirmed from our initial testing with external parties and validated by third-party labs is that we are able to take our briquettes and go directly into the oxide manufacturing process. And that provides a streamlined production process, which anytime you can do that for a commodity, you can transform the cost envelope of the manufacturing and simplify the logistics and make it safer and less energy-intensive and more sustainable and more environmentally beneficial is a good thing. And so we are very excited about that as -- of that opportunity. And you'll see a blow up picture of what a battery looks like. That's actually a VARTA battery, which is one of the Clarios brands. But you'll see that battery with the plates inside and kind of the red and the tan-colored material that goes on those plates is that oxide active material that goes on the lead acid batteries. But many other battery types, inclusive of lithium-ion, have oxides. So we view this as a very transformative way for us to add further value to our licensees that we provide equipment for that can consider different places to locate offer refining, even closer to battery manufacturing facilities. Many times, there's battery recycling and manufacturing facilities together. So that's a very important announcement, and we're very excited to continue forward as we work with our prospective client base and talking to them about this application. Next, it's a little bit about how did we get here. I won't go into great detail here, but the company is not terribly old. It was only founded in late 2014. And we took to an IPO early to get access to the capital markets and the $30 million IPO and the $10 million USDA-backed loan, which we've now retired all of that debt, basically allowed us to break ground, build the plant, get it started up. In 2017, we partnered with Clarios. At the time, it was Johnson Controls Power Systems division. And again, they are the world's largest battery manufacturer, enjoying about a 40% market share of the $65 billion, which is projected to grow at about $82 billion battery -- lead acid battery industry by 2030. And Clarios have made an investment in the company and still holds that investment and has a partnership, and they bought all the lead off of us when we were in commercial production in 2018 and 2019, and ultimately, have an opportunity to have a first rights mover advantage to deploy AquaRefining in 1 of their facilities or 1 of their top 2 partner facilities encompassing North America, Europe and China. Between now and June is the time frame for that decision point. In 2019, we did have the 24/7 production and delivered much of -- many of those 35,000 ingots. And then we had an unfortunate fire event in late 2019 that left us with the decision to decide not to go back and rebuild the facility, but to accelerate our already planned go forward, which is the capital-light equipment supply and licensing. And we really spent 2020 on productization from all of our learnings of operating the plant in 2018 and 2019, and really case hardened and improved the electrolyzer product to the point where it has now doubled the throughput, is fully automated and controllable. And in the meantime, we built our cash runway through insurance collections as well as reducing our cash burn and really grew that runway for the future. Where we're headed is towards self-sufficiency. We were pre revenue. We got into revenue. Now we're pre revenue, again, with the technology sales part of the business. And we expect to begin licensing and providing equipment. And that is the plan for 2021 is to seek to deploy the first license site and certainly to consider other sites to contract with and get going on getting AquaRefining into the hands of the industry. We also intend to sell the AquaRefinery, which is another great way for us to harvest cash. It was a great launching pad for the company. It was our capital heading model. It allowed us to demonstrate at a commercial level that we could get AquaRefining to consistently work and at this point in time, that plant is listed, and we expect to have a sale and harvest the dollars from that. And potentially, as a package deal with a strategic buyer of the plant that we could work with. But if not, it would be a great way to generate cash. 2022, we would propagate further AquaRefining and help diversify into other things and explore AquaRefining for lithium-ion battery recycling. We continue our consideration of that space because we do think we're in a unique position to take a look there. The other opportunities to extend those AquaRefining applications to things like precious metals, and other applications and other types of metals as we move forward in the ensuing years. So again, AquaRefining technology really is derisked. Again, we shipped 35,000 ingots to Clarios, and we produced what you see there in the picture, a very beautiful ingot that you will never see from any other process, look as good as that because of their ultra purity. And we did run the plant 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for several months. And 6 to 24 electrolyzers were operating 24/7 per -- up to a month at time, if not a little bit more. So what we are calling the version 1.25 product and -- is the Aqualizer. And rather than use a generic term, such as an electrolyzer, we thought it would be important to brand it, and this is the branding for the Aqualizer. And it now produces twice as much as the original electrolyzer 1.0 did that was in production in 2019. And the Aqualizers are very modular and allow for flexible production sizing. And when we operated in 2018 and '19, we gained 6 of these up -- to call that a module. We have the opportunity now to break down to individual electrolyzers. So it effectively is 6x more flexible in the deployment side. You can put as little as 1 electrolyzer in now. And what we've done with version 1.25 is we've fully automated. And that's not an underestimated task. To fully automate a system like this with flow rates and temperature and current and voltage and all those types of things, a very important aspect. And installing, occupying a smelting facility really lowers the overall emissions, improves the lead quality and reduces the overall operating costs and produces that ultra pure metal. Pure metrics is the software side of things. You can't have a solution that you're deploying throughout the world in an intensive production environment without knowing what's going on, particularly when you're doing electrolyzation. So we added real-time data logging, remote access for the licensee and Aqua Metals to support alerts and the daily production dashboard, which you can kind of see a snapshot out on the left. And the pure metrics will allow us to also gather data and do continuous improvement. You look at Tesla that puts cars on the road with auto drive and they collect all the data and then they improve auto drive over and over again. The pure metrics gives us that opportunity as our licensees would like to see us continue to improve the product. And this technology can extend into other plant operations. So many battery recycling centers don't have as sophisticated as a thing as pure metrics, and that is an extensible package that might monitor other process elements within a battery recycler's facility. So we're quite excited about the opportunity to help our clients there. So AquaRefining really does matter because of its high-purity lead and the high-growth applications that are requiring more high-purity lead. From the left, you see auto growth. Lots more cars getting put on the road. Internal combustion engine cars now have many times 2 lead acid batteries in them instead of one. And that second battery for the start-stop functionality is much more like a data center battery. And it has to have a volatile state of charge capability, and that is a pure lead opportunity. And there's going to be a lot more of those over the years. And the opportunity to provide pure lead into that application will be great. Renewable energy is obviously very important. And energy storage is becoming, obviously the linchpin of the success of energy and global climate change efforts to decarbonize our economy. And battery storage is very important in that space, both lead acid and lithium play there, and that's driving growth for all battery chemistries. Data centers are growing rapidly. We're all using data centers right now as we do this web conference, and we all know that they're growing at a very rapid clip. That's a space that I came from as a global provider of lead acid batteries to data centers. And that stationery, instead of moving application like transportation, is a very quickly growing and driving demand. Electric vehicles, contrary to popular belief, also have recyclable lead acid batteries in them. The lithium-ion battery drives and propels the vehicle forward and replaces the internal combustion engine. The lead acid battery manages all the electronics, inclusive of the battery management system, that handles the charge -- the sophisticated charge and discharge system of the lithium ion battery. So every time an electric vehicle is put on the road, the lead acid battery industry grows. And here's a little slide about the growth. I won't go into great detail here other than to state that if you look back, it was a $46 billion market. Today, it's a $65 billion market. And as we get towards the end of the decade, we'll be into the 80s in the billions of dollars of the size of the lead acid battery market. So lead is growing and it's not being replaced. What's happening is energy storage is growing at a very rapid clip. Lead is the biggest player and other chemistries such as lithium and others that are entering or contributing to that growth. So everybody is growing. The AquaRefining advantage really compared to the traditional recycling technologies is that ultra-pure lead. It enables global recyclers to consider AquaRefining to meet demand. If you've got a growth in demand and a need to add capacity, it's going to be very difficult to pull permits with increased environmental controls and all that. And so that capacitization is a really important aspect. And the reduced environmental impact is, in many instances, in order of magnitude comparatively as compared to the incumbent process because of the clean technology that we're using to produce the product. And that's all at a potentially equal and lower cost over time to recycle lead acid batteries as compared to those incumbent methodologies. This is an example of 2 ways that you can AquaFit an existing battery recycling facility, and convert it the way that the battery paste and active material that I showed you earlier in the presentation is processed. And that is to take that material and process that throughout refining. And in one scenario, you could increase production without increasing emissions by adding AquaRefining, but keeping that same furnace capacity or you can keep total production the same by adding AquaRefining, and therefore, gain a much higher-quality product while actually reducing emissions overall. There's a third scenario, which we're seeing more and more in our sales funnel that I mentioned a little bit earlier, which is AquaRefining just simply designed in the greenfield builds. And this is the scenario where AquaRefining gets put in and designed in. And particularly in developing countries, as I was mentioning, where there are new builds that are happening and the government's in planning stages or sponsoring efforts to ensure that those new builds will be sustainable. And that's a lot in Southeast Asia. India, for example, we're seeing quite a bit of activity. And that's a great opportunity to design AquaRefining right into those net new builds to build -- not build back better but just build better to begin with. Planned revenue sources for AquaRefining really is summarized here. And the licensing model is built into that pipeline. We're well into the establishment of the sales opportunities inclusive of Clarios and we would be seeking an engineering revenue, much like you hire an architect to design a building, 6 to 7 figures per project. We're projecting possible equipment supply revenue of over $10 million plus per project. A very large project would be much more than that. A very small pilot could be much less than that because of the extensibility that we can do small deployments of AquaRefining as well as very, very large deployment. We're running recurring royalties once the equipment is operating and we've supplied the equipment for the operator would be collected. And we believe that, that is a great ongoing recurring revenue opportunity for Aqua Metals, and we quantify it below. When you look at the $70 million a year, average size, 100 tonne per day facility could generate a premium value of $7 million in the lead that it produces compared to what it's producing before it gets AquaFit that were built to begin with. And we see an opportunity to share a significant portion of that with the licensees. And that adds up over time. The licensing marketing -- market opportunity is, if you look at secondary lead production and the tonnes and the value, it's a staggering number of dollars in the amount of lead that's produced by the industry, and that is only going to go up over time with the growth of the industry, and for Aqua Metals to have an opportunity to capture a piece of the premium value of that is the staggering opportunity that we're very excited about. The licensing market drivers in terms of numbers, just from 2018 to 2013, for example, we'll see an estimated 1,803,000 tonnes more lead being recycled. Secondary means recycled, by the way. All new batteries, in case people didn't know, really need 70% to even 85-plus percent recycled lead. So most of the lead that's in new lead acid batteries came from an old one. And the rest of the lead that's in those batteries usually comes from mining. And that is what supplements the continued growth and the growth of the marketplace to feed that demand. And secondary lead demand or recycling will eventually surpass the capacity due to the environmental limits on furnace permitting and in the EU, in California are even considering outlying things like smelting. And environmental regulations have really tightened in China. They put their foot down and they only allow large operators to operate, which is many of the reasons why we're seeing other areas of Southeast Asia consider greenfield builds to pick up some of that supply/demand fulfillment. So battery manufacturers really rely on, in many cases, on unregulated smelters and smelters that are under pressure from regulators to meet their current demand, and they all understand it's a big risk. And the industry can really benefit from an upgrade that's an environmentally correct upgrade that everybody can brag about as they deploy it. The $200 million invested sets up this global equipment supply and a global licensing opportunity. And there's the list of the patents again, and there's a map that shows that we've really covered the world. And anywhere you see a color, it means that we've got an approved patents. And the blue is even better than that. It's approved and additional pending patents. And we even received an additional patent approved yesterday in Europe, for example. So we're continuing to invest greatly in our IP, inclusive of the announcements that we've made this week particularly related to the oxide production. It's also extensible to other metals because we feel if we're going to be a licensing -- an equipment supply company, we can't skimp on our IP, and we have taken that very seriously from the get-go. If you look at the experience of the management team and the Board is really one that's focused on execution. I come from a lead acid supplier company that I built up with a great team of people that was ultimately called [ Canera ] and supplied lead acid batteries and monitored and recycled lead acid batteries on behalf of the customers on a global basis with all the largest data center operators. And that exited to a private equity firm in 2012. And that's when I began to get involved with Aqua Metals shortly thereafter. Judd Merrill, our CFO, who's on the call with us today, who will be included in the Q&A, has got a lot of experience having been the CFO of Comstock Mining and -- mining and metals and technology and process. And he's been involved a lot in M&A and other activities. So Judd is the right CFO, at the right time for this company. Ben Taecker is a great person to have on our team because Ben was on the launch team and built one of the largest battery recycling facilities in the world before I joined Aqua Metals when he was with Johnson Controls, which is now Clarion. So he understands how they operate, and was on that launch payment of building that facility and was involved in the engineering, the planning and construction, the commissioning, the scaling. And when he saw AquaRefining, he picked up his family, moved from South Carolina and has been with us in Tahoe, Reno ever since, helping us see through the dream of AquaRefining. Independent directors. I already mentioned our Chairman of the Board, Shariq Yosufzai. He had an illustrious career at Chevron. And as our independent Chairman of the Board, which is more the European model, so that really upgraded the governance of Aqua Metals when we began that in 2018. And Shariq ran Fortune 50-sized divisions of Chevron, knows the boardroom, has a great network and knows governance and has really been helpful and a mentor for all of us. Vinny DiVito has been with the company about as long as I have from its inception right before the IPO and is a great audit chair and has been really great in terms of our audit committee and running that as a tight ship. So in summary, why look at Aqua Metals and why Invest? Well, we are the first of our kind, environmentally friendly, lead acid battery technology, and we create that ultrapure lead while reducing those emissions. We're the only alternative that's commercially approved, and that's a great position for us to be in. We have over $200 million invested in this venture thus far, which is also begat not only the commercial demonstration and getting the product to where it is, but that patent portfolio. And we have partners that included many industry giants, including our recent announcement with BASF. And Clarios, of course. Interstate Batteries invested in the company and provided all the feedstock for us to prove the technology. Veolia operated the plant and is interested in operating our licensees plants. And Wirtz Manufacturing, which is 1 of the 2 largest battery recycling manufacturers, invested in the company and supplied us with much of our equipment. And we're working with to develop our sales funnel because what they wake up and do every day is sell equipment to battery recyclers. And they see a great opportunity to participate with us on all fronts now that we're product ready. $20 billion market, which is growing. Half of which is eligible for license AquaRefining. Potential extensibility of us into lithium-ion and other metal applications. Particularly, take note of that oxide production announcement today because that is a foundational element for us to look at making metal oxides for other metal applications. The equipment supply and licensing discussions really are progressing well. We have a great sales funnel. We're excited about getting to the point of getting AquaRefining in the hands of an existing operator sooner rather than later. We are focused on growing our significant cash resources and debt free. So if you look at the capitalization of this company, we have over a 2-year cash burn runway. And that's an enviable position for any company to be in. And we're very proud of what we've been able to accomplish over the past couple of years, getting the company into that position of being debt-free and having that kind of a runway and be able to think strategically and execute on our success without worrying about cash. And management has fully executed and aligned with the shareholders in the execution of a capital-light business plan, which, again, is that equipment supply, services, licensing, ongoing sales, extensibility into other metals and other applications over the second and third horizons of the company. So with that, I'm going to conclude, and I guess we'll go into the Q&A session. And Judd is with me for financial questions as well. So let's get started on that.

Perfect. Thank you very much, Steve. And we've got quite a few questions already in the queue, so I'll just get started. And again, if you have a question, please use the question-and-answer text box. But my guess is, at some point, it will be covered. So I'll paraphrase a few of these questions because it's sort of similar, Steve. Can you just compare the cost of recovery lead through the traditional smelting method versus say your electrolyzer last year versus the new version you just launched? And if any improvements we made from today's press release.

Yes. So when you look at the conversion cost of -- and the overall cost envelope for a battery recycler considering AquaRefining, with our recent announcement in December, we -- it's like doubling the horsepower and cutting in half to 0 to 60 tonne. Now our clients need half as many electrolyzers they needed before. And that really helps with the capital expenditure and the CapEx, which was already a good case, and it makes it a great case. So the capital expenditure per tonne of lead of production capability is very competitive. The conversion cost, once you're operating that equipment, has also gone from competitive to very competitive with these additional improvements to the Aqualizer and the overall processes. And so that together is like layer 1 of the benefits. Now layer 2 gets into a little bit of the softer dollars. Look at all the money you can save throughout your facility because you don't have to contain fugitive emissions from the old process of containing lead dust. Less people, less equipment, less environmental lawyers, in terms of hours and all those types of things. And those costs, when -- or taken into consideration could be quite significant. Another part of that layer too is on the revenue side by being able to produce, like I mentioned in the presentation, a higher cost product in a commodity marketplace. If you can make something that costs 10% more, you have a higher revenue and a higher margin. And that's a direct impact on those operators' P&Ls when they're looking at what they're doing. If they're an integrated battery recycler, that's not just only selling lead but is putting that into their batteries, they can make better performing and longer-lasting batteries that they can charge more money for and consider those. Then there's the environmental benefits. Instead of kind of having to hide a little bit in the shadows as a lead recycler and all that, you can brag about your motion forward with sustainability practices and building back better your facilities that are in place. And that's a very important aspect of what is the ability to market and talk overtly about the sustainability aspects and attributes of a physical facility as well as the products that it produces. And then there's the license to operate. It's very difficult to pull permits to build new facilities that are pure smelting. It's very difficult to pull permits to expand facilities. Those permits are being turned away, and the capacity needs are continuing to ramp up. So if you want to expand the facility or grow a facility, build a new facility, it's a lot easier to do it if you're employing a stationary technology like AquaRefining for -- that's environmentally clean for those types of applications. So hopefully, that answers that question.

Me too. I think it did. Thank you for that. The next question is somewhat related, but more specific. Can you talk about the amount of lead that can be produced by a single electrolyzer currently per day?

Yes. So it's that 32 kilograms an hour. So we doubled it. And so if you think of the modules that we were operating back in the day of 2018 and 2019, proving out the 1.0 versions, they were running at about 2.4 tonnes per day divided by 6 electrolyzers in the module was 0.4 tonnes per electrolyzer. We're now double of that at 0.8 tonnes per day per Aqualizer. And we're not stopping there. That was a tremendously forward to get to the double in a relatively short period of time. And we have further opportunities and further things that we're working on that we believe in the near term can improve those numbers even further.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. Can you estimate how many BASF customers already are recycling lead batteries? And how many of these customers would be potential candidates for the AquaRefining process?

Yes. So basically, every BASF customer that is in the battery recycling world is certainly a candidate. And every battery recycler that's out there is buying a lot of chemicals and BASF being the world's largest chemical company is selling a lot of those chemicals. And so I don't think they disclosed, so I wouldn't disclose the actual number of customers that they have. But we have identified about 300 existing battery recycling, smelting centers as a great opportunity for Aqua Metals. And we certainly believe that very many of those also work with BASF. So that cooperative opportunity for us to together be promoting and offering AquaRefining solutions is a really great part of our partnership in addition to the other elements of it that I discussed.

Okay. Super. Thank you. And with the new BASF relationship, can you comment on what impact, if any, it may play in current relationships, say, with Veolia or Clarios or Interstate?

So only additive and enhancing. So the BASF makes one of the key electrolyte chemicals. And the larger operators always want to have surety of supply of those chemicals. So BASF partnering with Aqua Metals certainly says that they are committed to ensuring the chemical production meets the demand as we begin to deploy and grow AquaRefining and the global demand for the chemicals that they make. And so that is a really good thing to hear, particularly when you're a really large operator looking at your supply chain and wanting to ensure that you've got surety of supply for any new process.

Okay. Super. Thank you. Given your current relationship with Clarios and exclusivity that runs, I believe, for another 4 or 5 months in future licensing agreements, do you envision other exclusive similar-type arrangements, perhaps by regions? Or were you going to try to be nonexclusive?

So when you're looking at the global stage, there are some geographies that we may not want to operate in directly, where we may work with a master licensee to sublicense and support and manage and even possibly manufacture AquaRefining for a particular region or location as well as the direct sales. So like any company that's looking to deploy its technology, you kind of have a direct and a channels strategy and a partnership strategy, et cetera, to make sure that you have the best offering, not only for the customers but for yourself and your ability to fulfill and honor what you said that you were going to supply. And so those partners and those channels over time as we develop those in addition to our own direct sales, I think, will be very important overlays to ensure that we can cover the globe.

Okay. Super. Thank you. I guess one of your selling features, obviously, is the environmental green angle. Can you talk about any potential other competitors in the marketplace that are also marketing clean battery recycling?

So there have been other entities that have done some lab scale work using different types of chemistries. One is certainly more caustic and dangerous. And it was more applicable towards mining and processing ores. And so it wasn't directly related to recycling. Although there are certainly players that are out there looking at it. But no one has commercially demonstrated the technology alternative to smelting that's hydrometallurgical other than Aqua Metals for the lead industry. We're the only ones that have put product into production through our process. So I think we're way ahead of anyone out there. And the other thing I'll point out is if you look at our IP portfolio, it's quite broad and encompassing and covers the geography. So we feel very secure in our IP position. I think that's why large companies see the opportunity to work with us, so the IP doesn't get us in the end.

Super. Thank you for that. Changing the topic a little bit and obviously, lithium is a big deal these days. Can you just talk a little bit about what it would take for Aqua Metals to develop a lithium-type recycling method using your IP, similar to what you do to lead these days?

Sure. So if you look at the lead acid battery industry, it's up to 100% recyclable effectively of these batteries. And our hydrometallurgical process produces not only the ability to make solid metals as an end product. But now as of today, what we've announced, we can make metal oxide. So if you look at lithium batteries, they're much more complex in terms of their physical characteristics and the number of ingredients in those batteries. So LED is the key ingredient of lead acid batteries. The key ingredient in terms of metals of lithium batteries is things like lithium, of course, cobalt, nickel, manganese and other metals, inclusive of even aluminum and copper and steel casings and things like that. So the ability to take some of those metals, particularly the lithium, the nickel, the cobalt and others into a hydrometallurgical processing form that you can then, in turn, make metal oxides from is an important opportunity to consider as the puzzle is figured out and how to actually recycle lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are obviously viewed as an energy storage growth X factor, which is great. But right now, you can't recycle them like you can lead acid batteries. And there's a lot of companies that are looking at the space. What Aqua Metals has going for it is our knowledge of actually operating equipment, our knowledge of how to do it hydrometallurgically. There's some players that are out there bragging about how they're going to recycle lithium-ion batteries that are going to make the same mistake the lead acid battery industry made, which is to smelt all of that material and create as much of an environmental problem on the back end that it's trying to solve in the front end. And we see hydrometallurgical as the way forward. We see the ability with our experience in RIP and the application of our technology as an opportunity in that space. That's not going to distract us from the continued commercialization of the largest application of AquaRefining today in terms of production, which is lead. But we do think that our IP, our know-how, our background, our location and our partner network certainly gives us a great opportunity to take a look at the space. More to come.

Perfect. Thank you for that, Steve. And a little bit more on this topic is, given the growth in the lithium-ion battery industry, do you see that as neutral, a challenge or an opportunity for Aqua Metals?

So the growth -- so if we're talking about just is the growth of lithium-ion creating an opportunity? The answer is yes. If you look at the volume, the recycling volume of the lithium-ion industry is starting to kick in quite a bit, and it's going to kick in even more over years to come. So again, the lead industry is out there. It's established. It needs an upgrade. We have the product. We have it now. We're ready to go. But when you look at the growth factor of the lithium space, that's kind of the next frontier of battery recycling that we see significant opportunity. And there's players out there that are even just saying that they're looking at it. They're getting people quite excitable. We're doing things about it.

Okay. Thank you. Can you quantify how long it will take for a licensing partner to recoup their investment in your process?

So we are, in our sales engagement, ensuring that we meet the various equipment supply and licensing -- licensee, the way they look at their IRRs and their returns on capital investment. And like I said earlier in the presentation, we're quite competitive with the incumbent methodologies. And none of them are afraid of CapEx. It's expensive to build and operate these recycling facilities. They're, on the small end, many tens of millions of dollars to build. And on the larger end, hundreds of millions, and there's even been $1 billion-plus facilities that have been built in the area. And they all have their various types of returns that they're looking for. And the nice thing about AquaRefining is we can fit that in with our improved performance specs and things. And we're very confident that those returns, particularly when you look at all those layers that I was mentioning earlier of the environmental benefits and things like that and the worker safety, et cetera, and the premium value of the product really fits those returns.

Okay. Thank you. Given all the positive momentum you have and the fact that you've publicly said that you expect a licensing deal later this year. What remaining barriers do you see in, I guess, getting that first sale and the steps you're taking to overcome this?

So really, one of the barriers was having the product and the product performance specs where it needed to be and having the comfort level ourselves to be able to put this in the hands of others to operate. And that was the big barrier. And we are quite confident that we've achieved the productization with the Aqualizer. And so now it's really, in other words, not a technology barrier, it's not a technology risk. It's an execution risk. And so the barrier is simply, can we -- can this team succeed in the deal-making that it's going to take to get AquaRefining in the hands of others. And if you look back at that slide about our backgrounds and our experience and our successful track records in doing just those types of things, that's really what we're looking at. But that -- no matter what, some people got to buy the stuff. And we're keenly focused on making that happen.

Okay. Thank you. Biden's presidency has been a positive catalyst for many environmentally focused companies. What are some of the main ways you see Aqua Metals benefiting from the administration's proposed policies?

Yes. I would say quite a bit. So for example, in the U.S., there will be an EPA again that actually looks at regulation, and not only in a negative way, but also encourages and incents companies and businesses to consider clean tech technologies. So the opportunity for AquaRefining to fit back into, as I mentioned a couple of times, the build back better scheme, which is let's take our infrastructure and let's improve it. And let's keep manufacturing in the U.S. Let's make higher quality products. Let's be on the forefront of technology. Let's improve the environment. That only makes our sales proposition and visibility in terms of government regulator support and the government in the U.S. And then really, that spreads throughout the world, a much better opportunity. So we're very pleased with the environment focus because that's a big part of what Aqua Metals does, is improve the environment, and we're a big part of that. So I think it's nothing but positive.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you. I'm going to ask you to rest for a few minutes, Steve, and I'm going to ask Judd some financial-related questions. And to our audience, we're coming up to 3:00, but we still have a bunch of questions in the queue and some good ones. So we'll probably go for another 10 to 15 minutes. If you do have a hard stop and you need to drop off, remember this call is being recorded and we'll recirculate the webinar for you afterwards. So Judd, can you just comment on the status of your building sale? And what you're thinking about it relative to timing given your past press release?

Yes. So what we've done is we put the building up for sale on the market, and it's listed currently. And we've actually had several people come out and take a look at the location. The location is pretty ideal. It's at the Tahoe, Reno industrial center located next to other big companies, such as Tesla and Google and Switch and things like that. We're also sitting in an opportunity zone fund. We're next to a rail line, there's a lot of positives for people who are looking at the building that are very interested in it. So it's currently listed. It's currently having discussions. We feel pretty confident that we would see that building sell this year.

Okay. Super. Thank you. And can you just update listeners on the insurance claims paid and still outstanding?

Yes. So the company submitted claims up to $30 million on the property plant and equipment and the cleanup. And to date, we've received $23.6 million. The remaining amounts are related to kind of the final building proposals and cleanup and 2 pieces of equipment. There's also an outstanding B business interruption, BI claim that we're working on. And so those assessments are kind of going on right now, and we're waiting for the information to come back. Once we get that information back from the third parties, we'll have a good idea of exactly what those dollars will look like. And -- but we expect probably in the next 1 to 2 months to have that information back and collect a little bit more up to that $30 million amount in insurance.

Okay. Super. Thank you. And then as a follow-up question to both those points, given these pending cash infusions and cash on hand, how do you envision the need for future capital either this year or next year in terms of how investors need to think about any kind of dilutive events?

Yes. So our strategy all along has been to reduce the cost, which we did in 2020. We've got those costs low. So that helps on not having to burn a lot of cash as we're transitioning to revenues from the licensing. And then just collect insurance and pay off debt to eliminate the debt cost. And so we did that. We collected a good portion of insurance. We expect to collect some additional insurance and then asset sales. And all those pieces not only are we selling the building, there's some equipment that we've sold a few pieces that we don't need on a go-forward basis. There's other pieces in there that are big and some of them are brand new that we can monetize and bring in additional cash. And so we see that as we execute on that and we bring those funds, that keeps us healthy for a long time. As Steve talked about on the slide, a cash runway for a couple of years, and that's true. As we were able to monetize these things, it keeps the company's cash balance really healthy and not in need to go seek funds from other sources.

Okay. Super thank you for that, Judd. Steve, I'm going to go back to you now. I know you touched on it a little bit in terms of your licensing fee, but can you -- or how does the potential look, but do you think you could just expand on that a little bit in addition to how these pieces could work? Is it a fixed fee per tonne that you're going to be given or getting from your licensing customer? Just explain the breakout of the potential revenue structure.

Sure. Sure. So just foundationally, just a reminder to everybody that we're not just an IP and licensing company. We're an equipment supply company. So it starts with the services and the engineering services. Like you pay an architect to design your house, we do the bill of materials, the process flow diagrams, the PN IDS, which is the plumbing and instrumentation, how everything fits together and all that. And then the equipment is sold and deployed and commissioned and handed over to the operator. At that point in time, the running royalty collection efforts happen. And that's around the -- a premium value of the product that's created from the electrolyzers. There's the lead ingot. And now as of today, there's the transformational ability to take the briquettes to come right out of the machines and go right in the battery manufacturing. And so there's a premium value of the product that our technology creates that we would expect to share in and collect that running royalty as a percentage. So if you look at lead, roughly, let's say, it's $2,000 a tonne on the LME to make the math easy. And we already know that our technology commands a product that got a 10% premium in 2018 and 2019 with its first customer. If you say that 10% premium for $2,000 makes about a $200 premium per tonne of lead produced, asking the operator to share some of that with us and not getting into specifics, but it'd be a significant share that we see a significant amount of dollars per tonne of lead produced. And if you go back into the deck and look at the volume of tonnes produced in secondary lead recycling, that's where the opportunity is staggering. And so it's not only margins on services and the equipment supply, but it's that running royalty side of it that is really the ability for the company to build that recurring revenue stream and continue to self sustain and grow into other areas and inclusive of investing back into the company to ever improve what we're doing.

Okay. Super. Thank you for that. I have a number of questions related to today's news, so I'll just sort of start and perhaps you cover more than one of the questions in a single answer. So the key applications for the AquaRefining are now pure lead and ingots and lead oxide ingots, is that correct?

So -- yes. So what has come out of the electrolyzers that we sold in 2018 and 2019 was 35,000 ingots in our case of what we produced. And so now what we've added is the capability to produce -- not produce ingots and take those briquettes and send them directly to the battery manufacturing process by making oxides out of those briquettes.

Okay. And what are the applications for these lead oxide ingots?

So if you're looking at the physical application, when you build batteries and you're trying to make the active material, which is ultimately the pace that comes back that we recycle, that active material is in the form of lead oxides. And so the production of lead oxides comes today from the starting point from ingots. You have to take those ingots and melt them down and do the physicality of the work to turn those into lead oxides. And you have to take briquettes that come out of AquaRefining or even out of the traditional process with smelting, you have to go through all these refining processes in kettles, melt downs and casting. And being able to remove all of that from the oxide production capability is a tremendous opportunity for the industry, both recyclers and battery manufacturers. And again, that's a foundational element for us that we believe we can build on because other battery chemistries like lithium, with lithium oxides, and cobalt and other metal forms, it really is applicable towards those other areas in addition to the lead. But let's transform the lead industry first and make sure that we can really add that value. And we're really excited about that.

Okay. Thank you. And what kind of testing and time frame still remain for you to, I guess, commercialize the streamlined process?

So what we've done to date is some great testing by shipping a significant quantity of the briquette material in a kind of a worst-case scenario. Because in a production environment, go directly off the machines, get briquetted and go directly into -- or very shortly thereafter, trucked and within a day done. We work with a third party, quite large and significant player in the oxide production and shift those briquettes. They took those and we're able to make a within spec product. That then we got back and then sent to our own lab to do assays and then sent to third-party labs to validate our assays to confirm that this could be made within spec. So we're highly confident from that process, inclusive of the IP that we filed around it, that we have the ability to do this. And so now the next steps really are to continue our existing sales engagements and some of which are applicable for a direct oxide opportunity and make that a part of the overall value proposition that we're putting in through our sales funnel. And probably this announcement will stimulate additional sales opportunities for us that battery manufacturers and other recyclers get more interested in.

Okay. Thanks for that. You mentioned that you're selling the plant. How are you going to adjust for your future R&D needs and the ability to innovate without having that plant to test them?

So we have a facility that's a mile away for starters, which is about the same size of the facility in California that we had the larger facility in Alameda, California, about 15,000 square feet, give or take. And that facility is set up to do continued lab work. We'd have to move some of the equipment out of our facility, if we sell it to someone that doesn't want us to have access to it. If someone buys the facility that we retain access to that facility, we can continue to use the lab equipment over there and avoid a move and things along those lines. But it won't, from the AquaRefinery perspective, affect us much. We're using the lab, some of the office space and about 1,000 square feet in sum to run our version 1.25 electrolyzer and continued improvements on those. So it's kind of equated to tending to the care and feeding when aircraft carrier is no longer needed when you're not in a capital-heavy business.

Okay. Thank you. I've got a few more questions for you. Going back to, I guess, patents. Does your current patent portfolio cover any of the work that you're going to need to do in lithium? And ultimately, I guess, have a product in that space?

So our patent portfolio is quite broad. And because they're patents and patents are issued, people are welcome to read them, as exciting or boring as that may be. But you'll note that there are references broadly about the application of our technology, not only for lead, but for other metals. And so I feel that we're in a really good position from an IP perspective. And we're always looking at our IP, and we're very serious about our IP and there are companies that are in the lithium recycling venture space that there's even a couple that are publicly listed that may or may not have any IP. And so it's quite interesting from our perspective because we feel that if you're going to license your technology, you have to have the IP as the foundation. So we take that very seriously, and we've done that from the get-go.

Okay. Thank you. Question going back to lead. How does the high purity that you offer affect the life cycle of a battery?

So I'll try to do this briefly because I know, unfortunately, too much about this because I came from a company that did nothing but monitored lead acid batteries throughout the world for data center operators. And so we would look at the -- every battery like it was in the ICU, and we're measuring real-time voltage and temperature and impedance and things along those lines. And we worked with the battery manufacturers and recyclers. As those batteries reached end of life and we would pull out kilotons up more as individual batteries would fail. When those individual batteries failed or we saw a premature failure, many times, we worked with teardowns with those manufacturers for total quality improvement based upon our data. And what we would find is, obviously, batteries tend to gas and dry out. But the cause for the gassing and dry out are impurities. So things like bismuth, tellurium, nickel and other metals, believe it or not, silver gets in, particularly to the U.S. metal supply. All those things cause that batteries to gas and then dry out. And then they become more resistive and less conductive of the electricity. And ultimately, fail as an open circuit and particularly in sealed lead acid batteries, which is the most common place batteries. And so knowing that from the background and having all that monitoring data for a dozen years of monitoring all those batteries, I'm quite confident. And certainly, the battery manufacturers that we work with that did the tear downs that those impurities, if you get them out of there, lead to higher performance and longer life. Now that's where that premium value of AquaRefining can spread over time. Beyond the standard pure lead specs because as more and more batteries are made from AquaRefined lead, and longer-term tests prove out to the conservative folks that want to see it versus see the theory of it, that's, in my mind, going to do nothing but improve the premium, improve the opportunity for our licensees and customers as well as Aqua Metals to capture some of that premium value in the form of running royalties.

Okay. Super. Thank you for that. Given that your name is Aqua Metals, can you comment on what the water used in this -- what happens to the water used in this process and how is it disposed?

So when we were operating our AquaRefinery in 2018 and 2019, it was a zero discharge facility. So we recycle the water and have a sophisticated water treatment plant. It's not that different from water treatment plants that are in other battery manufacturing facilities. But our process does not create -- it creates a water balance is what it's called. And so it's not a user of water. We just -- we didn't have to get any special water rights for our facility. And interestingly, when you break apart batteries, one of the ingredients that I was mentioning in the presentation is water and sulfuric acid. So you get water when you recycle batteries to begin with, too.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you for that.t 1 or 2 final questions, Steve, and then we're going to end the call. Can you talk about the life expectancy of your electrolyzer and what type of maintenance is involved in, I guess, looking after the equipment?

Yes. So the life expectancy is by design and intrinsic into the design. And that was a big aspect of the 1.25 product from the learnings from the 1.0. And so the critical components are designed to last years and fit within the maintenance windows and the capital structure for the clients. So they're not buying these electrolyzers and having to rebuy them every so often. So they're intended to last for many years. Some of the components, 20 years by design. And so electrolyzers tend to run in a steady state. And once they reach that steady state, they do very well. And what you're looking for are corrosives because we are using assets and the improvements that we made in 1.25 really simplified the bill of materials, which reduced the cost of the things that touch the acid, but also all the little nooks and crannies and cracks and crevices were kind of eliminated to the extent possible to give even greater MTBF meantime between failure for those types of applications. And so that's one aspect of it. The other aspect is like I was talking about with the BASF partnership is if you can improve your electrolyte with additional additives and additional innovations to make it less corrosive, you have 2 benefits as you can extend the life of parts, but you can even potentially put cheaper parts in there to begin with. So less stainless steel in some applications and maybe you can use the modified plastic-type material and cost reduce further. And so with advent of any new technology like AquaRefining, I like to reference flat screens. They were for the rich and famous initially. And then you can't give them away now. That's our product life cycle plan for AquaRefining, is to make sure that it fits today into the CapEx and OpEx and maintenance plans of our clients. But that it becomes overwhelmingly the only way to do things and transforms the industry over time as we continue to make these improvements and build partnerships that support that.

Perfect. Thank you. I'm going to ask you 1 more question, and then I'm going to ask you for some closing remarks. So you've obviously talked about some near-term licensing opportunities. I assume those are for retrofit of existing smelters. Can you just comment on greenfield opportunities in terms of the worldwide market opportunity? And where do you see the bigger opportunities? Is it retrofit or is it greenfield?

It's really both. So in terms of retrofit, certainly in the U.S. with additional regulations that have been happening and are more coming, we see great opportunity there. We see a new owner in the U.S. of Exide, which sold as North American assets and formed a new company that's called Stryten and Element Recycling. As one example of what's happening in the U.S. market and Brookfield purchased Johnson Controls Power Systems division in the U.S. and is in the midst of looking at a transformation of that company now called Clarios. And so there's investment. There's new money going in and a high level of consideration towards environmental benefits and all that. If you look at the developing world and even outside of the U.S. and developed countries, similar to what I was just describing in the U.S. But in the developing world, we're seeing net new companies look at new greenfield builds or existing companies partnering with the government because China, as I mentioned, has kind of stopped all of the small to medium-sized and even backyard smelters. And that has reduced their capacity and created the need, particularly in the developing world where you need to build batteries and recycle them and that closed-loop network closer to where the use cases are versus hold them great distances because that adds to the logistics and cost factors and things like that. And those governments know that when they build new facilities that they ought to be considering the latest technologies and the best available technology and it's just -- it's really good to see that some of those governments outside of the U.S. are also really focused and involved in that.

Perfect. Thank you for that. I'm going to complete the question-and-answer session now. Just some closing remarks from you, and then we'll end the call.

Well, yes. So I really appreciate everybody. A great set of questions. We'll aim to do this again as news continues to develop and make sure that we are in touch with all of our interested and existing investors. If you have follow-up questions, as Glen said, please send those into Bristol. We'll make sure that we try to get back to you as quickly as we can, and we really look forward to continuing to update you on our progress. It's a great time for Aqua Metals in many environment -- from the environmental perspective as well as from our cash runway and what we've accomplished, and we're really optimistic for the future. And we really look forward to talking to everybody soon again.

Thank you very much, Steve. Thank you very much, Judd, and thank you to our audience. This concludes the webinar.

Thank you, everybody.