Hazer Group (ASX:HZR) Q1 2027 Earnings Call

0:00 Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Paisley Group, I'd like to welcome you to this September quarter investor webinar. Today's session is in listen mode only. If you have any questions at any point, please type them into the chat box and we'll aim to address them at the end of the presentation. Presenting today is Hazy Group's MD and CEO, Glenn Corrie, and COO, Tom Coolican, who will take you through the September quarterly report and provide an update on the recent operational and commercial progress. I'll now hand over to Glenn and the team to run through the presentation.

0:32 Wonderful. Thank you, Simon. and a very good day to everybody and welcome to our quarterly webinar. Thanks for dialing in. Our report went out yesterday. Hopefully you've had the time to look at some of the highlights in that, but we'll go through some of the headlines through the call. I think this will take about 20 minutes or so because we've had a few questions come through overnight. Quite keen to get onto those and any questions that folks from the participants from the call want to add through our portal. Tom and I, thanks Tom for joining as well. We'll both take you through our quarterly results. We'll provide an update on our commercialization strategy. And I would just say up front that it was an important quarter for Hayes as we continue to drive forward our strategy and build the momentum across all of the pillars of our business. So let's dive straight in. If we can just go down to slide three, please.

1:28 Look, I know many of you are aware of our tech, big picture. Simplistically, we are transforming natural gas or any methane-rich gas into two products that the world needs. Clean and affordable hydrogen and very high pure form of carbon in the form of a graphite. We don't have any direct process emissions in the process itself and the X factor that we like to talk about or the secret source or secret solid is an iron ore catalyst. And we have, over the last 15 or 20 years, developed Hazer into a world-leading proprietary solution that is now gaining global recognition with big corporations and big think tanks around the world. And that's a place that we're very excited about with our tech and the market. Our competitive advantages are clear.

2:20 You'll see those on the left-hand side of this chart. We win on cost and emissions, and I'll talk to that shortly. We win on the production of a premium, high-grade form of carbon graphite as a co-product. And we also, importantly, through some proprietary aspects of our hot equipment and reactor, we win on scalability. So some pretty important components to our technology. So just drilling down on our cost picture... You've seen this slide before, but our cost advantage is very compelling and it continues to strengthen for reasons I'll explain very shortly. But Hazer is capable of delivering one of the lowest cost hydrogen pathways into the market today. And that's evident from the chart.

3:07 What is driving that cost advantage is several factors. Our proprietary catalyst that I talked about, The capital efficiency, and we've been working now with KBR for nine months on developing the design package, and that is reinforcing our cost advantage and our capital advantage in terms of a capital stack. Thirdly, our low energy consumption. At scale, we are driving down the energy consumption to under 10 kilowatt hours per kilogram of hydrogen, and I'll explain what that means in terms of emission shortly. and of course we've got that valuable graphite co-product. So they're the major constituents of our competitive advantage and they all come together in terms of that turquoise wedge there on the chart on the left. And if you then look at the chart and the orange line, we are on cost parity with conventional steam methane reforming, which is almost the entire, the majority of the market today, the hydrogen market, and that's the incumbent, dirty, carbon-intensive process that we are trying to disrupt, and that's the bar in the middle.

4:14 So we're a third of the cost of that process plus carbon capture and storage, if it's available, and it's not always available. And you'll see relative to the bar on the right, electrolyzers, we're easily or comfortably a seventh of the cost of electrolytic-produced hydrogen or green hydrogen, as I like to refer to, where we know the energy intensity chemistry-wise is at least 7x on Hazer. Probably more in most instances but theoretically that's the chemistry and that's the difference between us and electrolyzers. So you see we undercut SMR and carbon capture and we undercut 7X on electrolytic produced hydrogen. So this advantage, we can deliver a clean hydrogen product stream into industries, potentially removing the majority of the green premium in steel, in ammonia, in liquid fuels and other industries like refining and data centres and power and other effectively industries that require a hydrogen product stream.

5:17 So shifting to emissions, it's the first time we've shown this, but we do it with industry-beating emissions. So there's a lot in here, but let me try and unpack it for you. So positively, our customer and client engagements and discussions are now moving beyond cost to also emissions, which is a really positive step for the engagements that we talk about on the global stage. So let's just jump straight to the chart. SMR is that bar in the middle that we referred to in the previous chart. And we know that's a very carbon intensive process because it combines gas with steam and water. So every ton of hydrogen produced is is associated with 10 tonnes of CO2. That's the ratio of that process. That's today's industry, and that's where we are trying to disrupt.

6:04 So that's a really important comparison with Hazer on the left. Now, because we have two product streams, hydrogen and graphite, we are able to allocate our emissions across to... share the emissions across those products. And even on a relatively dirty grid... we can reduce the emissions of SMR by over 80%. Okay, that's just connected to grid. Of course, we can be even cleaner on a renewable or a much cleaner power grid, which we foresee in the future. But on today's relatively dirty grid, that's the sort of comparison that we can achieve. And then relative to the right, the orange little line, we can also undercut electrolysers that are plugged into the cleanest of cleanest grids.

6:53 And that would be one where you'd expect to see something in the order of 80% renewables, which is, you know, it's a big ask, but that's, you know, fairly forward-leaning for electrolysers. But you can see immediately that we are equivalent on the dirtiest grid to one of the cleanest options for electrolysers. So we're very, very competitively positioned from an emissions perspective as well. And the reason for that is electrolysers are very power-hungry. They're 55 kilowatt hours per kilogramme. relative to our 8 to 10. So you can see immediately the benefit of the chemistry there. Now we share this with government and other groups in Australia but also internationally and we are starting to see policy changing. We've seen that literally in the last few weeks with the GOES scheme in Australia. It is now starting to encompass pyrolysis and methane pyrolysis as a viable pathway in Australia. in the hydrogen pathway system.

7:46 So if you can't win the game, we're trying to change the rules around the policy, and that's a big area that we're trying to spend time at the moment. So just turning to our highlights on slide seven, you've seen the report that went out yesterday. But I would say it's a very good quarter. We continue to strengthen the foundations of our global licensing platform. I won't go through all of these. We'll talk about them in detail shortly. but we are approaching a real inflection point. We've got a de-risk, world-leading technology. We're getting market traction. You can see that coming through. The strategic alliance with KBR is delivering real value. We've locked in their first originated deal in Japan, and there's more on the pipeline behind that. We've got a strong global project portfolio that is growing. We've got that expanding pipeline of material opportunities that are now coming through.

8:34 We're kicking goals on graphite, which Tom will refer to shortly, but we're validated across steel, asphalt, bitumen, concrete, cement, and we're now testing in batteries. So we've come a really long way in graphite. And we're starting to see the tailwinds of the hydrogen market strengthen as well, and that is positioning us as a leader in this space, which you'll see shortly, and we're being recognised by some of the biggest and best think tanks and corporations for what we can do with the hydrogen pathway. On funding, we had a couple of questions on funding that came through overnight. We finished the quarter with just shy under a $13 million fund position. That provides us with a very extended runway through significant commercial milestones ahead. That was strengthened last week by the receipt of $2.3 million that we received for our R&D rebate. Neil and the team have done a very good job there because we're also receiving, probably in the next quarter, a rebate for our international expenditures.

9:34 So there's more flows coming there. We've got that $2.3 million grant from WA that's still to be earned. If you saw in our annual report, we've lowered cash burn 30% year on year. So you'll see that our cash burn on any given quarter is between $2 and $2.3 million. So you can immediately see that we've got that 12-month to over runway in terms of our commercial pathway, heading into a new revenue cycle with some of the projects that Tom will share shortly, more grants, and we're targeting on maintaining that robust funding position on a fully discretionary business.

10:12 Turning to Wyala, there was quite a lot of news on Wyala during the quarter.

10:18 We had some questions on this that came through. through the quarter, also overnight. The process is still very live, despite some delays in the decision. They've pushed the decision process out to the first quarter of next year. That said, the state government has been public in trying to complete that process by the end of this year. This remains a major catalyst for Hazer. It is a very large-scale deployment of our technology in our backyard. So it's a really exciting project that we're that we're very keen to win. The other news that came through was that the blast furnace is now being decommissioned or closed down. Whilst that was a challenging news for the employment base there, it is a very positive signpost for the transition of Wyler into the green modernisation.

11:08 So it's moving away from the blast furnace now through to the DRI and the electric arc furnace pathway, which is where Hazer plays that key role. So we'd expect to see that come forward and accelerate into a large-scale deployment. M Resources is doing a very good job. We continue to work with them very closely. We spend a lot of time in South Australia. There's been some excellent feedback on the bid from all stakeholders there, but it really is the perfect fit for our technology. And on the assumption of a win, It is the poster child for a bunch of other steel opportunities that we are currently pursuing worldwide. On the next slide, you will see that more broadly in the steel industry, the steel industry is a big industry with a very big problem of course.

11:54 It's 9% of the world's CO2 emissions and it is desperate for a solution like Hazer. We put out a white paper a week or two ago that details our strategic fit with low emission steel. It really is where everything comes together for us. The industry is shifting away from that blast furnace. That's that box on the left, which uses coal to reduce iron ore. It's incredibly carbon intensive. The industry is shifting to the right-hand side, which is DRI, the direct reduction of iron, and the electric arc furnace, the EAF, where hydrogen is used as the feedstock instead of coal. and that is expected to reduce emissions by up to 85% potentially higher. So it's a big win for the industry. It's a big win for Hazer where everything comes together in terms of hydrogen, carbon for the EAF and, of course, our iron ore catalyst.

12:43 So a lot of synergies in there. But big picture, our cost advantage here enables this industry, green steel, to be economically viable. And we see that time and time again coming through in the economics of all of the discussions that we're having with with counterparties. So I'll pause there and perhaps hand it over to Tom Yu to talk through ScaleUp KBR and where we are with some of the key projects.

13:09 Of course, no worries. Thanks very much, Glenn. Good morning, everyone. So I think we'll start with ScaleUp and the de-risking of the technology. And as you can see here from the slide, we've stepped through ScaleUp from VladScale to LiveScale and our new clients are now looking at what they call first-of-a-kind or what we call Folic projects. KVR is along for the journey here and the reason why we can provide these designs and plant designs is the due diligence they commenced back in the early days all the way through the commencement of the alliance where we've worked together and the 30k TPA plant design which is at the moment from methane pyrolysis there's nothing close in terms of the technology scale and scale is really key. Glenn mentioned earlier SMR and that obviously is the target because we are looking at these large scale hydrogen supplies which will feed refineries, chemical plants and especially ammonia to urea which then goes on to become fertiliser and these are massive key opportunities for us.

14:09 With the emerging DRI in steel as well, KBR are very supportive of this large scale de-risking required to be able to do that. So our industrial users now rely on the scale and capacity of KDR when they're assessing the risk of these technology projects and it significantly improves the HESA value proposition because it's not just a small technology that you would license but actually has the full engineering house sitting behind it. I'd like to sort of talk a little bit about the international recognition we've been picking up so maybe if we move to the next slide, Simon, we can discuss that. So in the core of the International Energy Agency releases 2026 Global Hydrogen Review, key themes were the recognition of the increase in hydrogen production globally, the feedstock security issues with the Middle East supply and also the progression of methane pyrolysis as a valid industrial scale technology.

15:05 Now, you can see here, importantly, IEA recognised that HAZR and KBR was the biggest list of scale design in their report, and scale is vitally important as we tackle steam methane forward globally. SMR, for a single unit, easily does 50,000 tonnes per annum, and then multi-train, you can get up well over 100,000 tonnes per annum, and then the bigger money facilities, the chemical facilities, these are the scales we talk about. This is, as you can see here, catalytic methane pyrolysis, which is our technology, is now moving that 30,000 to 50,000 tonnes per annum per unit, and we do have upside in that as well. So we're pretty excited to be recognised by the IEA. We're in their report. The report is fantastic. It's dense. There's 269 pages to it. but it really does address hydrogen and the growth of hydrogen in the world as we see it with KBR and Hazer sitting at the forefront of the large scale. Now this is consistent with our global messaging through Hazer and through KBR and we're continuing to see that sort of strong inbound requests for the technology and technology understanding which is what's growing the front end of our pipeline at the moment as well.

16:14 Okay, on to more KBR news. So KBR has actually secured their first paid study. So this is a milestone for us, and Evelyn mentions it already. This is a large Japanese utility. They're evaluating hydrogen for the use in their power portfolio, up to 300,000 tonnes per annum, which is 10 times our initial PDP and an enormous scale. and it just goes to validate that the fluid bed design and the scalability of our technology is something that can be used in the larger scale applications. This also builds on our existing partnerships. We've got a lot of work and we've been in Japan for a long time, so our partnerships with Mitsui, which is well known, and Tubal Electric, which also has done a pre-feasibility study. and Japan is also a market where we've done deeper research into the graphite, so looking at the value proposition of the graphite and found, as their secondary producer, a number of really large applications, including steelmaking, where Japanese graphite would actually be a fantastic use for them.

17:16 They are a country that continues to lead the way when it comes to hydrogen from LNG. The option for CCS is not there, so Hazer is a very good fit in Japan. Yeah, and just the thought of 300,000 tonne per annum plant, I mean, the licensing scale on that is next level.

17:32 Well, I mean, we talk about, yeah, we talk about 50,000 and, you know, the scale of the license fee around that. So I, you know, multiply that by six and I think, you know, that's the platform we're trying to build. So very exciting if we can take that one further. Thanks, Tom. Sure.

17:49 That's 15 to the 10 in 10. That's three of the 10. Right. Moving on to the project. So we've had some questions come in about the project as well, so I will try and address some of those questions. Thanks very much to Dave and the other six who sent in questions on that. So we see Fortis moving through towards a formal engineering project process at the moment with the engagement of KVR as a large-scale developer, and I wanted to just give a little bit more colour there on Fortis as well. Being a utility supplier in Canada, they have 1.3 million domestic users and also industrial users They are relatively conservative, and they've been de-risking every step of the way. So as we step through, and, you know, Glenn's mentioned before, we find the pace of large companies hard. We wish they would go faster, but they are consistent.

18:36 They are progressing towards FIB, and with the support of KBR, we have transformed that project into a larger and more real opportunity. So they do spend a lot of time really focusing on making sure there are no missteps, so it does take a long time to move these guys forward, but... We catch up with them regularly. They're still very supportive and we are moving with KVR through to the next phase. So that's a key project for us and we do feel that we still have very strong support in British Columbia and Canada federally as well. Okay, on to EPP. They are an early stage developer, as we know, with a project of national significance in the UK. So they got that designation, which is great. Hazel remains the preferred pyrolysis technology due to its ability to scale, as we've talked about. So EPP's minimum target is 20,000 tonnes per annum and above, and from a hydrogen perspective, it really is, this is the technology that does that kind of work and nothing is close. So that's a project that we continue pushing forward.

19:32 Our first phase is done, and we're looking forward to pushing on to the second phase with EPP. They have also engaged with a specialist graphite company which is called Hycomite and that is specifically, we've discussed that with the company as well. They're investigating niche battery carbon which we understand is related to government So pythocartemite is a niche graphite play. They use a reusable catalyst and they have recognition in the EU Critical Raw Minerals Act as well as if they're using biomethane. And the UK government has got critical growth minerals as a specific target. So there is a lot of this niche graphite product which actually could be intertwined into the Energy Pathways project. But from a hydrogen and production perspective and from a large scale perspective for our graphite going into construction products and into roads, we remain preferred and are supportive of this project going forward.

20:32 Alright, and then on to POSCO, so steel making, the 7th or 8th largest steel maker in the world. Hager is really the right fit for their proprietary DRI technology. So as we move forward, they've got a technology called Hyrex. They are looking at our technology and proving up the technology. So we continue to stay close with POSCO as things progress and the Korean area is a hot area for us at the moment. They're the largest steel making capacity around the world.

21:01 Thanks Tom, that's excellent and I love that, I actually love that slide 11 of the IEA because I really think that shows that Hazer is taking on hydrogen head on and really reinforces that we win on emissions and that we win on cost but importantly we win on scale and that's ultimately where we've got to get to and that's disrupting steaming, fan reforming that's where we're going to make the biggest difference in emissions and also enable the switching of technologies with the minimal cost for a customer. So I think, look, we're on the right track and we're getting that global recognition. So let's just jump down to the project pipeline. This is a slide that we have used in the past. We thought we might bring this back in because it shows the growth of the portfolio, the red triangles.

21:52 where we have live projects. So you can see that that is now building, and that's up to around nine live projects. And in addition to this, we continue to advance multiple opportunities. The blobs, the purple blobs and the pink blobs, they represent live opportunities that we are currently pursuing. We've put a table on the left. that is a subset of the ones that I think are at the top of the list there, and those are opportunities that are spanning across supermajors, liquid fuels in the Middle East, low emissions liquid diesel, steel, of course. We talked about at least five opportunities. And more recently, power, which is linked to data centers in the U.S. We talk a lot with U.S. firms. There is only one thing on the agenda at the moment, and that is power and how do you fuel and power some of these gigawatt-scale, hyperscale data centres. But to get into that mix is exciting because, again, we can use natural gas, which is abundant in the US, and provide the clean energy into power to fire some of these mega-scale facilities. So that is an area that we're pursuing on a couple of opportunities as well, so that's very exciting.

23:02 Our vision, of course, is 10 in 10, as Tom referred to. We're building that portfolio, and at steady state, we would like to be thinking about the company being... in a feed and in an FID every year for the next 10 years. That's sort of the portfolio that we're building with the pipeline that we've got. But we're not short on opportunities. What we're doing is high grading internally with KBR, ensuring that we put our best foot forward to win all of these. We won't win all of them. I think someone asked a question around the Middle East. We're in a process. We're absolutely putting our best foot forward to win that. It's a very short list. and we're very, very competitive and moving through that process. And again, if we win that with that tier one partner, it is a game changer for the firm. So we'll continue to log in bits on those processes that are live, but you can see how strongly competitively we are.

23:57 Maybe, Tom, back to you then, if that's okay, in terms of Graphite, and then we'll wrap up and open up the call for Q&A.

24:04 Thanks. Yeah, great. Thanks, Glenn. Yeah, so as you can see, From this we've got steelmaking, concrete and asphalt, thermal energy storage, critical minerals and other industrial uses. Really, steelmaking is the first real high target for us. It's actually had some commercial movements, so we do have our first off-take LOI with generation of steel here in Western Australia. We continue to do testing and analysis in the steelmaking value chain. Iron containing graphite is looking like becoming really a serious contender in steelmaking, so it is something that we think has a real opportunity. Concrete has taken big steps forward with qualification, so in structural and marine concrete, as a performance additive, we're seeing some very good results and actually improving in performance time for concrete, which is great.

24:54 And in asphalt, we've had some excellent results, which we have announced some of those results this quarter as well. So graphite is improving the strength and lifespan of asphalt. So we have seen it improving the durability of the asphalt, as well as actually reducing the carbon-intensive components of the asphalt as well in roads. So we also have some initial results that are displacing a portion of the bitumen binder. We're exploring that further. It looks, and this is currently ongoing at the moment, but we have already got good results that show that we can do the heavy, dense-grade asphalt that is what's required for freeways and major roads. So our next stage here is to actually really drill into what is the value point there. And bitumen specifically, which is the product we're looking to displace a portion of, bitumen is internationally produced in refineries and is shipped all around the world.

25:46 So it is actually a relatively expensive product. And each off-taker we talk to or each producer of asphalt and roads we talk to says bitumen is one of their biggest headaches, both from a cost point of view and from a global warming potential point of view. We've had a few questions on asphalt graphite mix as well, and so what I can share with you is that roughly 15% of the mix has been tested, and that's where we've got our basic results from. So it's something that we continue to push forward, but we're looking at things on a one-to-one basis as well. So a kilogram of bitumen for a kilogram of graphite, wherever possible. So that gives us a good indication about where our base price points would be. We've also done some work here in graphite applications, improving battery grade.

26:31 So we recognise that it is a small, high-specification market for hazer, and that hazer projects, especially the large-scale ones we're talking about, would be an enormous volume of graphite to put onto the market for batteries. Having said that, the upgrading and purification process means that not all graphite would actually end up becoming batteries and most of it would go into those big construction materials, high volume, drop in ready applications. But we do see the potential value. We do see that purification can get up to a point where we have a high grade material and not every client is going to want to do it but those who are actually chasing that security of supply chain for their local environment. supporting critical minerals in governments around the world and decarbonisation priorities, we can see that this is actually something we need to have.

27:17 very solid research and very solid applications completed on. So what we're doing at the moment is thermal purification, but also we have internally, we have our own technology, which is a patented technology called electrochemical purification. Now, we start with our as-produced product at 85%, 95%. To get into a battery, you want to be 99.95%. Now, thermal purification gets us all the way. We're 99.99%. We've had questions on purification and whether or not we can use our electrochemical process because thermal purification in itself is actually a very hungry, energy hungry process. So at this stage what we're looking at is electrochemical can actually bring the purity of our product up quite high and then maybe thermal does the final bit. This could be the solution in the energy mix that we need to make the purification very energy efficient, and that would actually make it competitive with some of the other high, high purity graphites around the world.

28:13 So watch this space. It is early research in electrochemical purification. It's a low TRL technology, but it is our patented technology, and of course we're going to try and leverage that as much as we can.

28:24 Yeah, very good. Testing results, Tom, now that we've got that purity to where it needs to be for batteries.

28:32 Yes, of course. We are actually pushing forward with the testing now. We're going to actually see what it can do electrically as far as its electrical performance can go.

28:39 Yes, perfect. All right. Great stuff. All right, a couple more slides. As Tom referred to, the IEA report was out. There's some really good content in there if you've got the patience to read 260 pages. Look, it remains a very substantial market, as you can see on the left. It's 108 I think the IEA has now recorded 103 million tonnes per annum as the demand. So it's surpassed that 100 million tonne per annum market. Of course, that's a billion tonnes of CO2, as we always refer to it. A lot of that growth was in refining as well as industry. It's a huge amount of emissions. And this is Hazel's opportunity, of course. We're not going to capture the entire market, but even 1% or 2% is a game changer for us. The DNV also came out with, and I'm meeting some of them later today, but they've now recorded the market being $240 billion market annually.

29:33 And again, to put that in perspective, it is the size of the copper market and as well as the iron ore market. So it's an enormous market that doesn't get the recognition, of course, of those markets. But partly that's our opportunity set, right? Fly under the radar and capture a big market share. So look, the market is doing the right thing. The number that really jumped out was that 20% of growth in the last 12 months on low emissions hydrogen. And that is our space. That's grown over a million tonnes per annum. That's 1% of the market today. So there's some really important signposts. Feels like the tailwinds are shifting, policy is shifting. to measure this, and we're seeing that live in real time with a lot of our customer discussions and government discussion. Demand side strong.

30:20 The tension in the Middle East, of course, continues to play a role. That energy security drives a lot of the thinking at the government level, but also at the corporation level, that local supply source of energy projects or products, rather, refining local diesel, low-emissions diesel, fertilizer, urea, all of those things that you don't often think that requires a hydrogen feedstock does to run our day-to-day lives. So they're all great signposts for us. So the size of the prize is large, and our growth markets are key, as we've talked about. There was a slide in the pack that's not here, but I spent a couple of days at GasTech in Asia talking with some of the biggest companies in the world, some that we're dealing with.

31:09 and, of course, gas was central to the discussion. But there is this common theme, and we're seeing that play through in Australia. There is no energy transition without gas. Australia, as an example, relies on 30% to 40% gas in the energy mix. And so industry needs practical decarbonisation solutions, which is another message coming out of this, and that is really the sweet spot of where we fit at the intersection of cost competitiveness, scalability, as Tom referred to, and that strong demand signal that is coming. So the stars seem to be aligning in terms of industry, partnerships, policy, and scale for us. Right, I think that's a good place to wrap up. That's the last slide that we have. Of course, we have a pretty important six months ahead. If you could just flip back again, Tom, please.

32:00 The priorities remain unchanged. We've got momentum across that design package. We're getting the conversations with the right partners. That's focusing on conversion into commercial execution on the existing projects, but new projects. Several important catalysts ahead. Wyala, of course, could be in the next three months. We've got further project updates, as Tom referred to, in Canada and EPP and a couple of other projects that we're working on. Graphite continues to gain momentum. That deal flow that we're going to try and translate into real value with off-tape, that's advancing significantly. and our partnership with KVR continues to deepen and expand strategically beyond engineering and into a broader strategic relationship. So, yeah, really exciting few months ahead. The building blocks are coming together.

32:47 I hope you can see that. We're focusing on conversion and converting our momentum into commercial outcomes, and that's what hopefully shareholders have got to look forward to over the next coming period. Right. That probably took a little bit longer than we would have liked, but we have had some questions, and I hope that we have addressed some of them during the call. Fortis, we spoke to Andrew. A Japanese page started. I think there was a question there that related to how the flows of revenues come. That one, because it was a KVR-led project, that will come through then first, and you'll see that pop up in our receipts probably in the first quarter of next year. Chimera was a good one. We didn't talk about Chimera. Here is a project that we've been working on now for several months. That's getting interesting, Tom, right?

33:33 I mean, the initial work was quite positive, and they are thinking now of how do we integrate this into their business, which is a chemicals business, hydrogen peroxide, in Europe, which is a tricky jurisdiction, but a really exciting one if we can crack the code there.

33:50 Yeah, absolutely. And just to support that as well, Glenn, I think that the European current legislation around carbon emissions really places Hazer with a capex opportunity here to actually fit right in because the total levelised costs, when you start having to look at what you're doing to abate emissions, Europe's moving quickly in this space and Chimera especially is one of those really forward-looking companies that's looking to integrate it into their processes as soon as they can.

34:16 And I know the relationships are very good and we enjoy working with them. Great, thanks. EPV we spoke about, Hycomite, I think Tom answered the question there. Yes, we're moving forward on large-scale things with KPR. They're involved and they're talking about energy storage and that's the big picture. Of course, they're working alongside smaller companies who have got niche products for niche markets and that's their decision there. But from our perspective, and I've spoken with Ben and the rest of the team at EPP, we are their preferred for the large-scale opportunities. So hopefully we've I'll put that one up for you, Dave. Bitumen, we spoke about that 15%. And the Middle East project is very exciting as a process there that we're in the middle of. And yeah, not the fastest out of the blocks, but big tier one partner.

35:04 It could really turn our needle if we're successful with that one. But we've got the strong support of KBR, which is their backyard. The Middle East is where KBR really is their grassroots area. And they're very, very connected with the right companies there. And there was one other that came through before we jump onto the panel, which I think Dave Sewell asked in terms of battery grade. Tom, did you want to add anything to battery grade?

35:34 The question was related I believe to the combination of our electrochemical process as well as the purification process to get there. So I did mention a little bit about that and maybe combining the two technologies to get that perfect energy mix that reduces the purification energy component as well. But the thing I didn't mention was that from a battery grab perspective purification is the hurdle. That's your gatekeeper to get into batteries. From here on, there are a series of steps that you need to do. The graphite needs to be modifiable in its own way to be able to handle the flow in and flow out of the lithium ions, as well as its ability to retain them and its ability to actually do that at pace. So all of these different modifications are the steps that we're taking at the moment and we need to check every single one of those parameters as we go through and we'll get performance at the back end.

36:27 So that testing is underway. End of this year, Q1 next year, we should be seeing some results come back. The testing takes a while because some of the actual activities you've got to do are multiple cycles, 100 plus, 500 plus cycles of the battery. So it does take a while for us to get the results but Yeah, what's this space? Electrochemical is right in the mix there as far as the energy value of the purification process. So thanks for that question.

36:53 No, that's very good. And I've just noticed in the Q&A panel there's another one on bitumen, which I think you answered in terms of the proportion of that sort of thing. But bitumen's a big market with a relatively large volume market, relatively growing price stack, right? And again, it's a high volume market. potentially high value market for Hazer in the long run.

37:18 Yeah, definitely. And the question specifically is about is it a binder or a total mix? It can be either. We've tested both. But really what we're focusing on is we've got current testing ongoing specifically just purely on binder. Binder is the bitumen that comes from the refineries. In many countries it's called asphalt, which is very confusing when you're trying to define what a road is. So as we get more information from that next round of testing, I think we'll actually release a bit more on the specifics of how it affects the binder itself. So I can't answer the question, but I think there is actually more to this, and our testing is ongoing.

37:51 Yeah, and David had a similar question, so I hope that covers that. And then there was another one on, are we talking with Hyundai? The answer is we've talked with Hyundai frequently, actually, and we know they are doing. They've just released hydrogen fuel cell power, line. So again, Korea is a target market. We are in partnership with POSCO there, so that's a natural extension. So thanks for that suggestion there, David. And there was another question here from On-In Resources that if they're selected, have we got binding terms and license agreements at this stage? And the short answer is, Andrew, not yet. That is part of the agreement. that we have with them. The process is let's win it first and we're positioning for that and the rest we hope is easy. It's a strong collaboration and a fully integrated system from pit to port. It's a wonderful example of where you've got a fully integrated mine into effectively infrastructure, steel making in the middle and then an export facility at the other end. So I think it's a no-brainer for an Australian solution there, and I think that's what Australia would like to see, and I think we're positioned for that opportunity.

39:11 So that will come in the next step, so thank you for that question. Simon, how have we done on questions? I think they've all been answered by the looks of it, Chad.

39:22 Okay, if we haven't, then we will certainly come back to folks that have asked questions. and we'll try and respond in the next 24 hours. That's our MO. All right. Well, I think that's probably a good place to close it off then. So if I could just thank everybody. Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Simon. Thank everyone for joining the call today. Hopefully that gives you an update of where we are strategically with the company. Hopefully you can see the stars are aligning for us in terms of tech, in terms of go-to-market opportunities. I appreciate that not all of these are going at the pace that we would like. That's the agility of Hazer, but it is sometimes the challenge of working with legal organisations. But the positive takeaway is that we are getting market traction with the right players. They're not all going to be perfect and we won't win all of them, but we are positioning to unlock several of these in the near term. I spent some time on the road in the last couple of weeks talking with some of our investors And at least one or two of them came back and said, look, you only need one of these to drop before this company gets the recognition it deserves. So we're not where we want to be share price-wise, but we're going to focus on the underlying business and deliver the value that shareholders expect of the tech and the market.

40:35 So thank you. Of course, thank you.