EverGen Infrastructure Corp

XTSX:EVGN

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Hi, everyone. My name is Jeremy So, Director of Corporate and Business Development. Welcome to the EverGen Infrastructure Third quarter 2023 Earnings Results Presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Before we begin, I'd like to direct all participants to our website at www.evergeninfr.com. where you will find a copy of the third quarter 2023 earnings presentation. Please allow me to remind you that our discussion today contains forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from results projected by those forward-looking statements.

Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in the forward-looking statements, is contained in the third quarter 2023 Management Discussion and Analysis. I will now turn the call over to Mischa Zatjmann, EverGen Infrastructure's President and CEO, to begin.

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Thanks, Jeremy, and thank you all for joining today. We made a lot of progress in Q3 as we achieved mechanical completion of Fraser Valley Biogas and signed a new offtake agreement with Irving Oil, which had significantly improves the economics at that site and added a new project in a new jurisdiction with the signing of the contract to process all the organic waste from the city of Regina. With mechanical completion complete at Fraser Valley Biogas, we are poised to achieve first gas at that facility in the next 30 days, which will represent a major milestone for this platform. With Fraser Valley coming online imminently, we are excited to deliver on these learnings and design the GrowTEC project and apply the same formula there that we have at Fraser Valley Biogas. We've learned a lot over the last 12 months as we were on precipice of bringing Fraser Valley Biogas online and we view this as a major transformative milestone for the company. At GrowTEC, the signing of our 10-year offtake with Irving Oil, it provides us a revenue sharing mechanism with upside of up to 50% over the base prices provided by FortisBC with our long-term offtake there. This speaks to our team's ability to deliver additional upside on the solid offtake structure already in place for that project and really underpins our Phase 2 expansion for the project. With that, I'll hand it over to our Chief Financial Officer, Sean Hennessy to go over our Q3 results in a bit more detail here.

[Sean Hennessy, executive]

Thank you, Mischa, and thank you, everyone, for joining this morning. During the third quarter of 2023, we continue to make significant investment into the Fraser Valley Biogas, RNG project. And as Mischa talked earlier, we are excited to achieve mechanical completion in October. As at September 30, there was approximately $2.5 million of spend remaining on the project, for which the portion will be deferred until 2024 following first RNG in December. Revenues were boosted during the quarter from the commencement of RNG production at GrowTEC and tipping revenue generated at Prairie Sky Organics through the acceptance of the City of Regina's organic waste. As a reminder, we present our incoming organic feedstock based on volumes for which we received a tip fee on. And the slight decrease in tonnage relative to last year was mainly attributed to droughts we saw during Q3. This quarter represents a turning point for EverGen whereby we expect to continue to see continued revenue growth as Fraser Valley Biogas project comes online. Additionally, we continue to see reductions in both our direct operating costs and our general and administrative expenses when adjusted for severance related costs incurred in Q3. This is driven by lower disposal costs through operational improvements and lower consulting fees through in-sourcing. As a result of improved revenues and -- as a result of improved revenue and lower costs, our net loss improved by 40% and adjusted EBITDA was lower than last year only due to the decrease in insurance proceeds received during 2022. In terms of our financial position, our cash and working capital balance have been utilized for the Fraser Valley Biogas project, as well as the procurement of student equipment at our GrowTEC facility earmarks for the second phase of the expansion.

As noted in our Q3 financial statements, we were able to secure the insurance proceeds outstanding in November. And yesterday, we were able to release an additional $1 million of cash previously locked up as collateral. Q3 was an exciting quarter for EverGen and it's rewarding to see revenues generated through first gas at GrowTEC and through the City of Regina organics contract. I will now turn the presentation back to Mischa to conclude.

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Thanks a lot, Sean. With that, we're really excited employees to deliver on our near-term and long-term milestones as we head towards the end of the year here. There's a lot of really exciting and targets that we -- that are within our grasp here with Fraser Valley Biogas on the precipice of coming online, and applying those learnings to our growth project at GrowTec as well. So with that, I'll hand it over to Jeremy for -- to answer any questions that you may have.

[Jeremy So, executive]

We have a question on GrowTEC. Is GrowTEC Phase 2 going to receive priority on time resources over Pacific Coast Renewables given the timing uncertainty.

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Yes. Thanks for that question. So GrowTEC is really the next leg of our growth -- our growth phase here. With Fraser Valley Biogas online, we're basically going to redeploy the design, the team and the resources to really duplicate what we've achieved at Fraser Valley at GrowTEC. So we're really advancing both concurrently. The regulatory hurdles are not there for GrowTEC from a timing perspective. So you will probably see us deploy resources in priority to GrowTEC as that's just a function of the timing of the sort of regulatory schedule.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Mischa. Next question. With respect to GrowTEC Phase 2, can you provide some background on the key considerations behind the decision to move forward with the project? Can you also provide on the total cost expected EBITDA time line and completion?

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Yes, absolutely. So really, with the Irving Oil offtake coming online that really underpins and underwrites the Phase 2 GrowTEC expansion, where we have the ability to achieve really up to close to $40 per GJ at that site on a 10-year offtake basis for 50% of the volumes. So with that in hand, we expect to be in a position to announce FID in the next 6 months here. And with a 12-month construction time line similar to Fraser Valley Biogas. So we're -- with -- so I would expect to hear something from -- with respect to GrowTEC FID in early Q2.

And in terms of cost and the economics associated with the project, it's -- will be similar in scope and scale to what the economics at Fraser Valley Biogas -- the expansion of Fraser Valley Biogas have been. So I would expect similar -- sort of a similar ratio of invested capital to EBITDA return.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Mischa. Next question, how will you fund GrowTEC Phase 2?

[Sean Hennessy, executive]

I can take that one. So as we discussed on the Q2 call, we have quite a few number of grants outstanding. We're progressing through those and we hope to be able to share positive news on those as they come in. We -- at GrowTEC, we have more than 50% of grant -- more than 50% of the total project costs and grant applications outstanding. And we're still working through our interpretation of the announced income tax credits in the full economic statement released only a couple of days ago. Initial interpretations that it doesn't apply to RNG, but it applies to biogas and using biogas to generate electricity, which is obviously what GrowTEC has done in the past and is set up to do. So that's something that we're still investigating as well.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Sean. Moving on to Pacific Coast renewables. What are the updated thoughts on Pacific Coast Renewables permitting and overall timing?

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Yes. So with Pacific Coast Renewables, we are still advancing permitting at that facility. We've made a lot of good progress with the MOE. We've spent capital to upgrade some of the bunkering and storm water leachate capture system at that site. And as a result, have gotten essentially the green light from the MOE and the city of Abbotsford. So we're -- we've done a lot of work and a lot of grant work to put that -- get that site in a position where there is essentially the right regulatory support, both from the MOE and the city of Abbotsford to hopefully sort of accelerate the permitting time line there.

We expect to be able to provide a more robust time line in Q1 of next year, but we're continuing to advance that project and we've had a lot of positive developments on the regulatory side, particularly with respect to the MOE.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Mischa. Moving on to Regina. Can you speak on the project timing and ramp up for Regina?

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Yes. So right now, we're -- the project is fully operational in terms of the servicing and processing of all of the organic green bin waste from the City of Regina. We've got a site right adjacent to the landfill. So there's some nice efficiencies with the infrastructure already in place at the landfill.

We're in the process of looking for additional sources of feedstocks in the region and essentially designing the facility to accommodate the expanded feedstock sources. And again, we're -- right now, the Regina project is a really good example of the type of accretive acquisition and accretive growth that we're really focused on, which is near-term EBITDA with the potential for a larger RNG growth initiative at that site.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Mischa. Next question on Regina, can you provide some background on the agreement with the City of Regina and future development plans in the area? Can you provide some details on the structure of the BDC loan.

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Yes. So the agreement with the City of Regina, it was an RFP that we won. It's a 10-year term and essentially gives us exclusive rights to process all the organic waste for the region. What's nice about that facility is that there's no other really -- there's really no other permitted facilities in the region. You have to go all the way up to Saskatoon in order to process -- to find a facility that's permitted to process the waste there.

And as a result, we -- it's nicely positioned to become a feedstock hub in the region. And with that, it was a good opportunity to design the facility around the various feedstock streams in Southern Saskatchewan.

[Sean Hennessy, executive]

And I can answer the question regarding the loan. So it's really a 2-tranche loan. The first tranche, the majority of it is earmarked for -- it's essentially a mortgage for the purchase of the land. And the second tranche is available for the build-out of the facility. They're at differing interest rates, obviously, given the mix of risks involving land versus construction and equipment.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Mischa, Sean. Moving on to questions on pipeline. Can you discuss additional details on the growth pipeline such as timing, geography and size.

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Yes. So right now, we have quite a few accretive projects in our pipeline that we're actively looking to bring on. As we previously mentioned, the focus really is on bringing on near-term EBITDA. We want to ensure that we're adding on -- that we're growing accretively, sort of on a near and medium-term basis.

So the Regina facility being a prime example with near-term EBITDA associated with long-term RNG potential. So those are the types of pipeline projects that we've really sort of narrowed in and high-graded and focused our attention and resources on. And we look forward to being able to deliver on that pipeline in 2024.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Mischa. Moving back to questions on GrowTEC. What are the latest thoughts on potential grants for Radius, GrowTEC and Fraser Valley?

[Sean Hennessy, executive]

Yes, I can touch on that one. So as answered on an earlier question, we have a significant amount of grant applications outstanding, I believe, including the grant at Pacific Coast Renewables, which was still to sign the contribution agreement for is -- it's in the range of $40 million to $50 million, and we see new grant applications coming through on quite -- new grant opportunities coming through on quite a frequent basis.

With Fraser Valley Biogas, the way that a lot of the grants work is they're not retroactively applied. So any -- the grants that we have outstanding for Fraser Valley Biogas would be related to the additional digestate storage, which we've mentioned on some uncertain of our MD&A. And that's really -- the purpose of that is a CapEx investment to offset operating costs. It's really -- it's just a storage building to rather than having to move product off site. And then with GrowTEC -- and then with GrowTEC and Radius, we continue to move with the -- we continue to have a number of grants outstanding for both of those. With GrowTEC, we've moved to the second stage of some of those grants. So we hope to be able to get that over the finish line and provide some positive news there as well.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Sean. Moving on to the next question on GrowTEC. Is EverGen only financing its portion of the CapEx? And if so, how much of that CapEx would come from grants versus other forms of financing.

[Sean Hennessy, executive]

I guess the question regarding only financing, it's a portion of the CapEx because we earn 67% of it. I mean, in practice, yes, both partners would finance their portion of it. But in reality, it's going to -- we're looking at a loan within the GrowTEC structure itself and we're actively working on that right now. So there'll be -- there's a debt facility available as well as grants as well as potential income tax credits to finance Phase 2 of the project.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Sean. Moving to next question. Can you provide an update on Project Radius?

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Yes, absolutely. So Project Radius, we're continuing to advance discussions with potential financing parties. And we have seen quite -- so there's obviously been some macro headwinds in the financing space, which hopefully were passed or at least on the other side of. But really we're able to -- we've made quite a bit of progress and what sort of countered some of those cost of capital headwinds is in the offtake market, which has continued to improve. So we're continuing to have discussions with various offtake parties and essentially improve the economics for that site -- for that project. And hopefully, with cost of capital momentum coming down a bit, we'll be in a position and we continue to believe that we'll be in a position to get to FID by the end of Q1.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Mischa. Moving back to a question on Regina facility. How much capacity will there be at the Regina facility?

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Yes. So right now, the facility is designed to accommodate the 24,000 tonnes of waste as we get more feedstock streams and access to additional feedstock. We have the land to expand that significantly. So we expect to be able to accommodate up to 40,000 tonnes of feedstock in sort of the next 12 months here and would look to expand even further from there, assuming we can get the feedstock in place, which we're confident we will be.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Mischa. Moving to the last question here. Thoughts on processing upside discussed in the past.

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Yes. So we're constantly evaluating and putting the work in to achieve the processing upside across all of our facilities. We think there's still a lot of tailwinds in terms of the feedstock in the space. There is more organic waste being diverted away from landfills and not enough permitted capacity to process all of that organic waste, which is having a corresponding impact on tipping fees for the organic waste. I think what we're experiencing in the Fraser Valley, for example, where some of the contracted municipal feedstocks are significantly higher to what they were a year or even 2 years ago and we expect to be able to be in a position to announce something positive in that regard shortly here.

And so from a feedstock perspective, we're definitely seeing some upside there. In terms of processing capacity at Fraser Valley Biogas and at GrowTEC, we've tried to be as conservative as possible in our projections as far as what we'll be able to deliver in terms of gigajoules at Fraser Valley Biogas. Right now, it's -- we're -- we believe that the facility is designed to produce more than the 160,000 GJs that we're projecting for or forecasting, but that will -- that's -- we believe that upside is there.

[Jeremy So, executive]

Thanks, Mischa, and thanks Sean for answering those questions. With that, that will conclude the EverGen Infrastructure Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Results presentation. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in.

[Mischa Zajtmann, executive]

Thanks, everyone.