PureCycle Technologies, Inc. Q1 FY2025 Earnings Call

Hello and thank you for joining us. I would like to welcome you to the PureCycle Technologies First Quarter 2025 Corporate Update Call. All lines are muted to minimize background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. I will now hand it over to Eric DeNatale, PureCycle Director of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Thank you, Jericho. Welcome to PureCycle Technologies first quarter 2025 corporate update conference call. I am Eric DeNatale, Director of Investor Relations for PureCycle, and joining me on the call today are Dustin Olson, our Chief Executive Officer; and Jaime Vasquez, our Chief Financial Officer. This evening we will be highlighting our corporate developments for the first quarter 2025. The presentation we'll be going through on this call can also be found on the Investor tab at our website at purecycle.com. Many of the statements made today will be forward-looking and are based on management's beliefs and assumptions and information currently available to management at this time. The statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which may be beyond our control, including those set forth in our Safe Harbor Provisions and forward-looking statements that can be found at the end of our first quarter 2025 corporate update press release filed this afternoon as well as in other reports on file with the SEC to provide further detail about the risks related to our business. Additionally, please note that the company's actual results may differ materially from those anticipated and except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement. Our remarks today may also include preliminary non-GAAP estimates and are subject to risks and uncertainties including, among other things, changes in connection with quarter-end and year-end adjustments. Any variation between PureCycle's actual results in the preliminary financial data set forth herein may be material. You're welcome to follow along with our slide deck or if joining us by phone, you can access it at any time at purecycle.com. We are excited to share updates from the previous quarter with you. With that I will now turn it over to Dustin Olson, PureCycle's Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Eric. The first quarter marked a significant milestone for our company as we recorded revenues for the first time in our history. This is a moment we've eagerly anticipated, and we're thrilled to have reached it. The positive feedback from customers across various markets and product types reinforces our confidence in our ability to convert trials into sales, increase revenues, and fully utilize Ironton's production by the end of the year. We have made ongoing operational enhancements, particularly regarding our onstream time, which has been a primary challenge in production. We successfully targeted improvements in this area over the last couple of months. Although we did not operate at full pellet production rates in April, maintaining daily pellet production and being online for nearly 90% of the month is a significant accomplishment that aligns with our objectives. Just a year ago, we struggled to keep the plant operational for more than 25% to 30% of the time, highlighting the substantial progress we’ve made. Our operations and manufacturing teams have shown remarkable drive, instilling confidence that we will continue to improve and work toward achieving our nameplate capacity. On the commercial side, we are also witnessing meaningful advancements. We are currently engaged in over 30 trials, with 24 advancing to the industrial phase, representing over 300 million pounds of potential product sales. This is an increase from our update in Q4 just two months ago. Progress through our sales funnel is encouraging, with three previous trials converted into purchase orders. Many of these negotiations involve potential large orders, and while there may be fluctuations in the early stages, we are optimistic about our current standing. Additionally, our technical success with Drake in Q1 has led to a rise in fiber demand that is now picking up. There are more conversations underway, and we are excited about the pipeline and opportunities before us in the fiber market. The combination of improved operational reliability at Ironton and positive commercial developments enhances our confidence in generating substantial EBITDA and cash flow. In earlier calls, we discussed our compounding strategy, which helps us better meet our customers' needs while providing us with more operational flexibility. As we penetrate the fiber market and have demonstrated success with trials in film, it's important to update the market on our compounding status and the excitement surrounding what it can bring to PureCycle. As our customer discussions have evolved over the past year, we have segmented our production into two brands under the PureCycle umbrella. The first, PureFive Ultra, aims to be our flagship product, nearly identical to virgin material, with favorable market dynamics for color-sensitive applications. This represents a groundbreaking advancement for the plastic recycling industry, and we believe this product is unique. However, many customers require more options beyond PureFive Ultra, such as specific mechanical properties or varying levels of recycled content. Almost all customers need robust molecular performance, free from contaminants. This is where PureCycle sets itself apart, leading us to introduce the PureFive Choice product line. This line will include compounds that cater to various applications like film, fiber, and automotive, allowing customers to choose based on their specific requirements. Considering polypropylene’s versatility across a broad array of uses—from carpets and furniture to snack bags and automotive components—the feed we process is a mix of different consumer products. Consequently, various applications, especially those that are more demanding, require mechanical properties that traditional recycling processes often fall short on. PureFive Choice addresses this need by blending our resin with varying amounts of other input streams and additives to create a product that closely resembles the customer’s existing fossil-based supplies. We believe our PureFive Choice blends will support our fiber and film segments and enhance options in industries like automotive. Unlike other recycling technologies, our ability to eliminate contaminants on a molecular level provides a solid foundation for PureFive Choice, making our products attractive where others can't compete. Early successes in fiber, film, and automotive showcase this capability. In our fiber application, we achieve a 50-50 blend with a melt flow rate ranging from 18 to 40, depending on customer needs. Our film production consists of a 30% to 50% PCT blend with a melt flow rate as low as 2 to 3. Both of these application successes represent significant breakthroughs in the industry that we expect will create substantial demand. PureFive Choice is also offered in bright white products, perfect for many durable goods. Next time you visit a big box store, look around; you'll be surprised by the number of bright white plastic products available. This will allow brand owners to incorporate recycled polypropylene into their products. Overall, our compounding strategy has enabled us to deliver products that facilitate quicker adoption and can expand our sales capacity beyond the nameplate capacity of 107 million pounds per year from Ironton. Additionally, the unit economics per pound of PCT material are improving compared to non-blended materials. We began sharing our compounding strategy in Q3 of 2024, and it’s gratifying to see these operational improvements translating into tangible solutions for our customers, including compounded material sales in the first quarter. Since our last update in February, the backlog of potential trials and customers has continued to grow. We are currently managing 33 active trials, with 24 in the industrial stage and an additional nine in pilot trials. The volume potential from these trials has increased since last quarter, which is promising. The trials are progressing well, further boosting our confidence in reaching our sales goals for 2025. For instance, in the rigid packaging sector, we now have 13 trials at the industrial phase, up from five last quarter, illustrating steady progress with numerous customers. Examples from previous discussions include products with Procter & Gamble, large converters making dairy cups, and several shampoo and beauty closures for major consumer brands. While I can't disclose specifics yet, we are also in discussions with several large auto OEMs that may procure significant volumes across a plethora of global plants and markets. Interest is likely to grow in light of the upcoming recycled content regulations set to take effect in Europe and Japan in 2030. We see a continual expansion of our market reach and ongoing progress in advancing trials. The market is actively seeking high-quality products that can be integrated into their operations, and each trial’s success gives us greater flexibility in how we approach the Ironton output. Crucially, we perceive the foundation of PureCycle's future success hinges on proving that our products can function across various application segments, particularly those currently lacking sustainable options. For that reason, we are enthusiastic to announce our initial trial successes with Bruckner, the leading supplier of stretch film manufacturing equipment, controlling nearly 90% of that market, with an annual capacity of 30 billion pounds. Their widespread adoption in the industry allows us to begin industrial trials with many major end users shortly. With over 1,000 machines operational, their latest machinery can handle nearly double Ironton's nameplate capacity. The BOPP film market represents a major opportunity for us. Successful tests with Bruckner have shown our film being stretched nine times without tearing and maintaining ultra-clear properties, indicating that our film blend could serve as a viable replacement for virgin materials. The BOPP film sector is the most promising market for us in the next few years due to a higher prevalence of single-use plastics and the difficulties traditional recycling grades face, leading to low market penetration. Brands are under growing pressure to find sustainable solutions for plastic film. Our film products can serve multiple applications, including candy and snack wrappers, pet food bags, beverage labels, and adhesive tapes. At the beginning of the year, we did not foresee a significant revenue contribution from film in the short term, but the success with Bruckner has expedited our plans and is now poised to be a substantial driver of our sales later this year. Ironton made notable operational advancements this quarter, producing 4.3 million pounds of resin and holding roughly 14 million pounds in inventory. More importantly, with some minor operational adjustments, we successfully ran the plant every day in April, achieving nearly 90% onstream time. This brings us closer to our original engineering target of 90%, showcasing the impressive reliability improvements we've achieved over the past year. I've consistently highlighted that the operational issues at Ironton are becoming less frequent, and our April performance is a testament to that progress. We have also observed enhanced product quality thanks to operational improvements in Denver at our Flake Sorter and at Purification in Ironton. Overall, the first quarter demonstrated excellent advancement in our plans to ramp up Ironton commercially by 2025. We generated our first reported revenues, made strides with key customers and trials, achieved our first success in a significant film market, and realized meaningful operational progress at Ironton. The increasing prices on our branded sales further bolster our confidence in achieving our economic targets and successfully implementing our commercial and operational ramp-up plans. We are also making headway with our capacity expansion and growth initiatives, with numerous exciting developments to be announced soon. I would like to provide a brief preview of what’s in store. We have gained valuable insights from the commercialization of Ironton and from fundamental research and development at our Durham facility. These insights should enable us to scale the technology for higher capacity per line, reducing the capital and operational expenditures of these facilities while optimizing overall economics. The positive financials we are beginning to see at Ironton are strong, but we anticipate they will improve further with future lines. We continue to explore opportunities to enhance Ironton's economics as well. In recent years, we have heavily invested in the overall growth of our company by purchasing preparatory equipment and acquiring long-lead equipment for two additional 130 million pound lines. This strategy has been effective, allowing us to navigate Ironton’s challenges more efficiently and improving our feed position ahead of Denver's introduction. This will enable us to accelerate our time to market while maintaining a less inflated cost structure due to our initial strategic choices. With significant global interest in our products throughout the customer pipeline, we are poised to aggressively increase the capacity of future lines, more than we have thus far. While we are still in the early stages of engineering these solutions, we are confident in our ability to scale up significantly based on our current understanding of the technology. This will drive both capital and operational efficiencies across our facilities, ultimately enhancing profitability and returns for our stakeholders. This sets the groundwork for PureCycle's future. We are exploring various financing avenues for our plan, and once they are finalized, we will provide the market with detailed updates. We believe the lessons learned from Ironton are foundational, and as we experience heightened operational and commercial successes, it strengthens our confidence in the growth trajectory ahead.

Thank you, Dustin. As you see on Slide 10, we ended the quarter with $37.5 million of cash on hand, including $22.5 million of unrestricted cash. During the quarter we raised just under $55 million through a series of transactions, including $33 million through the sale of about 4 million shares of common stock in a private placement, the sale of about $19 million face value of revenue bonds, as well as proceeds from the exercise of certain warrants. Shortly after the quarter closed, we sold an additional $11.8 million face value of revenue bonds, and we still have about $85 million of revenue bonds remaining that will continue to sell. Our operations and corporate spend was about $37 million for the quarter, which was in line with the first quarter a year ago, and about $9 million higher than the fourth quarter of 2024. The higher spend compared to last quarter largely reflected spending at Augusta and the first full quarter of our Denver operations. I would now like to turn the call back to Jericho who'll open the call for your questions.

Thank you. We will now start the question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from Andres Sheppard from Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Hey, Dustin. Hey, Eric. Good afternoon. Congratulations on the quarter. And more importantly, congratulations on the first recorded revenue. Very, very exciting indeed. Just a quick question. You touched on this briefly on the call. I see you guys have about 14 million pounds of inventory. So just curious, kind of what the strategy is. Would you want to sell more of this product into the market this year? Or perhaps are you holding back, I guess for a specific reason? Thank you.

Yes. Hey, thanks, Andres. Appreciate the question. Appreciate the compliments as well. Yes, as we entered 2025, we knew that there would be a ramp and some time required for customer trials, okay? And so we knew at the beginning of the year we'd probably need to push some of the material through distribution. But quite frankly, as we got into the customer trials and the performance of the customer trials was proceeding a bit faster than what we expected, and some of the early realized pricing that we were seeing out of the sales coming from those trials from fiber, we basically decided to hold back on some of the inventory for some of the branded sales later in the year. And so this is really just a decision to build the inventory now into the channels that we discussed so we can sell them for higher values in the second half of the year.

I see. Got it. That makes actually perfect sense. Thanks for clarifying that. And maybe just as a quick follow-up, I want to touch on maybe the growth plans. So obviously, you provided a lot of detail, particularly Slide 5, very helpful. Just curious if you can maybe provide us with a little more color as to what is the thinking around here in terms of the growth as we get closer and closer to the second facility? Thank you.

Yes. Hey, that's a great question. Look, I mean, we are really excited about the plan that we're building for growth. We've talked about this quite a bit over the last couple of years in terms of locations that we were excited to be initiating discussions on, whether it be Georgia or Belgium or some of our JV partnerships like the one with Mitsui. And we've also talked about the interest in taking the learnings from Ironton and rolling those into future design. So that's kind of a two-part question. The first part is there's a lot of things we learned at Ironton from a reliability perspective, okay, like buy this piece of equipment not that, or arrange this piece of equipment this way, not that and we've gone through a lot of those learnings and that's why you see the uptime at like 90% today. What's even more exciting than that is that our fundamental understanding of the technology is also growing exponentially. I mean, the more we run, the steadier we run, the more uptime we have, the better clarity that we have into how our process is working and quite frankly, it's more efficient than what we expected when we started this journey and that's led to our ability to forecast how we can design improvements into these plans. So the idea is that the deeper technology enables us to know that we can build much bigger plants. So we referenced in the slide something like 200 to 500. We haven't narrowed that down yet, although we've got some ideas. But the point is, it's much, much bigger and when you have bigger plants, you lower your OpEx that's both fixed and variable, which leads to higher EBITDA and then you also lower your CapEx per pound because as you scale facilities like this, the CapEx does not scale linearly and so you're able to drop the CapEx pretty substantially and ultimately, the higher EBITDA, the lower CapEx leads to higher returns and that's really the plan that we're building for the future. We've got a great footprint built for the future. We know where we want to build the plant, and we know there is tremendous demand in those regions for our product and this now gives us the opportunity to build plants more cost-effectively, which will ultimately lead to faster growth, better projects, faster financing in the future. That's a good question. Andres, thank you.

Awesome. Thank you, Dustin, for the answer. Very thorough and detailed. Appreciate it. Congrats again. I'll pass it on.

Thank you, sir.

Our next question comes from Hassan Ahmed from Alembic Global.

Afternoon, Dustin. Apologies for the background noise. I'm actually traveling. Look, it seems like you guys have made solid progress relative to even the last quarter. So a two-part question, I guess as I compare what you guys sort of shared with us last quarter to this starting first with just the trials. I mean, am I thinking about things correctly that as I sort of take a look at the backlog? First of all, it seems the backlog has increased. Thereon after, as I sort of sit there and look at the conversion of that backlog, call it, from pilot to industrial to potentially eventually commercialization, it seems that has been gaining more momentum. Momentum in terms of, more mobility of projects from that sort of pilot stage to the industrial stage. And it seems it's imminent that a couple of these sort of industrial sort of tests will sort of convert into lumpy sort of commercial opportunities for you. Is that the right way of thinking about the momentum from Q4 2024 to Q1 2025?

Yes, I mean, look, it's only been a few weeks since we had the last quarterly update. I think it's like nine weeks or something. But even in that short amount of time, we've been able to show continued progress with the trials. And so, yes, I think that's right, Hassan. I mean, 2025 has always been dubbed as a transformative year for us. We're really building for the second half of the year being kind of a revenue ramp period for us. We've shown really good progress across the customer trials and a lot of continued interest to test and trial in different applications. What I think is equally important to the things that you mentioned is just the optionality that we're starting to build. I mean, when you can qualify your product in film, fiber, automotive, dairy cups, et cetera, et cetera, that ultimately puts a lot of flexibility and optionality into PureCycle's hands, as to where do we want to allocate the production that we have for Ironton. Look, at the end of the day, the demand for this product far outstrips the supply. Ironton as a nameplate of 107 million pounds, we'll be able to expand that a bit through compounding. But this customer funnel is more than just Ironton. This customer funnel is also planting the foundation for every growth project that we have in the future. And so when we start talking about growing in Europe and growing in Asia and growing in Augusta, the conversations are just fundamentally different and with fundamentally different people as well. Like we'll be able to show them product that has been tested, qualified, and proven to work before we ask them to sign the contracts. And that's just a great position to be in as we start talking about the future.

Very helpful, Dustin. And as the follow-up, again, I know you guys were pretty clear in explaining the BOPP film opportunity, but just digging a bit deeper into that, I mean, you guys talked about sort of the market being around a 30 billion market, but just a Bruckner opportunity unto itself. I mean, if I am sort of thinking correctly about it, it seems that Bruckner has one of the larger market shares in that arena. So just that one sort of customer of yours or a potential customer of yours could actually be a huge sort of commercial opportunity for you. Is that the right way of thinking about it?

I need to clarify the discussion about Bruckner. Bruckner is the leading equipment supplier in the market and holds a significant market share providing equipment to brands that produce film. Customers typically look to Bruckner to verify if new products work, and if Bruckner confirms that the products perform well on their machines, customers feel confident they will also work on theirs. The engagement with Bruckner and trials there are crucial, as they provide insight into what other customers can achieve. This is very promising and will initiate discussions with many brand owners in the future. The topic of film is challenging for brand owners regarding sustainability due to the prevalence of single-use plastics, which attracts attention. There hasn't been a technical solution for incorporating recycled content yet. For instance, if recycled material has heavy contaminants, it can behave unpredictably during stretching, leading to issues like tearing or discoloration. This has made it difficult to integrate recycled materials into BOPP, which is why Bruckner believes this could revolutionize the industry and help close the loop. We are excited about our work with Bruckner, though we still have additional steps to take. We are conducting trials with a few other partners outside Bruckner that will provide further insights and hopefully advance commercialization. The initial success has been thrilling, and this is a pivotal moment that the industry has long awaited. As I walk through stores, I notice the various products, and honestly, while enjoying some candy bars, I’m reminded of BOPP film. I genuinely believe that once this solution is commercialized, the industry will be eager to embrace it.

Very helpful, Dustin. And the fact that you're talking about fish eyes and really enjoying those candy bars, testament to you, you being spending too much time around polypropylene recycling. So kudos to you.

It's true that I eat, breathe, and sleep polypropylene.

Thank you so much again, Dustin.

Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Thomas Boyes from TD Cowen.

Appreciate you taking the questions. Maybe the first one around the commercialization is kind of gaining traction. Do you have a better sense of what the pricing structure looks like for the business? I know when we were at the Ironton, you talked about maybe the lower bound of what pricing could look like. And not too long ago, the company used to talk about perhaps pursuing a feedstock plus pricing model relative to fixed pricing. So just wondering if you could give any insight maybe to how that's evolving over time?

Yes, I think that the discussion is largely the same and we're still sticking to the numbers that we said last year around the expected ASP. We still see that as in the game for us per pound of PCT products. I think that the idea of the feedstock plus pricing is actually gaining more traction now, to be honest with you. There's a lot of customers that as they deal more and more with the recycle market and they see some of the moves both on the feedstock and the virgin market perspective, they recognize that feedstock plus pricing is really required for this industry and they're starting to embrace it. So I think that's still pretty strong. You'll still find some customers that are really trying to anchor into a fixed price or something that touches virgin, like a virgin plus type mechanism. But I think that especially given the supply demand imbalance, I think that the conversation pretty quickly goes to feedstock plus because quite frankly, it just makes the most sense. That is the market. This is a specialty product. It's very different than virgin polypropylene. And it's tied to a different feedstock source. So I think people understand that and are okay with it.

I appreciate the insights you've shared. I'd also like to hear your views on liquidity going forward. The burn rate is still quite significant, so I'm interested in your thoughts on how this might trend throughout the year and how it could influence your cash runway. Given your current cash position and the remaining revenue bonds, do you anticipate needing to raise additional capital or consider project debt financing for future facilities?

Yes, let me. Let me take the first crack at it, and I'll pass it to Jamie to finish it off. I mean, one of the side benefits of steadier operation is also steadier cost management. So when you look at some of the bumpier quarters that we've had over the last year and a half, I mean, we've done a lot of work at Ironton in terms of putting a screen changer in or doing some work on the adsorbent beads or seal improvements. Those things cost money. And we've spent quite a bit of money over the last 12 to 18 months improving that. So I think that as we run steadier, you start to see your maintenance cost profile become more in-line. You also start to see your variable cost become steadier because you're not moving the plants around as much and that's going to be really good for us. It's been good so far this year. It'll continue to improve as we raise rates and run increasingly better throughout the year. When it comes to the overall cash position, remind everybody that we have the revenue bonds on the balance sheet. We also have the $200 million line of credit, and the longer and better that the Ironton facility continues to operate and also, quite frankly, the progress that we're making on customer trials, that makes the Ironton bonds more and more valuable, and so we see increasing demand for those and better pricing for those over time. So, from a cash burn perspective, we're putting some cash into inventory right now. We'll be able to pull that back out as we get the customer trials done and we start pulling the inventory down. So I see it improving over the second half of the year. Jamie?

I think you touched on it Dustin. Thomas, we have a very good, steady rate of costs. They don't vary too much now from month to month. And I think with kind of the sale of the inventory plus future sales in the second half of the year, combined with the sale of the revenue bonds, the cash burn is going to be minimized.

And I think we mentioned this in the call also, but our goal is to, let's say, first get to break even at Ironton, Q3-ish timeframe, and then as we start to exit the year, get into early 2026, start to really chew into some of the corporate costs as well. And so I think that what you'll see over the second half of the year is a pretty significant reduction in overall cash burn from operations.

Excellent. I appreciate the kind of the updated thought there on breakeven at Ironton, the corporate breakeven. I'll hop back in queue.

Hey, Thomas, you broke up there at the end, did you. Okay, so next question. Thank you. Thanks, Thomas.

Our next question comes from Eric Stine from Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

Hi, everyone.

Hey, Eric. How you doing?

Doing well. You?

Doing great. Doing great.

Good, good. So I guess first thing, obviously, great to see that you have increased the number of active trials. And I guess as you said, you reported nine weeks ago. I know at that time you had, I believe, 10 in later stage and you had some level of confidence that those trials would be largely complete or some of them would be in Q2. So just wondering kind of where things stand in terms of how far along are these trials? As you look at these trials, what are kind of the steps and as you look at the 33 that are active, would you expect that you would be through these trials by the end of 2025, or is it something that could come quite a bit sooner?

Yes, so first of all, appreciate the question. Yes, we've made really good progress. It's only been a few weeks since the last call, but we continue to see ramp there. With respect to Q2, yes, I think some of these are going to start commercializing inside of Q2 and starting to ramp-up. We're already starting to see that a bit with the fiber trial. So I think that will continue. And then I definitely believe that second half of 2025 looks really positive from a commercial perspective. So I think it's hard to say how many of the 33 or which ones will, because quite frankly, every customer is different. And every customer has a different qualification period and qualification, let's say, procedure. And so what we're doing is we're putting a lot of lures in the water and we're qualifying as many different application segments as possible. So it provides us, let's just say, great optionality and flexibility for our sales team. And so, yes, I think in the course of 2025, for sure, we're going to start to see ramp. We're going to see some of these commercial trials move from pilot to industrial and into ramp. And I feel really good about getting the production up and the sales up in the second half of the year.

Got it. That is good to hear. And then maybe last one for me just on compounding and I apologize, I'm jumping around on calls and may have missed this earlier. But as you think about that, do you find or do you expect that you'll get a premium for that product on all of the compounded volume? Is it something where you would get a pricing that's consistent with the specific blend of your recycled polypropylene or is it just too early to tell what that looks like?

No, I think the best way to understand compounding is that it's a service we offer to our customers. Many of our clients have pre-compounding processes in place before they receive materials from us. They typically purchase virgin materials, compound them for their needs, and by working with us, they can integrate more closely instead of relying on third-party compounders. This is generally viewed very positively by our customers, and they see it as an added service. Regarding pricing, I believe it offers us significant flexibility. Ultimately, we have an overall bill of materials that we must work within, and we are pushing for different mechanical performances across various applications. In some situations, we may be the only supplier available. Therefore, the supply-demand dynamics will largely dictate our pricing conversations, and I think the compounding operation will enhance our flexibility with customers. We'll see how it all turns out, but I definitely view compounding as beneficial to our foundational strategy at PureCycle, and I believe it will help us achieve qualifications more rapidly. Without compounding, we wouldn't have been able to venture into film and fiber, which illustrates how this will work to our advantage in the near term.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Gerry Sweeney from ROTH Capital.

Good afternoon. Dustin and Jamie, thanks for taking my call.

Hey Gerry, good to talk to you again.

It's great to speak with you too. Eric has already addressed part of my question regarding the compounding aspect, so I'm not sure how much detail you'd like to share. In your presentation, you mentioned a commissioning target for Gen 1 in 2027. Additionally, we've discussed some investments being made in Augusta. Combining these two points, how much progress has been made in Augusta, and will it contribute to achieving the 2027 goal, assuming we secure project financing or other funding opportunities?

Yes, I mean, look, we feel really good about the Gen1 design. It's an improvement to Ironton. The improvements from Ironton are baked into that design. And we bought the majority of the long lead equipment for that activity to proceed. I think that that's one of the real value points from having the two 130s, say, already on site and ready to go, because we'll be able to accelerate that pretty quickly once we decide to do so. So I think that's still in play. We're excited about it.

Got it. That's helpful. I'm curious if there are any obstacles that are slowing down the trials, or if this is just a matter of time in testing and iteration that your partners have to go through. Once we secure a few large orders or approvals, will that naturally expedite the process for others involved?

Every customer is unique and has different needs for commercializing the product. It's important to evaluate it from different perspectives. First, we need to assess whether the product functions in general applications. For example, can we produce fiber? Yes. Can we create film? Partially, though it’s not fully developed yet, but the outlook is promising. Can we manufacture a dairy cup? Yes. Then we must consider the specific timelines for each customer, which vary widely. Each has distinct requirements and schedules. The industry now recognizes our capability to produce a variety of products, and the focus is on navigating each customer's individual timeline to achieve commercialization. While we cannot dictate the timeline, we can ensure that we excel in all trials, which will provide us with the flexibility to proceed when the opportunity arises. Based on the current timeline and progress in these trials, the outlook for the second half of 2025 appears very promising.

Got it. I know it's a question probably different iterations, so I appreciate it. I'll jump back in queue.

Yes, thanks, Gerry.

Our next question comes from Amer Tiwana from Imperial Capital. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, guys. First of all congratulations on achieving your first revenue. My question is around your nameplate capacity. You mentioned in the presentation that you're on the path to getting to that. What are the impediments to getting to full nameplate capacity?

Yes, hey, thanks for the question, Amer. It's nice to meet you, by the way, and appreciate you jumping into the queue to participate in this call. Look, in the last quarter, we announced that we were able to touch 12,500 pounds per hour, which is 90% of nameplate capacity. Okay, and what we said before is every time you bump that limit up, you basically test the plant to see how it operates there, to see if you hit any constraints, and when we got to 12,500 pounds, we ran pretty well. We ran pretty steady. And so it gave us confidence at that level. We haven't tested it above that yet. But honestly, 90% to 100% is pretty close. And we still feel really good about that operation. When we ramp rates will be driven by the customer trials. So as the customer trials progress and as demand comes on the books and as trucks start moving out the door, we will raise rates in order to meet the demand and so I feel really good about the plant. Okay. I mean, look, the headaches over the last year and a half have been twofold. The first is random reliability events. And we were able to work through a lot of those things to improve the reliability. You see that now in uptime. And then the other piece is just a fundamental understanding of how the plant operates so that we can get steadier and steadier on the operation. And so I think that we're in a really good place to run the plant, as we need to run the plant when the demand comes in. The one point I want to make, Amer, I mentioned the 12,500 pounds, and you were speaking to nameplate capacity. The 12,500 pounds actually is with respect to feed, not final pellet production. That's a nuance. It's a fairly small difference. But I want to make sure you got your numbers right.

Understood. That's good. One clarification. This also says that 87% onstream time in April. Is that the average for April, or is that the number that you achieved in April?

That's the number that we achieved in April. And the way to think about uptime, because there are a couple of other questions about this before, is that's effectively like a percentage of time that the feed was on by minute. So 87% of the minutes in the month we were running feed into the plant. Now, the rest of the plant, the circulation and the other ancillary operations they run all the time. I mean, their reliability is up 98%, 99% nearly every month. But what we're tracking right now is the percent of time that feed is on, and that's what the 87% represents.

Understood. Last question. You've talked about your expansion and building future plans. Any plans on putting some CapEx for the rest of the year for growth purposes or given the liquidity position, you just want to make sure you're focused on Ironton at this point.

We are very careful about our capital expenditures and focused on specific activities. Most of our efforts have been directed towards refining our engineering processes and implementing prior initiatives. We have done some civil work at the Augusta facility to prepare it, and we also invested in the Denver sorting facility last year as part of the Augusta project. We continue to allocate capital for growth because we believe it is essential for our future, and we want to be prepared for when the opportunities arise.

Thank you so much.

Thanks, Amer.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back over to Dustin Olson, PureCycle's CEO.

All right, thank you again, everyone, for the change in time this time for our quarterly review, and also for your continued support. This is another good quarter for PCT. We're very pleased with the momentum that is building behind this company. Our performance on first revenue and steady Ironton performance and advancements on film that gives us a lot of confidence and I hope it gives you confidence as well as the path that we're on is the right one. I mentioned before that 2025 would be a transformative year for PCT. And our performance in Q1 keeps us right on track. So we look forward to talking to you next time. Thanks for the great questions, the continued support. Talk next time. Thank you.

This concludes the meeting. You may now disconnect.