Comstock Inc. (LODE) Q2 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, everyone. This is Corrado De Gasperis and welcome to our Quarterly Zoom Call. I’ll provide a brief summary of the information included in our press release from this morning and from our quarterly report on Form 10-Q that we filed last night, including our progress on our recent breakthroughs in lithium-ion battery recycling processes here in Nevada, our large-scale industrial processing facility in Iowa and our mercury remediation business in the Philippines. I will also provide updates on revenue projections and other corporate items including one additional upcoming transaction. I know there’s a lot to cover and I’m really looking forward to the Q&A. So I’ll try to be brief in the prepared remarks. If you don’t have a copy of today’s press release, you’ll find a copy on our website at www.comstockmining.com by just clicking on the Press Release tab on the main menu bar. Our Form 10-Q is also available as of last night via EDGAR on www.sec.gov. Please let me remind you that we’ll make forward-looking statements on this call including our acquisition, construction, deployment and revenue plans for the next three years. Any statements relating to matters that are not historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements. Our statements are based on current expectations and are subject to the same risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in previous reports filed by the company with the SEC and in this morning’s press release. And all forward statements made during the call are subject to those same risks and uncertainties that we can’t identify. Once we complete the prepared remarks, Zach Spencer, who is here with me will direct all questions zooming on us and I’ll happily answer that. If you’re not using Zoom, you can follow up with us after the call directly or via our website with any additional questions. In just six short months, we’ve seen a dramatic leap in our balance sheet where our net assets have more than doubled from just $33 million to now over $70 million, while eliminating all of our debt. We have made strategic secured investments in MCU, LiNiCo and LP Biosciences, all of which are actively ramping up production plans, with MCU in the Philippines this year, LiNiCo in Q2 of next year, LP Bio in Q3 of next year. We’ve also advanced secured loans to Plain Sight Innovations, a breakthrough extraction technology company specializing in cellulosic products, including biofuels and also working directly for us on a lithium extraction solution at LiNiCo. All of these investments are secured, high yielding and with unique IP that we are commercializing into extraordinarily high revenue growth models and throughput generators for us. We have also invested in a material science-based quantum technology for our mining batteries and carbon capture lines of businesses that I’ll expand on a little bit more in just a few minutes. As I mentioned, our assets increased by almost $40 million, driven by four factors; first, an increase of $18 million in our investments, driven by GenMat at about $12 million and LiNiCo at $6 million. Secondly, an increase of about $5.5 million in our secured notes receivables, including an almost $2 million increase in the senior secured note that we have with Total Gold. That’s due this upcoming March and another $1 million increase in the secured loan, as I just mentioned, the Plain Sight Innovations. As a side note, the total note pays us cash interest of nearly $70,000 a month and they are current on all their payments. Third, we have an almost $8 million increase in what’s shown on the balance sheet as a derivative asset that’s tied to the shares that we’ve contributed to LiNiCo and GenMat. This is economic and that we retain any and all the appreciation in the value of those shares above our commitments. And we expect those amounts that will be monetized over the next two quarters to benefit Comstock. Fourth, and last, we had an increase of about $6 million, just simply in the net extinguishment of all of our debt and the increase in our cash. Overall, $40 million increase in our balance sheet. We believe each of these new investments has near-term valuation potential of literally over $1 billion, with most of them representing potential for multiples of that amount. Shares outstanding today total 54.1 million, including all of the shares issued to Renewable Process Solutions, RPS, GenMat, LP Biosciences and MANA Corp. So those are complete in total for all those recently completed acquisitions. Again, these transactions have been structured safely with assets secured and tremendous accretive value and upside from incredibly large markets, which I’ll go over a little bit more in a minute. Just to wrap up on the corporate side, as you saw, our cash is over $5 million at June 30, with $25 million in non-current non-core asset sales waiting to be closed. That includes our industrial and commercial non-mining lands, totaling over $13 million all under contract. We expect those to close in the near future. And we have had a remarkable increase in interest in the Silver Springs Opportunity Fund, actually an almost unbelievable increase in interest with an increasing number of very large strategic investors fully engaged with the interest of investing in the fund has fully leased its manufacturing capacity. It’s fully operating the Silver Springs Regional Airport and we get inquiries from new companies wanting to come into Northern Nevada and Silver Springs on an almost weekly basis. In fact, we have a call right after this one, with an especially large company looking to do that. The fund's recent issuances, capital raises, if you will, are being valued at $1.80 a share. That was the $335,000 investment that we have on our balance sheet at over $12 million today. So even though the $40 million increase in our assets, we have almost $11 million to $12 million unrecorded assets in terms of fair value relating to our Silver Springs investment. If you put the value comps against that, you’d be looking at closer to $3 a share to $6 a share, if you put that investment closer to $20 million to $40 million, not $12 million and certainly not the $300,000 that’s recorded on our balance sheet. We also hold well over 9 million shares of Tono Stock. We also have $67 million of secured notes receivable from Tono that’s due in less than seven months. So if you total those Tono securities that we’re monetizing, it’s about $8 million. So for us $25 million of non-dilutive monetized cash flow coming into the business over the next 12 months. Before I close on the corporate update, I just have a couple of additional items. Last week, we learned that a very longstanding, I would say, frivolous lawsuit against us was not only definitively won and concluded, but that the judge awarded us and the county over $0.25 million in legal fee reimbursements, substantially all of which would go to us. This positively concludes the zoning discussions associated with our Dayton resource area. Of course, we haven’t been sitting on our hands. In the meantime, our updated resource modeling on the Dayton is well underway. We will publish a series of interpretations and developments on this data as it becomes available well before publishing the full technical report. The technical report will be under the new SK-1300 standards that will be published this year and we know there’s tremendous value in the Dayton resource properties and that the technical report is really the most important next step for unlocking that value and validating that value to the market. We also understand that Tonogold has prioritized the completion of their technical reports for the Storey County property. So all of which we either own or hold stakes in one form or another. They also appear to have made process changes that we deem productive towards accelerating the publication of their technical report, the completion of their financial audits, and ultimately, upgrading their stock listing. From the activities we see this all seems to be moving more forward at a much, much more diligent pace. Regarding MCU, we’re fully set up in the Philippines with our mine camp, our employees, our management and our operations. We have fully run and tested the operations and even expanded the equipment with two new Grizzlies for proper separating and sizing of the sand and gravel materials that we’re selling to our customers. We have shipped sand and gravel to our first two customers. We did, however, have a permanent oversight in the Philippines that we have now corrected reapplied for and expect to get approval within the next week or two. So we can restart processing and selling those sand and gravels, again, remediating the mercury extracting the gold. Just as a step back, we haven’t continued to have all of the permitting that we needed from the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources in the Philippines. But apparently, we required to have this additional permit solely for the purposes of the mercury containment relating to the sand and gravel process, and caused us, frankly, a very disappointing delay. During the past five weeks, though, the team has expanded the equipment. We built the team at Grizzlies, we’ve tested them, everything’s ready and fully operating, capable to go. We’ve expanded and finished off our mercury storage facilities. So we’re very much looking forward to just resuming the operations there. Everything’s in place, our operating expenses there are variable, very low, unbelievably low. So we love the potential of this business and we very much look forward to the process getting up and running on a full scale. There are no other negatives that we are aware of in terms of how that system operates and what we’re looking forward to. On a much bigger note, our transformational efforts have quickened during the first half of this year. We are affecting a little green shift in our operating businesses. Our team is solely focused on the activities that enable rapid and I’m going to say exponential revenue gains in these huge end markets that we’re addressing. We believe that just our existing platform today, as I just recently mentioned, is already worth many multiples of our $0.5 billion target, just based on the comparative valuations, it would exceed $1 billion, just for similar lines of businesses that are publicly out there and capitalized in the market. I’m going to provide a quick overview on the three, LiNiCo, RPS and LP Biosciences. We recently filed, as we previously disclosed for the main LiNiCo permit application for a state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery recycling facility that now reflects a 100,000-ton per annum production profile for just the first plant in this business. This is literally a 5x increase from what we had originally provided guidance on and I’m happy to explain that now and in the Q&A. LiNiCo's new processes will commence upon the approval of that permit that we filed, which is anticipated before the end of this year, and we anticipate the completion and startup arrival of equipment coming November, December, January, February, commissioning in March, April, startup in that second quarter, almost all of our equipment has already been ordered and we are moving very, very fast here. Once complete, as I mentioned, the facility is expected to scale up to its initial nameplate now exceeding 100,000 tons per year of lithium-ion batteries over a period of the first three years, with annualized revenues exceeding $0.5 billion per year during the third full year of operation. What’s remarkable here is that these sales only represent black mass production and black mass sales. Those sales will be enhanced with downstream mineral and cathode production tremendously. Again, to be clear this guidance because of the expanded footprint of the plant is only for black mass. LiNiCo’s capacity breakthroughs are a direct result of our recent acquisition of the engineering procurement and construction company Renewable Process Solutions or RPS and its founder Mr. Rahul Bobbili. Rahul, who’s now Comstock’s Chief Process Engineer company-wide has designed and built 21 advanced renewable fuels production facilities just in the last 15 years and RPS has provided these engineering and commissioning services for other renewable metals and renewable fuel industries, a tremendous amount of capability here, a tremendous machine that we’ve added to the network. I don’t believe anyone can have a true appreciation of what RPS’s impact has been already to our system. It brings us an extraordinary competitive advantage just for LiNiCo, but right now RPS is also bidding on LP Biosciences or a portion of LP Biosciences engineering work as well, with indications that they could potentially save that project millions in CapEx on a faster cycle time and enhancing the overall value of both our and our partners’ investment. We believe LP Bio will be the largest industrial hemp processor and producer of extracted oils in the United States and like LiNiCo, the platform is designed to quadruple the capacity after its initial startup in the third quarter of 2022. The LP Bio facility alone is expected to scale up to its nameplate capacity exceeding 200,000 pounds per day of industrial hemp over its first three years, which will generate annualized revenues of over $400 million in the full three-year of operation. And this is just based on the small oil fraction of the industrial hemp industry. The rest of the biomass that comes out of that process is comprised of cellulose with many known co-products that we’re evaluating in our decarbonization efforts, including electrification applications that we believe are hiding in Plain Sight. So just to be clear, LiNiCo has an incredible revenue ramp-up just with black mass, not minerals, not cathodes. LP Bio has an incredible ramp-up on just one oil extraction from the industrial hemp, not the other co-products that we would look ultimately to add through the MANA system. Speaking of Plain Sight, we also have been working closely this year with PSI. Plain Sight Innovations on a number of new technologies, including a novel process for immediately extracting lithium from black mass quickly and efficiently. There’s more to come soon on that, but I just want to acknowledge today, no one’s able to do that. We believe we’re going to be able to do that very soon. We’re also working with existing processes for the efficient extraction of carbon from woody biomass with potential applications for producing anodes in batteries. As we started looking at becoming a cathode producer in the battery market, we explored these possibilities and we’re shocked at what PSI can actually do by taking waste wood, waste wood biomass, where the government’s reporting over 1 billion tons per year is being generated laid waste in the United States alone. PSI can convert efficiently into ethanol, into biogasoline, into biodiesel, and many other products. Right now they’re helping us accelerate the lithium extraction from the black mass for LiNiCo, which will be another breakthrough. We believe that this global clean energy transition, I’m sorry, this massive green shift, if you will, plus an escalating population growth is converging into a perfect storm of global demand. Demand of which is hard to exaggerate in these strategic materials, without any meaningful corresponding capacity to meet even a fraction of this demand. So we’re now building that capacity to meet these rapidly growing demands in each one of these businesses. This is literally positioning us for exponential growth and we’re deploying these plants in our systems for that capacity now, physical capacity in Nevada, physical capacity in Iowa, and over the next three years gives over $1 billion in revenue. But regardless, for those plans, we’re going to need more speed and we strongly believe that speed is arrived in the form of a quantum computing advantage. We’ve invested in emerging quantum computing technology to accelerate the innovation of breakthroughs for new materials for use in these applications, meaning, specifically, batteries, mining, decarbonization. We’re partners with leap, we’re with leaders in the industry, the top professionals, the top companies in the industry, as we position ourselves to continue leadership in these material sciences. So just to wrap up, we’re on a path to almost $1 billion in revenue from just LiNiCo, MANA, MANA/LP Bio and MCU, without any new additions. We plan on increasing this with PSI, likely this quarter, certainly this year, finishing the retrofits of two existing facilities in 2022. We’re retrofitting two state-of-the-art existing facilities here and now with growth and revenue in 2022 and we’re going to exceed our near-term $0.5 billion market value well ahead of schedule. In fact, we’re extremely focused on only those items within the timeframes that we published. Our money’s where our mouth is, as we’ve directly linked these performance objectives with our goal of delivering this first $0.5 billion, which we are now obviously reassessing as each of these new growth businesses can exceed multiples of that amount, as we move to an exponential ESG-based growth track. We’ve already seen an incredible recognition just in our shareholder base, with all of you, with all of you, but notably also BlackRock, Vanguard, and now Fidelity showing up in our top shareholders. This is just the beginning of our targeting effort. But regardless, our comp is structured so that the shareholders aren’t rewarded then neither are we. It’s 100% performance-based. So, with that, I’m going to ask Zoom. Now, I’m going to ask Zach, our Zoom host to stop here and please facilitate our questions.

Okay. Thank you, Corrado. Our first question and I know you spoke about this during your presentation. It’s regarding MCU…

Yeah.

... and they’d like to know how many units are operating and what does the P&L look like? And what is the plan to scale the MCU business?

Yes. Thank you very much. So we have two units in existence. One is on the Comstock, which is our pilot unit, operating 25 tons a day. It’s not currently operating 25 tons a day, the capacity to operate at 25 tons a day, and then the first commercial unit, which was landed in the Philippines, which can do 150 tons per day. So the intention, first and foremost, is to have the MCU unit fully operating in the Philippines, operating at or near the 150-ton capacity, I’m sorry, 150-ton per hour capacity, okay, and be selling all of the sand and gravel that comes from that system, cash positively. That’s objective, number one. Object number two, to extract any and all of the mercury that’s resident in those materials and to extract the gold from the mercury in those materials. I mentioned on the last call that we started at the very, very low end of the river; it’s the safest place to start, it’s where we have the easiest and best access to the sand and gravel materials. It’s also the area that has the least amount of mercury contamination. So while we were down for the last five weeks, we’ve been extending our scoping and sampling plans for the rest of the river to identify where the higher mercury and gold contents are and to expand our mercury containment unit and to expand our actual system. We put two new Grizzlies on there, so that we can sort descending gravels to different sizes, as our customers are specifically asking us. So the outlook for that is, A, revenue and smaller level of property billing, just from sand and gravel. We believe that’s an incredible derisk of the model. And then to start growing that revenue based on the mercury and gold contents that are identified. At a relatively low grade of gold and those mercury’s the potential is very high in terms of the amount of cash that we can generate monthly, but it’s going to be a two-step process, it’s sand/gravel up, announced that it’s back up and running, announced that it’s generating cash, and then expand up the river to the higher points of contamination. Now, once we’ve done that second piece, we’re very, very keen to talk about landing the second system and landing the third systems, but it’s going to be methodical. The Philippines is our essentially first commercial site. We’re going to be cautious. I’ve had multiple conversations with our joint venture partner there. We could not be more aligned and we’re fully committed to get that up and running. Beyond that, I can’t exaggerate the number of projects and the inquiries that are out there from historic and/or artisanal and small scale mining sites with mercury contamination. The conversations are abundant. But we have to walk before we can run. I’m disappointed in this mercury hiccup, deeply disappointed in the mercury hiccup. We’re making operational changes with our joint venture partner there to address the circumstance so it doesn’t happen again. But financially in the grand scheme of things, it’s a very, very minor setback in the scope of a mining operation and we’re very excited about moving it forward.

Okay. Thank you, Corrado. Next, we have a quick statement, this shareholder says, our company is an open book to shareholders. Thank you and the stuff for all you do to make this world a better place. And that is followed up by this question from another shareholder, what are the specific milestones that trigger payments for the quantum computing investment, were they not listed due to an NDA with another company?

Yeah. Thank you for that. So what quantum computing investment is designed to achieve is to create a capability to generate new materials. So we’re developing programs to create a capability to develop new materials, okay. The first priority that we’ve established is new materials for batteries. So we can see an immediate and direct implication on LiNiCo with that outcome. Quite frankly, we’ll see an immediate direct impact on all of the EV industry with that outcome, the EV industry that’s incredibly challenged today, because of the scarcity of the materials available for the existing configuration of these batteries. So that’s our first objective. And our second objective will be to commercialize those materials. And then, the third and fourth objectives are to have an application for the mining industry, including quantum sensing, and for our carbon capture and reduction industries, which include LP Biosciences and PSI. So as we start to connect the dots better for our shareholders, the investment in quantum has direct and strategic implications, and immediate direct and strategic implications to everything that we’re doing. We are under NDA. We are in stealth mode. And we do have strategic partners. There are leaders in the industry and we couldn’t be more humbled, proud, excited about the people that we’re working with and we’ll be able to say more about that in the future.

Our next question is, do you have any customers lined up for LiNiCo or the hemp business?

Yes. Let me begin with LiNiCo. The efforts for LiNiCo have been intense and rapid with the engineering designs. We couldn't be happier with the significant engineering breakthrough we achieved, allowing us to extract much more from an existing crushing and separating system, while fitting multiple systems within our facility's footprint. We are also advancing with downstream extraction in collaboration with Green Li-ion, who is finalizing their downstream extraction for cathodes. This will lead to a solution that provides pure cathodes and pure minerals. Additionally, our partner Aqua Metals is developing a hybrid metallurgical solution to reach minerals. We are very excited about the downstream developments. The key takeaway for our investors is that this capacity breakthrough is crucial. I would be quite dissatisfied if we were just selling black mass. However, with half a billion in revenue and substantial profit figures, we would be in a good position if everything goes as planned. Moving forward, we are engaging in discussions with some of the largest customers in the industry for material supply, which is outstanding. Notably, some of these companies are also considering supplying us with feedstock. This creates a true closed loop with significant industry players, and we are now dedicating most of our time to securing the remaining feedstocks for this massive facility.

Okay. Thanks, Corrado. Our next question is, the press release on GenMat stated that Comstock was going to purchase 5% of the $50 million, in addition to the 45% that Comstock already owns. Is the market value of GenMat $1 billion?

So, basically what happened is that we identified an opportunity with the startup company. And I cannot exaggerate the competency of its key professional. I cannot exaggerate the network of people that this key professional is working with. But, quite frankly, we engaged that person, that team and we were involved dramatically in developing what we believe is just a superior plan with a superior strategic partner. And in doing that, we earned ourselves a tremendous amount of founders’ equity, okay, a tremendous amount of founders’ equity. It was earned with sweat and brains and maybe a little bit of tears, not that many tears, okay? And so, then we looked at what was required to generate new materials, what would be required to commercialize those materials, what would be required to commercialize additional lines of business, and we committed to up to $50 million, but only the first $15 million, right, is committed through the first objective over the next two years. So I personally think every business that we’re going into is going to be worth multiple billions and I’m basing that on the impacts and the cash flows that we see possible. But for valuation, today, there’s a lot of work to do, okay. There’s a lot of work to do and you’re going to be hearing about it over the next weeks, months, and hopefully two years the tremendous success. So we’re going to have to hold the valuations back before we actually get something achieved here, we don’t have any achieved yet. On the contrary with LiNiCo, where we invested at a $70 million valuation, we see public competitors in two instances, having valuations of greater than $1 billion. And we don’t see either one of those competitors having a facility like ours with the capacity that we’ve announced, with the equipment that we’ve now ordered, right, with black mass that we’re making in our lab. Number one, we see a private company valued at $3.7 billion, similarly not having announced the capacity that we’ve announced and the facility that we have. So, yeah, I think there’s the billions coming in each line of business, the quantum one has the most farthest out work to do by far, the lithium one has the most immediate wrapping up, MCU is just as immediate as LiNiCo, but MCU is a little bit more disparate, right. LiNiCo is going to ramp up one plant to $0.5 billion in revenue without their downstream products. MCU is going to be populating many, many sites around the world, cleaning up ecosystems and generating mercury remediation and gold. So, there’s a common denominator here, everyone in these businesses has markets that are just enormous, that have no capacity existing today to deliver to them, and we’re meeting those needs with the capacities we’re putting in place.

Okay. And the next question is, how do you assess where you stand with your competition with LiNiCo and your hemp business?

I mentioned earlier regarding LiNiCo, so I won't go into further detail. I'm confident about where we are. With RPS in our portfolio, people don't realize that we are engineering our own solutions and manufacturing our own equipment. We have more capability than anyone else. The hemp industry is immense, but its growth is hindered by a lack of processing capacity. We've recently talked to farmers who expressed they have 5,000 acres ready to grow, but if our capacity increases, they might expand to 40,000 acres. The industry is present, and demand is strong, but processing has not been available at scale or consistently. Additionally, we will be the first large scale operation capable of remediating THC from the material, something no one else can do effectively today. RPS is also part of these discussions regarding our engineered solutions. I aim to give a broader view of how the system is evolving. Zach?

Okay. And next we have a statement. Thanks for all your hard work. I can answer the first question. The first question is, how do I get a cat? We get asked that question quite a bit. And those will be available on our website, in our store, our online store that we have. So we are currently working on that.

Let me interject that… If you’re going to buy a constant cat, buy quickly, because the name is changing, it’s going to be Classic, okay. It’s going to affect us either, all right, for sure.

Okay. And then a question is, do we have a goal for the number of outstanding shares?

We don’t have a goal, right? But we have a view that with the PSI acquisition, as we are currently finalizing it, that we would be about 62 million shares. So we believe, when in hindsight, and when I’m talking about hindsight, I’m talking about you all looking back on 2021. So I’m talking in January, when the dots have been connected, when we’ve published institutional quality financial models that combine LiNiCo, LP Biosciences, PSI and MCU. When you look back onto those models, onto those guidances, people are going to be scratching their heads as to how we so efficiently were able to consolidate these businesses. It wasn’t luck, but we do feel fortunate. If you ask me my preference, I would have loved for this to have happened over a two and a half year period. We didn’t have that luxury, okay? The opportunities were being scrubbed, we’re being diligence, sometimes things just converge the way they do and you have to be ready to capitalize on them. So we understand that the sequence of what’s happened, the magnitude of what’s happened is not crystal clear, you have to understand that. In September, October, there’s going to be tremendous clarity. Here’s the model. Here’s what the combined consolidated company looks like. And I can tell you, that the nature of the financial institutions, so if we’re talking about BlackRock, Fidelity, Vanguard, etc. or if we’re talking about the Bulge Bracket Banks, Bulge Bracket Banks that have now reached out and making overtures to us. We’re on a different playing field. It’s a different game and it’s a different level. And so I want to apologize for the speed at which this had to hit you all, the sequence of which it had to hit you off. I would have sequenced it very different if I had a choice. But when it’s done and the dots are connected, it’s not going to be confusing. It’s going to be very exciting. It already is very exciting and we’ve never worked harder to this end.

Okay. Are you able to provide an update on supply agreements to match LiNiCo capacity and walk through the Phase 1 to 3 roadmap to cathodes?

Yeah.

Also can you compare and contrast to your competition?

Yeah. So I think that, let me go Phase 1 to Phase 3 cathodes and compare. So Phase 1 crushing and separating of our big capacities over 100,000 tons. All the engineering is done, all the permits have been submitted, all the equipment has been ordered and it’s coming. Phase 2, I really think there are four phases. Phase 2 is to come up with an immediate extraction of lithium from the black mass. That’s not being done, I don’t really think is being contemplated by our competition. We have a patented process embedded in PSI, that we’re looking to apply to this solution, which has two immediate effects, one, the ability to sell lithium carbonate extract faster than anybody’s predicting, and secondly, to make the downstream process for whoever comes up with it, certainly Green Li-ion, to get the cathodes much, much simpler. We’ve already affected simplification for the cathode production process. So we don’t know anybody that has the capacity designs to break black mass that we do. We don’t know anybody that’s even contemplating extracting lithium like we are. We don’t know anybody that’s planning to make 99.99% pure cathodes like Green Li-ion is committed to us they can do. The fourth phase is that, there are multiple exercises one by us and RPS and one by one of our partners to take that black mass sands lithium and extrapolate it to nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite. And so there are many people trying to do that. For us, it’s a cherry on top of everything else. So it’s not necessarily an advantage or disadvantage, we’re going to be doing that because we want to be a broad supplier of the materials to the whole market. So that’s the four phases and the competition. What was the first part of the question, Zach, slipped my mind?

Yeah. Let me see. Oh! Were you able to provide an update on supply agreements?

The supply is significant and we are currently engaging with several large companies that require these battery materials. They are discussing a closed loop chain with us, and we are also in conversation with many others across the United States regarding feedstock supply. While we do not have any updates on agreements yet, we will provide updates as soon as they are finalized. Right now, we are focused on making significant progress with the breakthroughs and designs, particularly now that the permits have been submitted. I believe one of our competitors has not yet submitted their permit, and the other has made some changes to their facility plans. Overall, we are more focused and moving at a faster pace.

As you are working with Lakeview, are there carbon capture opportunities associated with ethanol plants and the ability to control 45Q tax credits?

The decarbonization effort is going to be a major focus for us. Our operations are based on throughput, which refers to the rate at which we produce gold units, subsequently generating cash, reducing carbon emissions, and creating social impact. We track these three aspects closely. Ethanol is one of the largest contributors to carbon dioxide emissions, making our partnership with Lakeview a significant opportunity as we explore additional avenues for emission reduction. We have innovative solutions in development that will not be discussed today but position us well for the future. Through cellulosic fuels, we will be able to capture carbon dioxide and use it productively. As we connect these high-level ideas more intricately, the outcomes will be unexpectedly beneficial. Zach?

Is LiNiCo capable of processing 100,000 tons of waste batteries per year? Where will the feedstock come from?

There are long-term universal waste handlers, and there is a large quantity of electronic devices and batteries, many of which are currently going to landfills due to regulations. The number of electric vehicles is rapidly increasing, with many still in testing, while some, like Tesla, are operating but not being fully utilized. The entire industry is working to optimize this. We are in the process of finalizing agreements for this. Given our goal of scaling up to 100,000 tons over three years, we will not face a battery shortage to support our operations; we will consistently be supplying those batteries as we ramp up over time. More information will be provided as we progress.

Okay. And our next question is, will the company be purchasing any stock at these current prices?

We’ve had some signals from our directors about when the blackout period will end and if we can purchase stock. We definitely expect to see some activity in that regard. These acquisitions are also introducing exceptional management expertise. The team we have encountered is unlike any other, and every individual is willing to sell their businesses for stock and is agreeing to lock that stock up for five years. This is a strong indication of their confidence in our collaboration and what we can achieve together. Ultimately, by the end of the year, our insider holdings will likely be much larger than anyone anticipates due to a combination of these factors. We are fully committed and restricted; if we fail to perform, we won’t be rewarded.

Okay. And a shareholder would like some more clarity, they wanted to confirm that we have $25 million in assets for sale and $30 million are under contract. Is that correct?

$25 million for sale, $13 million under sales contract for land, another $6.7 million under senior secured contract or payments by March. That’s the total roll note receivable. There is a possibility that some or all of that note will be paid early, based on the developments that we’re seeing, but certainly not later than the end of March. Yeah, so those are the two biggest components pushing $20 million of the $25 million.

Okay. And a shareholder would like an update on Tonogold.

So Tonogold had some changes, okay. I use the term process change earlier. But frankly, they’ve added an incredible new director to their Board. I’ve had a number of conversations with very, very strong, professional, very level-headed professionals. I’ve talked to all of their top stakeholders. They’ve accelerated the process for finishing their technical report. It’s nearly complete in draft form and we’ve seen it. They are accelerating to a final conclusion of their audited financial statements. That’s a prerequisite for their uplisting and they’re moving forward with uplisting. So we expect to see some additional drilling, believe it or not, over next few weeks, get started. We expect to see meaningful changes in the rate at which their business plan moves forward and we’re very supportive of it. Like we think it’s going to be successful. They’ve got some great partners, meaning stakeholders, meaning shareholders and they’re talking to some very good one. So I think it’s going to keep moving forward. Everyone was disappointed by some of the initial delays and the drop in their share price, but it looks like they’re getting their plans back on track and we’re happy to see that.

Congratulations on your transformational Green Shift. What is your relationship with Green Shift Corporation?

So we have spoken to the Green Shift principals. We love the people. We absolutely love the people. We have really focused on this Plain Sight Innovations component, if you will, of that, for lack of a better term network. And the main principle of that company, we put in the highest regard and the collaboration with that principle and with the senior executives of Plain Sight Innovation, as far as I’m concerned is one of the final pieces to this puzzle and an incredibly powerful business model. But we’ll hold and reserve more conversation until that’s really closed, quite honestly, just because I don’t want to jinx it.

Okay. Corrado, that wraps up all of our questions. Thank you all.

I understand that there is a lot of change happening and a sense of urgency to generate revenue from these businesses. I want to emphasize our commitment to MCU, our dedication to ramping up LiNiCo quickly, and our intent to accelerate the growth of LP Biosciences and MANA. We are also focused on finalizing our deal with PSI, which could represent one of the largest business models we've discussed so far. By the end of September, we aim to consolidate all these businesses into a high-quality model and engage new shareholders who are very interested. The potential for investment in our company is significant. We believe this expansion will be a crucial factor in driving our share price not just to our interim goal of $12, but beyond that. We are putting in a lot of effort and maintaining our focus on these objectives. If anyone has not had the chance to ask a question, please reach out to me or Zach at your convenience. Thank you, and we look forward to our next call.