Hazer Group Limited (HZR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Hazer's Investor Webinar to discuss the announcement on Monday of the KBR strategic alliance. I'm joined today by CEO, Glenn Corrie; and CCO, Luc Kox. And they will run you through the presentation that we've put out in the ASX this morning. I'll hand it over to -- [Operator Instructions]. And I'll hand it over to Glenn now to begin.

Thanks, Ana. Good morning, everyone. Welcome. Thanks for joining the call. As Ana said, we've got lots of Q&A that we've got to address today, and we've also included some new material. I'm joined by Luc, Luc Kox, our Chief Commercial Officer. He played an integral part in our deal. And together, we're going to step through the details of this really exciting transaction and how it positions Hazer and the impact importantly on our business plan. Next slide, please, Ana. We're very excited to announce that we've joined forces with Kellogg Brown & Root, KBR, to supercharge our commercialization strategy and the deployment and the licensing of our technology. From my perspective, this is groundbreaking. It's transformational. It's also bold as a partnership. And it positions Hazer at the forefront of the energy transition and at the forefront of clean hydrogen, a really important place that we want to be in. On the slide, you'll see some really important key highlights. First of all, it provides that clear revenue visibility and that faster pathway to increasing revenue. The deal is targeting multiple licenses over 6 years -- we'll talk about that shortly -- materially derisking our business plan. Secondly, it reinforces that capital-efficient, capital-light model that we have been talking about. KBR's throwing in and injecting $3 million upfront to support the work program, which is costing around that level, and that maintains our very robust and flexible funding position that we've spoken about in the past. Thirdly, it derisks and it accelerates that portfolio of projects and potential license opportunities that we've shown more recently, and we'll show more of that today. It leverages KBR's execution capability, their expertise, their resources, their balance sheet strength, importantly when we consider performance guarantees on the tech and the reactor and so forth to really fast track the industrial scale up about and the delivery of our technology. And finally, you'll see there that it provides exclusive access with a world-leading engineering and technology provider to the high-growth methanol and ammonia markets that we previously haven't really tapped into as a company in the past. So I'm really confident with this deal that it will unlock multiple licenses and multiple revenue streams over the course of the coming years, and that's a really exciting place for our technology to be. Next slide. I wanted to show a little bit about our strategic road map. I'm not sure if that's -- yes, there we go. This has been a 17-year journey. If -- you heard me talk about that over the past couple of years. Some of you who have been on this journey now since our IPO in 2015, we appreciate your support, and we're very excited to be moving into this important phase for the company with a very strong partner. It's very important with small companies and technology accelerators to essentially get that support and momentum behind them to really drive the deployment of them. $120 million of capital spent scaled up successfully 5x with TRL 7 going to TRL 8. It's a very advanced technology. I'm really pleased that over only -- in less than 6 months, from the successful completion of our CDP test program, that we can build on this momentum and secure this important transaction that not only validates our technology but is set to unlock the vast potential of the technology in hard-to-abate sectors around the world. Next one. So who is KBR? For those not familiar, of course, they're a very big brand. They are a global engineering and technology powerhouse, as you will see. They're in front of you. They've got that proven track record of commercializing industrial-scale technology. They've developed and commercialized over 80 technologies, and that's what's in their portfolio. So we'll be joining that portfolio which is a very exciting place to be. Closer to home, you'll be familiar with KBR. They've been involved with Woodside Pluto Train 1 upgrades with the Gorgon Joint Venture at Gorgon as an EPCM, Ichthys. And I also believe they're involved with Woodside's OCI Ammonia facility in Houston. So a big brand, big name, big projects, strong execution capability. You'll see there that they are listed on the New York Stock Exchange with a ticker of KBR. They've got a $7 billion market cap, a $7 billion revenue stream in 2023. The chart on the right is really nice because it shows the peer group that they're sitting in, and they really are the only multinational corporation that has both a service arm as well as that technology focus. And with the execution capability, they make a really ideal partner for Hazer. And that positions us important in the market with our tech and with that strong partnership. They've carried out an extensive amount of due diligence on the firm, it's -- for over 12 months. In fact, it's probably closer to 18 months that we started discussions and talking and due diligence. They've been to Perth. We've been to Houston. They've witnessed the CDP. They've seen all the test data that's arisen from all of that. And the history around "why Hazer" is that they've got, obviously, technologies in their portfolio. They've got that big exposure to ammonia and methanol. And they had this gap around methane pyrolysis. And they see Hazer as the natural bolt-on opportunity to complement that portfolio, and they've obviously selected us for that. So an exciting place to be in terms of their portfolio. Next slide. So here, I'd like to hand over to Luc to provide an update on not just hydrogen market, but also how ammonia and methanol fit into that. Luc, over to you.

[Foreign Language] and thanks, Glenn. Thank you, everyone, for joining. Exciting webinar, and let's talk a bit about the market. What you see on this slide is the existing market for hydrogen on the left-hand side, the current market, just shy of 100 million tonnes per annum, largely produced on site in what we call a captive production method. We'll go into that in a minute. And as you can see, more than 50% of that hydrogen that's currently used and produced is used in ammonia and methanol manufacturing. So main feedstock, to produce ammonia and methanol today. On the right, bottom -- on the right-hand side, you can see projections, and these are from various market reports. We've also conducted our extensive analysis on this. And it's very realistic to see significant growth in -- particularly in ammonia and methanol markets, factor 3 between now and 2050. So if we look at the use cases, ammonia is mainly used for the manufacturing of fertilizers across the world, explosives, and plus, the home -- here in Perth, explosives are used for -- in the mining industry. Methanol is currently used as what we call a base chemical. Again, broadly, widely used across the world. The growth will mainly be coming from additional use cases, in particular, marine fuel, something I'd like to highlight. Methanol is anticipated to be the first mover in that respect in terms of a clean fuel followed by ammonia later on. There's a lot of interest, a lot of focus on the reduction of CO2 emissions from marine fuel. Overarching, it's an existing market. The existing current production process is efficient. However, it comes with a negative, which is a big CO2 emission. For every 1 tonne of hydrogen, the current production process produces 10 tonnes of CO2 emissions. That's exactly what we're looking to disrupt with Hazer and with this partnership. Next slide, please. So what you see on this map is a global overview of current hydrogen demand as well as production because they go hand in hand in today's market that's produced where it's needed. And as you can see, it's quite well dispersed globally. Across the world, there are currently over 450 ammonia production plants and over 90 methanol plants. Again, that's today 54 million tonnes per annum, over 500 million tonnes per annum of CO2 emissions. Our partner, KBR, has an existing market share of over 50% of ammonia capacity globally. So that's why it makes a lot of sense, in our mind, for Hazer to team up with a global player for a global market and address the problems, the CO2 emissions. Next slide, please. What we've seen over the last 12, 18 months is the reality, I guess, of green hydrogen electrolysis, the economic reality. It's not economic. It's no emissions, but it's not economic. So again, back to the current situation, very dirty hydrogen electrolysis is expensive. Hazer fixes that problem. It's an affordable pathway to produce low-carbon hydrogen. And what we've seen in -- we've seen a very significant shift in the people we're discussing with, we're dealing with on a regular basis, that they -- some of them have walked away from electrolysis projects and are now talking to us, again, for a more affordable pathway. And of course, this is also building on the success of the CDP that we achieved last year. The technology has made a massive step forward. I think the market is recognizing methane pyrolysis. This is the right time to make this next step. I'll pass over to Glenn. Next slide, please.

Great. Thanks, Luc. So big market, big problem. Obviously, that's an opportunity for Hazer with our world-leading technology. And just to recap, you've seen this many times before, Hazer's technology, very unique in the fact that we take a methane-rich feedstock. Methane, of course, everybody knows, 25x more harmful than CO2. And we convert natural gas, biogas, LNG, wastewater treatment gas into essentially clean hydrogen and carbon in the form of graphite, a critical mineral, using iron ore as a catalyst, that's our special source, and the X factor of our technology and IP in numerous jurisdictions around the world. And that is essentially recognizing us as 1 technology that serves 3 very important markets. That catalyst drives down our operating process temperatures to between 800 degrees and 900 degrees, and that drives out very low cost of hydrogen. And that is one of the unique competitive advantages of what we do. Now we've put up here, in the past, the use of a fluid bed reactor. That's our core reactor technology that sits at the nerve center of our technology. We've repurposed that from refining as well as the metallurgical industries. And of course, that is a strong synergy with KBR. They have significant expertise in developing fluidized bed reactor technology over decades through its work in refinery, through advanced process engineering, and they're going to bring this to bear in respect of the scale up of Hazer's technology. So a really nice synergy in terms of the large-scale deployment of our technology. Moving on to the next slide. We had a few questions prior to the webinar in terms of costs, so I just wanted to reiterate where we stand on cost. This is -- this picture is very compelling towards methane pyrolysis, but in particular, Hazer, we can deliver in the U.S. at close to today's gas prices hydrogen at near $1 a kilogram, USD 1 a kilogram. Now that is extremely competitive against blue hydrogen, and it's the seventh of the cost of green hydrogen. As Luc referred to, that's electrolyzers. It's 7x the energy, 7x the cost, that's chemistry. And Hazer fits wonderfully into this model because we can deliver our -- that hydrogen at very low cost, which is very comparable and competitive with today's existing market using SMR. So the switching cost from ammonia facilities and methanol plants today is low to switch to Hazer. So that's a really important position to be in. And if you -- we switch to the next slide, you will see how Hazer technology fits into ammonia. Now we're not claiming to be ammonia experts today. Of course, we're coming up the curve quickly with this partnership, so we're leveling up in that respect, but this is really how hydrogen fits into the overall ammonia process itself. If you look at the top half of that slide, we break down the process flow for the production of ammonia. Today's ammonia, as Luc said, use steam methane reforming, SMR, to produce the hydrogen required for ammonia synthesis. And that as a result of using SMR, every tonne of hydrogen is associated with 10 tonnes of CO2. And that's the problem with the industry today. The solution is on the bottom half of the slide, and that is plugging in, replacing and displacing SMR with Hazer's process and Hazer's technology that essentially does the same thing at the same cost without the CO2, but with a graphite co-product, which is extremely valuable as a critical mineral. And that's the disruption that we're bringing to this industry, and that's the recognition that KBR see in the technology and their existing and their commanding and dominating position in the ammonia and methanol markets worldwide. Turning to the deal, which is on the next slide. Look, this is transformational. It's very strategic for everybody involved, including KBR. It's value creating. And it provides a very clear road map to commercial scale for Hazer unlocking that vast potential of the technology. The key terms are here. It's binding, that's really important to accelerate the commercialization of the tech. It's a 6-year term upfront. It's automatically extendable for blocks of 5 years upon performance metrics. So think about it in terms of a long-term agreement and partnership. The scope is developed specifically to get this technology scaled up and to market as quickly as possible. That's why we've chosen each other, and we're going to leverage their very important, expensive marketing platform to get this technology not only just in the ammonia and the methanol markets but to broader markets where the technology is demanded and needed. The work program is positioned at around $3 million to $5 million. It's fairly small amounts of cost to get there. KBR is contributing $3 million to that, so it's a substantial and majority share of that work and will have a minimal impact on our cash position and our liquidity going forward. It's exclusive to ammonia and methanol. We have got a preferred partner arrangement on everything else. So we will work with them on everything that we've got to the extent that is possible. We've carved out our existing pipeline, which, of course, is growing at pace. And that will be subject to further discussions on terms and conditions. But really, importantly, one of the key headlines here is that KBR have agreed not to market nor work with any other methane pyrolysis technology provider in the world. And that is extremely strong validation and endorsement of who we are and the tech that we have developed. We're going to target multiple license agreements over the next 6 years. If you're modeling this, I would work on the basis of around 5 licenses in 5 years and beyond. And we'll bring out those details of those licenses as they come to hand but work on the basis that Hazer will take the majority share of any license and royalty fees. I'll talk very shortly to the revenue model, but perhaps we should just move on to the next one, just to look at what the -- how complementary this partnership is, and really that it brings our technology and our vision to life. There's strong synergies, we're a leading technology, pyrolysis, one of the leaders in the world. It's complemented by KBR's proven global expertise in deploying sustainable technology solutions. They've chosen us as their exclusive partner for ammonia and methanol. We've got that preferred partner basis in other industries. They bring expertise around -- and capabilities, resources, balance sheet strength, market reach, and that commercial acumen, which is also important in terms of front-end license agreements and getting the best deal for Hazer and KBR as an alliance, and that's going to drive out. Of course, comes back to the top-line growth and the bottom-line growth of our company. Importantly, for those that follow the IP, we do retain, importantly, all of our existing background IP. And we will have a strong ownership of any IPs developed into the future under the partnership and the alliance. Moving on to the business plan, which is on the next slide. We've got that momentum now as we spoke about. This deal, in my view, is going to have a material impact on our business plan and our ability to deliver multiple, near-term projects and revenue streams for the company, okay? On the right-hand side, you'll see -- and I'll come back to that shortly. It derisks -- that's our sort of conceptual revenue model. It derisks and accelerates our existing project portfolio. We talk about that project portfolio all the time. We want to bring that forward and lock in as many projects and opportunities as we can. The business model continues to be capital-light, and that's one of the unique things that you'll see pop out on the right-hand side, that it's all top-line growth. We're not deploying large licks of capital into deals and operated -- and operating units and building facilities. This is purely a license model that we've developed and that drives our early access to revenues and early access to free cash flows. And that -- I just want to reiterate that because we finished last quarter with $10.5 million or just under in the bank, and we've continued to maintain that robust funding position. Just looking at that chart, no capital outlays. That license model continues to drive our early revenues from day 1. Pre-FID from the time that we signed feasibility studies, we'd expect to see revenues flowing like we currently do in Canada, and that will continue through FEED and that will continue through FID and post production. So it's a long string of revenue that builds up over time, and that's one single project. This is a multiplier of projects that will stack up on top of each other. And every single project in the box at the bottom, you will see every single plant at 50,000 tonnes per annum in the U.S. is essentially value to Hazer NPV of, call it, $100 million, okay? So it doesn't take many of these for this multiplier effect to affect essentially our market capitalization. Luc addressed that addressable market. It's 450 ammonia plants. There's 90 methanol plants. Our existing pipeline with this multiplier effect and our vision of having 10 plants in 10 years, I'm comfortable and getting a lot more comfortable now that this platform could potentially be valued at over $1 billion just with over 10 projects in our pipeline. That's consistent with a lot of the analysts that have looked at the stock in the recent past. There's been 1 or 2 analysts come out recently. In fact, in the last couple of days with valuations on a risk and an unrisked basis, their unrisked valuations are very similar to the way that we see the value of the firm. So I might encourage you to go and have a look at those in terms of the upside for the stock. This is a good time, perhaps, Luc, just to touch again on the pipeline of opportunities, please. Thank you.

Thank you, Glenn. Yes, that one, please. Thank you. So I think in a previous webinar, we've spoken about the pipeline, as we call it. The pipeline for those of you not familiar with that then refers to the opportunities that Hazer has currently underway that aren't an ownership, but that we're progressing through our process, our BD process, and that will end up in finalized deals. So this example of KBR is one out of many potential deals we have on the way. We currently have close to 50 real opportunities that we're dealing with on a day-to-day basis. What you see on the chart here, I'd like to start with the right-hand side is the dashes around the ammonia, methanol sector. That's currently a moderate representation in our portfolio of opportunities. And that's why, again, the strategic fit with KBR is there because this addresses exactly that market globally. It's a modest market in Australia, but now we have access to global market with our technology in ammonia and methanol. As I mentioned previously, growing markets with the CO2 problem that we can address. On the left-hand side, you see the geographical split of the existing BD portfolio. A lot in Asia, Asia Pacific. Obviously, I think it's well-known, Australia, North America, Europe and underrepresentation in the Middle East. And with KBR, we believe North America and Middle East will definitely be firmed up in terms of access to market and market penetration. And again, the strategic bid is very, very obvious. Overarching, as Glenn mentioned, we have an objective that we've shared with the market of having 10 licenses in 10 years. That's based on our existing portfolio. This materially derisks the opportunity of Hazer achieving and -- the likelihood, I should say, of Hazer achieving that. So any projects at KBR are in addition to the existing portfolio. It also substantially boosts our ability to scale and to go fast. So again, it's meeting our strategic objectives. As Glenn said, I think we are a lot more comfortable that we can achieve the 10-in-10 objective. The headline there as well, on the top of the slide, our existing portfolio has a list of potential projects, which adds up to about 1 million tonne per annum of hydrogen, which is just shy of 1% of the global market. So with a very modest market share, we could turn this into a very big company, and this partnership will definitely accelerate. It's a proper game changer for the business. Glenn?

Oh, yes. Yes, thanks, Luc. Look, I'm conscious of time. And questions, I want to jump in that as soon as we can. Just the time line, you've seen that in the announcement. Simplistically, we've got a very busy 12 months on top of what we already had. You've seen what the key milestones are. We've, obviously, got a work program to get through. We're trying to hit the ground running with KBR. They've appointed a project manager already. We're going to have some kickoff sessions in the very, very near term, if not this week. And we're very keen to get early runs on the board. There's a lot happening. There's a lot of existing projects. There's technical work and scale up and customer engagement and marketing strategies to be developed, and that will all happen over the course of the coming months. We've already had KBR in front of some of our existing customers and clients like Fortis, so we want to look at the entire portfolio and where they can help us support that. They bring that horsepower to our portfolio, and that's what we're really about doing is unlocking all that for shareholders. I want to just finish quickly with a summary, if that's okay. In terms of our deal and our call today, look, we're -- simplistically, we're very excited about the deal. The key takeaway from today is the market is there, it's growing, it's dirty, but it's ripe for disruption. As Luc said, the tech is ready, the pipeline of customers is growing, and we now bring to the table that reputable, strong licensing partner that's going to help us unlock value. It's absolutely transformational for the company. It's strategic for them. It's strategic for us. It's strategic for the industry as a whole. And I'm confident it will unlock substantial value for Hazer and our shareholders. It's validating. It speaks volumes to the tech and the underlying demand for the market. And that's a really important place to be, if we want to be developing something that the market needs, and that's what we're doing, and we're all about accelerating that. So we're proud to be working with KBR, and we hope to bring further updates to investors, shareholders and observers of the country -- of the company very shortly. So a great place to stop. Thank you for your time, and we'll open up the call for questions. Ana?

Okay. We'll stop sharing this. Just as everyone, thanks, Luc and Glenn, for the presentation. [Operator Instructions] We'll kick off with a couple of questions that we've received in advance. First one is how quickly KBR could potentially get a lead customer involved in the ammonia and methanol space.

Yes, I'll take that on, Luc. Look, they've got that big portfolio, that big market interaction, that market reach and access. So when we met with them a few months ago, talking with one of the senior VPs in the firm, they're very confident in their ability to deploy the tech. Of course, there's work to be done in terms of getting it to the right size and scale. But they're obviously engaged in the market constantly. They see the market opportunity. They obviously see the integration with their tech and their existing technology in the markets as well. So I'm confident that we're going to see some results from all this soon. And I think that's the whole purpose of this partnership, to get our tech into these key markets quickly. So watch this space in terms of licenses. We've got those 4 existing projects already, and there's engagement there ongoing. There's -- the existing pipeline is the entire ammonia and methanol markets that obviously is ready for Hazer's technology. So yes, we're excited about the potential of the near-term licenses or even feasibility studies, frankly, that get us into those license opportunities in very short order.

Great. Just building on that, there's a clear case for the Hazer hydrogen in the ammonia, methanol market. But how is KBR thinking about the significant volume of graphite that would accompany the hydrogen?

Luc, do you want to take that one?

Yes. Graphite is a valuable byproduct. As we all know, there's a lot of attention these days on sovereign risk. It's broadly recognized that the graphite supply chains traditionally have risks associated with them, and we see a lot of countries and companies wanting to steer away from those conventional supply chains and produce high-quality, low-emission graphite close to home or at home rather than importing it from other players in the world. So I think it's an opportunity, and I think KBR acknowledges that as well. It's one of the reasons why -- I think why they selected us as a technology provider.

Thank you. Next question. To derisk plant construction, will KBR become Hazer's primary contractor for building plants? They are negotiated by Hazer outside of the alliance? Or will Hazer bring all future deals into their alliance with KBR?

Yes. Very good question. In the announcement as well as in the presentation, we've got that exclusivity, of course, over ammonia and methanol, that's important, but also a preferred partner basis for everything else. So we're getting them involved in a lot of our existing portfolio, and it's not necessarily EPC, but it's EPCM, which is their sweet spot, and that engineering side as well as that -- their licensing side. So short answer, yes. Long answer is the entire portfolio is open, and they can bring a lot to bear in terms of accelerating all of it.

And staying with the engineering side of things, there's a question about design of construction of new ammonia plants. Will international engineering contractors who tender competitively for such plants have to obtain licenses from KBR if they want to use the Hazer process for their hydrogen production sector -- section of the ammonia plant? If so, will the license fee be the same as that of which will be applicable to KBR if they are also tendering the same project?

I think I understood that. The answer's yes. I mean they do have to do that because it will be Hazer's technology that's being licensed through KBR. And so there will have to be a license fee attached to that for anybody that chooses to use Hazer's technology in their business. So that essentially is effectively the answer to that one, Ana.

Yes. Okay. Another question is on the last quarterly webinar, it was mentioned that Hazer was pursuing several strategic partnerships. Does this mean that we could see other similar alliances announced in some of Hazer's other targets and markets?

Very good pickup, yes. The short answer's yes. Look out steel. As Luc said, the two growth markets for hydrogen is ammonia and methanol, and that's growing 3x. Steel, frankly speaking, if you noticed the numbers, was going from 5 million tonnes today to 50 million tonnes in 25 years. So that's a 10x growth in the steel market. And of course, as Hazer -- as people that know Hazer know that we are ideally positioned to disrupt the steel market, which is 20% of the world's -- 10% of the world's CO2 emissions. And with iron ore catalyst, with hydrogen, with graphite and carbon product, we fit nicely into steel. So it's a really important market. This, of course, is exclusive to ammonia and methanol. We were very careful with exclusivity to ensure that we kept that optionality to -- in answer to that question. Today is about validation of the tech. It endorses our tech, not just for ammonia and methanol, but other sectors, so the answer is yes. And we've obviously got a pipeline, as Luc showed, that cuts across all of those sectors. And there is the potential for further strategic alignment with other players in the market and not just and beyond the ammonia and methanol markets.

Okay. Next question. How will this alliance with KBR minimize the need for Hazer to increase staff numbers to fulfill the sales and marketing functions of the rollout of the company technology?

Look, in the short term, not. I mean we're obviously a tight-knit team, but we're obviously focused on fitting resources in the right place. Of course, KBR brings a massive amount of resources to this. You saw in one of the earlier slides, 33,000 people worldwide, 80 -- I think 30 offices, 80 potential operational sites. So big resource base that's going to support this. They've done it before. We've got a company here that has obviously got very strong talent, and that will be playing a very strong role in that integration. We've got work to be done with bringing KBR on board. In terms of our tech, our process engineers and our engineers more broadly will support that effort, but it will be about better deployment of resources as opposed to increasing the headcount, and that's the immediate focus for us. We feel like we're adequately resourced at this stage. And as that ramps up, we'll think about the organization. But at this stage, I think we're resource-light and capital-light, and that's our model in the short term. We bring on this a strong resource base and a powerhouse to help us, so we don't see the immediate need in the short term.

Right. Regarding the KBR contribution to the alliance work program of $3 million, is that going to occur in the first 12 months? Or how is that going to be spaced out?

Mostly, yes. I mean all of this -- this is about accelerating the program, getting this technology to market. So the quicker we can spend all that, the better because that gets us the design package that we can sell to all of the clients out there as quickly as we can. So answer is yes. It's not a big work program in terms of doing that. It's basically the reactor scale up, and it's the process design package. We've costed that at somewhere between $3 million and $5 million. It's probably closer to $3 million, but until we get into it, we won't know. But it's small amounts of money to create big value. A lot of the work has been done to get to where we are in terms of the reactor scale. They're experts in fluidized bed reactors. They know how -- what it takes to get this up to large industrial scales on a single train reactor capacity basis, and that's what we're going to be leveraging. So that's the near term, but bringing everything forward is, of course, our priority.

Great. Next question. In your conversations with KBR, have they seen the impact of decarbonization on their pipeline of projects and processes? And what is their key driver to integrate Hazer?

Luc, over to you.

Yes. Thank you. Well, that's part of KBR's why, I guess. So they have a dominant position in traditional ammonia, methanol markets as we touched on today. Traditional production processes, efficient but very much CO2 intensive. And they were very clear. They were seeking a methane pyrolysis option in their offering to bring to their current customers. Their customers were asking, have been asking for methane pyrolysis, so KBR scanned the market, data market assessment. Reached out to Hazer. And then we can -- we conducted an extensive period of DD -- or due diligence, sorry. We had previous interactions historically with KBR. That was maybe a bit too early for the market, for KBR, our maturity in terms of the technology, and now it was the right time. So yes, they wanted a methane pyrolysis technology, KBR, and they picked Hazer to do that on an exclusive basis. So that's, I think, a really, really strong validation of this partnership and their want.

Great. Next question is on graphite. Is the graphite quality likely to be superior to new crystalline graphite for battery production?

Luc, do you want to take that one as well, please?

Yes. If it's superior -- look, I think we've spoken about graphite a lot in the past. We have a very unique and versatile product with many applications. I think we've spoken about that in the past, in previous webinars as well. It has definitely got unique and very interesting application or characteristics for certain applications. I think we've moved in terms of volumes, it's quite important. We've moved to larger volume markets as well because as we scale up, we will produce significant volumes of graphite. So the balance is between being able to place that graphite at attractive prices. And you can sell a small volume at a high price, but that doesn't really work for Hazer, so we've shifted. That's also why we have a collaboration with Mitsui in place to buy and sell this graphite globally. So there's a lot there, but it's maybe for another day to go into graphite in detail.

Thank you. I have another question about the operational side of the plants. So who will operate Hazer plants when they are installed? Does it -- or it requires Hazer staff to operate the plant? Or is it able to manage -- be managed by the customer?

It's a customer responsibility, Ana, in short. So obviously, this is a licensing deal, and it's similar to ammonia facilities. All of those ammonia facilities are operated and owned, then operated by the client, so that is the model here. This is essentially a bolt-on to either a greenfield or a brownfield ammonia facility. There's a lot of strong integration and synergies in operating costs, so we'd expect it to be close to a seamless integration to existing industrial facilities like ammonia, methanol, steel and others. All of that sharing of resources, that, of course, is so important to reduce the operating costs of facilities. It's not a complex piece of kit, I mean, if you actually look at it. And those that have been to our site in Perth often go, "Wow, that's big, but it's actually not that complicated." It is -- really, the magic is in the reactor, and it is -- it's a thermal decomposition. The rest of the kit, the broader, large part of the plant is actually quite industry standard. It's not that simple. I think the engineers are getting in trouble for saying that. But basically, it's a lot of hard work, it's a lot of pretreatments and it's a lot of compression equipment. But the magic is in the reactor and the way that we feed the catalyst and produce the hydrogen and the graphite.

Thank you. Can you talk a little bit about the IP protection around the technology? How well is Hazer protected against somebody trying to steal it?

Yes, it's a great question. We continue to address this, and we have got the best protection we possibly can behind it. You're never fully protected with IP. The best bit about having a partner like this is you get your technology to market and capture market share and get first-mover advantage so that you've got that installed base. That said, we've got -- I think it's over 70 patents worldwide. You've seen a number of patents being awarded recently. One, particularly in the U.S., which essentially covers us with the entire process, including the use of a fluid bed reactor and also the graphite co-product. So that's an example. Typically, we see when patents in the U.S. or Europe are awarded, it's a watershed moment, the rest of the world follows. And we've seen that -- I think at last count, over 70 patents, I think, over 30 jurisdictions worldwide. Our patent portfolio is actually listed on our website for people that are interested. But we feel comfortable where we are. We're always looking at competitors and the way we think about it. But we've never been challenged, and I think we're in a really strong position. But the best defense is get to market as quickly as possible. It's part of the thinking here. And IP is a big part of the way that we think about the strategy of the firm.

Great. In your opinion, what is the ideal scale for a trend of your major customers to make it feasible?

Well, it can be small. And Luc, you can jump in here, but we're seeing demand. I think we've said this in the past. We're seeing demand growth. I think both of us said this in the past 12 months that going back 12 -- going back 2 years, we were seeing 5,000 tonnes to 10,000 tonnes per annum. And there's no magic in the size of it. It's just what -- people are a little bit anxious about taking big leaps and that scale up of tech. And that's why having a partnership like this is so important to provide the credibility in terms of the step-up to the big, large industrial scale. So that's the step-up and the scale-up strategy, and that's why this partnership is so vitally important to support that growth. 2 years ago, 5,000 tonnes per annum. Now, Luc, I think it's fair to say we see opportunities and real demand for 50,000 tonnes per annum, even higher. I mean I'd love to say they're big numbers, but that's what's behind us getting a strong partnership like this to get our tech to scale and to market to customers that need a reliable technology that's backed by balance sheet and performance guarantees to ensure that we can provide 24/7 hydrogen into a facility that needs it, like ammonia and methanol, consistently. And that's why this is such an important relationship and partnership.

If I can add to this, Glenn.

Yes.

In terms of market. So we spoke about SMR, right? And if I'm not mistaken, the average steam methane reforming plant out there globally is 53,000 tonnes per annum in capacity. So that's -- basically, that's our target. And we're going beyond that under this alliance. As Glenn said, the market demand is regularly in the range 40,000 tonnes, excess of 50,000 tonnes, over 100,000 tonnes per annum. And that could be addressed also in multiple trains, right? We can do one train and then multiples of those trains, especially the industrial capacities, that's a really good solution. It can also be a bolt-on. I think Glenn mentioned that in the presentation. If you have an existing facility, and you need to debottleneck that, so create new capacity and/or extended capacity, a Hazer extension could be a very attractive proposition because it's relatively low cost. As Glenn said, it's using the existing feedstock, same feedstock, natural gas as existing infrastructure. It's molecules. This is not about electrons [ of hydrogen processes ], it's a relatively easy transition for existing users of hydrogen under capacity. This is where we want to be, 50,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes per annum.

And I'm conscious of time, and there's a lot of questions, I'm happy to wrap up and from -- and kind of before we lose too many people, we can also go back to folks with some answers, but I hope we have addressed a lot of them. I've seen a couple here on what -- there was a comment on Whyalla, which I thought was a really good comment. So bringing this all closer to home with brands and companies that people are familiar with. We have active discussions going on in Australia with many, many potential industrial opportunities. This just strengthens our ability to engage and potentially secure license deals at home here in Australia. Whyalla's come up. When I was in Canberra with Tim Goldsmith, our Chairman, recently, Whyalla came up a couple of times and how we could potentially be involved in that. There's other green steel projects that are potentially interested in Hazer's technology as well. There's a number of -- as Luc's chart show, there's a number of ammonia facilities here in Western Australia as well as more broadly in Australia. So our pipeline is growing not just internationally but in Asia Pacific. And of course, those green hydrogen challengers are just opening doors for us. And Whyalla is a great example of -- there, the government's throwing a lot of money behind that. It's obviously important to the state and the city as much as it is to the industry there. And with $1 a kilogram, probably a little bit higher in South Australia where gas prices are, but call it $1.50 or $2 a kilogram, this is a game changer for Whyalla's steelmaking industry. So that's just an example of where we can really disrupt industry. And there's no limit to the fact that we can provide this tech to many, many facilities and industries that are worldwide.

Amazing. So if you're happy, we'll just wrap up the Q&A session here. I'll just hand it back to you, so you can do your closing statements before we completely finish.

Yes. Look, I just want to thank everybody for joining the call. There's a lot of information. There's a lot of Q&A. We'll obviously try and get back to people as quickly as we can. I did mention analysts. We've got some analysts that cover us, Euroz analysts. It's worth the -- Euroz reports are actually worth checking out. I think their target price has been lifted more recently in the last few days to over $0.70 per share. I think their unrisk valuation has got us at $2.50. I mentioned that, that's consistent with our model. So that's an independent valuation, I'd encourage you to have a look at it. If you haven't got that, we can point you in the right direction. I just want to finish off by saying this is a really important, strategic deal for Hazer at arguably the perfect time. Green hydrogen is not delivering. The window is open. Hazer is a technology that is ready to step up to the plate with a reputable partner to disrupt and decarbonize today's hard-to-abate sectors. Not tomorrow, as Luc said, today. That's the industry that needs fixing, and that's the disruption that we bring to this industry. I'm confident this deal places Hazer on a very solid foundation for accelerated growth. It has multiple revenue streams. And Hazer, more personally, we love what we do. We are about creating value and having an impact, and that's our mission. It's a double bottom-line venture. We set the bar high. We've got a very big vision, I appreciate that, but we build into that our courage, our resilience, our grit, our determination as a company. And this week's deal is about us unlocking that strategy and helping us realize it. So we're excited about it. I hope you are. And I really want to thank you for joining today. Thanks for your support, and we look forward to providing further updates on this alliance and other important inflection events in the near term. Thank you.

Thanks, Glenn. Thanks, Luc. This concludes today's investor webinar. A recording of the webinar will be made available at -- on Hazer's website in the Investors page in the coming days. Goodbye.