Quadrise (LSE:QED) — Annual General Meeting

0:01 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the QUADRISE Annual General Meeting. Throughout this recorded meeting, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged. They can be submitted at any time using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. Just simply type in your questions at any time and press send. I'd now like to hand over to chair, Andy Morrison. Good morning. Thanks, Mark. And I think it's good afternoon now, isn't it? So good afternoon. Thanks, everyone, for for coming along. I'm the Andrew Morrison. I'm the chairman. I welcome you to the twenty twenty three annual general meeting of QUADRISE PLC.

0:31 Before we move to the formal business meeting and and business update presentation, I'd like to introduce my colleagues from the board. You have Laurie Much. You have Vicky Boyton Lee, who joined us on the October 1. You have Jason Miles here, the chief executive who you all know. Sitting at the front here, also, have David Scott, the chief CFO. And amongst the audience, we have several members of our management team who will be mingling with you afterwards and helping to answer any questions that you may have. Also, Suzanne Alves from MSP secretaries and outside the share registrars have been helping us as scrutineers. The meet the meeting will be in in two parts. Formal business of the resolutions that are contained in the AGM notice.

1:16 This is the AGM notice that you've has been online. Will that be considered first? The shareholders being asked to vote by way of a poll, and you will have been introduced. You've been given poll cards as you as you came in. As many of you will have noticed, we published an AGA update statement by RNS this morning. This is a generally positive update, news on the projects and our future plans. There's a lot going on. Management are very busy. The next few months will be pivotal, and we need to sustain that momentum and focus. We can now turn to the formal annual general meeting. The required quorum for the annual general meeting is present, and I formally declare the meeting open.

2:07 The resolutions on which shareholders will be asked to vote are listed in the notice of annual general meeting that's been circulated to shareholders.

2:17 With the meeting's permission, I'd like to take the notice of meeting as read. Are we happy with that? Thank you. Now there's a little bit of a spiel here on the voting procedure, so please bear with me. Voting today will be done by way of a poll on each of the resolutions put to the meeting. This is seen as best practice as it gives all shareholders the opportunity for their votes to be recognized in the business of the meeting and to have their votes recorded in proportion to the number of shares that they hold. I'm appointing the company's registrars to act as scrutineer. When you registered your attendance, you will have been given a poll card, which shareholders and proxies for shareholders should complete and sign as indicated. In the case of corporate shareholders, the poll card should be completed by their authorized representatives present at the meeting or by their proxy.

3:07 You have three options for each resolution. You can vote for the resolution, against the resolution, or you may withhold your vote. A vote withheld is not a vote in law and will not be counted in the calculation of the proportion of the votes for or against a resolution. I should mention that for those shareholders who have already lodged a proxy, you do not need to complete a poll card unless you want to change your votes. When you have voted on all the resolutions put to the meeting, will you please return your completed poll cards to the company's registrars? Should you require any further assistance, our registrars will be happy to help you. It will take some time to complete the poll procedure. Therefore, the results of the poll will be announced through our regulatory information service and posted on the company's website as soon as practicable.

3:58 Should anyone wish to ask a question during the formal part of the meeting, I would ask that they are kept limited to the formal resolution being put forward as there will be an opportunity to ask more general questions after the formal part of the meeting has concluded. When asking a question, can I please ask that you raise your hand, state your name, and whether you are a shareholder, proxy holder, or corporate representative before asking the question? In accordance with the notice of the meeting, the board recommends acceptance of the resolutions, which have been put forward in the best interest of the company. If you are thinking about voting against the resolution, I encourage you to ask a question to see if your concern can be satisfied before you do so.

4:43 I will now turn to the formal resolutions to be considered at the meeting. The first resolution is resolution one, which is to receive the annual report on accounts of the company for the year ended 06/30/2023 and the reports of the auditors thereon. Joseph Archer from the auditors is amongst the audience here. Before I put the resolution to the meeting, can I ask if there are any questions in connection with the proposed resolution? If there are no questions, I now put the resolution to the meeting. To vote, please would you play place a cross in the appropriate box on your poll voting card?

5:33 Thank you. If we're all happy with that, I'll go on to resolution two, which is to approve the director's remuneration report as set out in the company's annual reports and accounts for the year end ended 06/30/2023. Before I put the resolution to the meeting, can I ask if there are any questions in connection with this proposed resolution? Yes? Can you just say your say your name and where you're where you're from? Lionel Thane, a private shareholder. Thank you, Lionel. Hope this is pertinent, but, obviously, from '22 to '23, the director's totality of pay remuneration went up by nearly well, approximately a £150,000.

6:26 And I know this vote is for up to 23. Is there gonna be a similar rise for 24?

6:34 Are you allowed to answer that in relation to this? I think what I'd like to do is to bring Laurie into into this. And, also, I'm gonna ask Laurie also had a question, you haven't asked, but I would like to ask, which is about because I know it's on the minds of people, which is about the use of the nominal value options in this year's awards. So Laurie, maybe you could comment on Lionel's question and on the use of the nominal value options. Your Thank QUADRISE you. QUADRISE I think your question related to is there going to be a substantial salary increase over the next twelve month period?

7:09 Was that your question? There isn't. The the Could I just ask, how do you justify one of the, board directors getting a 30% pay rise over that period? Just can you use my call? I I can't clear Sorry. Sorry. I just wondered how you could justify giving one of the directors a 30% pay rise over that period. Are you referring to Jason? Philip.

7:42 Yep. His overall package went from 53 to 68. This is in the previous period. Right. I'd you have to, Randall. I'll have to check that and come back to It's in your report and account. Thank you. I'll if if you're talking about Phil Snaith, I'll need to check that and come back to you because as a non exec director, it would not be normal for that to occur. Full full snays remuneration as chairman of the compensation committee at the time was the same as mine, which was around £40,000. If you're if you're referring to me, that was there was an increase in my salary, and that was because for a period, I was chairman of the company whilst we were doing a search for Andy.

8:38 I think that may be part of your question. And it's not just the salary, it's your total package which appears in the report and account. Yours went from 61 to 66. His went from 53 to 68. And I just think Yeah. Thanks, David. Daniel. Excuse me. If I may, part of this is due to the share option awards, which were awarded last year. There was no counterparty to them the year before. So that's gonna throw off the comparatives when you look at last year compared to this year.

9:11 So it's noncash. It's not like the company spending that money in cash. It's share option expense. Thank you. 22 wasn't broken down. 23 is broken down, so there was no comparison I could make. Okay. Thanks, Lionel. The the the second question, the one from the chairman related to nominal value options. And actually, this was a question that was initially raised by Mike at at the back. And this goes back to the r n s that we issued on the August 4. And it's actually in two parts, and I'd like to be explicit here and make it quite clear. Firstly, Jason had a balance of twelve days leave.

10:03 And at the time, his presence at work, particularly relating to the Morocco project and the MSC trial, was absolutely crucial. And the committee and the board asked Jason to convert the amount due into nominal value options, and he agreed to this. And that was to preserve the treasury that we had at the time. I'll explain the nominal value options in a moment. Regarding the second part, Jason recommended a modest award of bonuses to key staff on an exceptional basis for their efforts during the prior year.

10:51 The committee agreed to that, and 83% of those bonuses were taken up by way of those nominal value options. This was a strong indication in our view of staff's confidence in the company, and it preserved cash again at an absolutely crucial time. In our view, it aligned interest with the shareholders, and it kept the team together. Because you can imagine the challenges and the costs associated with recruiting replacements for some of these critical members of staff. Now all of the NVO's vest after twelve months, and the number of options was based on the share price at the time, which was 1.18p.

11:45 So it appears to be quite a large number of options, but it was purely a factor of that 0.18p. Again, let's be clear. These are go forward options, and their value depends on project progress reflected in the share price. And again, we feel not only has that action preserved some cash, but it also further aligns with the shareholders. I'm happy to take further questions on this. Does anybody else want to follow-up at all on that?

12:20 Yes, please. Okay. Can you just wait for the microphone for a sec? Thanks, Richard. Laurie, can I ask how many days a month do you work? How many days a month do I work for QUADRISE? Yes. It's frankly, it's probably ten days a month. Then can I say thank you for your service because the pay that you're given is not extraordinary and it is not generous? Thank you. Did anybody else have a further question or comment they want to make on this resolution? No. So I I think thank you, Laurie, for your comments. And my summary of that is that, you know, none of these decisions are taken lightly. We have a we balance our resources with the targets we've gotta do. We can't afford to lose young staff even if not all the targets are met. We have to retain them, and we have to pay what we what what is due under the under the contract.

13:20 So we've we've we've squared that circle as best we can. The compensation committee's recommendations were accepted by the the board as a whole. So we tried our best to to to to make that to make that work, and that's why we we commend to you the the the remuneration of report. And, you know, by all means, vote for or against according to your criteria, but we've explained why it is we've got there. So please so for no further questions, I put the resolutions to the meeting. To vote, please, would you place a cross in the appropriate box on your poll voting card?

13:59 The next resolution is resolution three, to reappoint Dilip Shah as a director of the company. Dilip's apologized, but he can't be here with us today. He is retiring in accordance with the company's articles of association by rotation. Before I put the resolution to the meeting, can I ask if there are any questions in connection with the proposed resolution about Dilip? Nope. If there are no further questions, I now put the resolution to the meeting. To vote, please, would you place a cross in the appropriate box on your poll voting card?

14:34 Next resolution is resolution four, which is to reappoint Vicky Sooyin Lee as the director of the company. Vicky, also known as Vicky Boyton Lee. She joined during the year, so she's being reappointed at the first annual general meeting. Before I put the resolution to the meeting, can I ask if there are any questions in connection with the proposed resolution?

14:58 If there are no questions, I put the resolution to the meeting. To vote, please would you pledge a cross in the appropriate box on your poll voting card? Thank you. The next resolution is resolution five, which is to reappoint PKF Littlejohn LLP as auditors of the company to hold office from the conclusion of this AGM until the conclusion of the next AGM at which accounts are laid before the company and to authorize the directors to determine the auditors' remuneration. Before I put the resolution to the meeting, can I ask if there are any questions in connection with this resolution?

15:35 If there are no questions, I now put the resolution to the meeting. To vote, please, would you place a cross in the appropriate box in your poll voting card? Thank you. Our next resolution is resolution six, and this is this resolution relates to the director's authority to allot shares up to a limited amount of one third of the company's issued objector. The full text of this resolution is shown in the notice of general meeting. And with the meeting's permission, I would like to take the resolution, which is quite lengthy, as read. Are you okay with that?

16:07 Thank you. Before I put the resolution to the meeting, can I ask if there are any question in connection with the proposed resolution?

16:17 If there are no questions, I'll now put the resolution to the meeting. To vote again, please, would you place a cross in the appropriate box on your poll voting card? Thank you. The next resolution is resolution seven that relates to the disapplication of preemption rights. This is a standard resolution. It's a special resolution in this but it's also a standard in the sense that it's it appears in most companies'

16:44 lists of resolutions, gives limited authority to the directors to issue up to 10% of the company's issued share capital for cash, for example, in relation to a fundraising, without offering those shares to existing shareholders. The full text of this resolution is shown in the notice of annual general meeting. And with the meeting's permission, I would like to take the resolution, which is quite lengthy, as read. Again, are you happy with to do that? Before I put the resolution to the meeting, are there any questions in connection with it?

17:16 No? Okay. If there are no questions, I now put the resolution to the meeting. To vote, please, would you place a cross in the appropriate box on your poll voting card? Thank you. Near you. The final resolution is resolution eight, also relates to the disapplication of preemption rights. This is another standard resolution that gives a limited authority for the directors to issue up to an additional 5% of the company's issued share capital for cash without first offering those shares to existing shareholders, provided that this power is used only in connection with an acquisition or other specific capital investment. The full text of this resolution is shown in the notice of annual general meeting. With the meeting's permission, I would like to take the resolution, which is again quite lengthy, as read. All okay? Thank you. Before I put the resolution to the meeting, can I ask if there are any questions about this proposed resolution?

18:09 No. If there are no questions, I now put the resolution to the meeting. To vote, please, would you place a cross in the appropriate box on your poll voting card? Thank you. That concludes the formal business of the meeting, and I declare the formal annual general meeting closed. As I mentioned earlier, the final poll results of the meeting will be announced to the markets to our regulatory information service and posted on our website as soon as practicable. They will now follow a business update presentation followed by a q and a session. Thank you. And before we move directly to that, I'd just like to we're now we're now effectively starting that. I know that, Mike, you you you had a point you wanted to raise, which for the meeting's permission, I'll I'll I'm happy to to to for you to raise now.

19:19 Good afternoon, AGM. My name is Mike Fay. The subject I wish to address is the lack of retail shareholder representation on the board, a subject I'm learning about, and I'm quite happy to be corrected. I would class anyone who buys shares online by an execution only provider, such as Hargreaves Lansdowne as a retail shareholder. My research suggests retail shareholders own 59.77% of QUADRISE. Nearly 60% of QUADRISE is owned by retail shareholders, but there is no retail shareholder voice on the board.

20:09 It is my opinion that there should be a retail shareholder representative director on the board. But how to get a retail shareholder representative appointed as a director? There are three ways. One, be appointed by the board. This is the first and easiest way that is that the board appoint a retail shareholder representative as a director, and that person is reelected or not by the members at next AGM. This was the route for Vicky, so it can be done. Two, be rich. Second, if a person or entity owns 10% or more of the company, they have the automatic right to be a director or appoint their proxy.

21:02 Three, be nominated and elected by the shareholders. The third way is more difficult but possible with 5% of the shareholders willing to propose a nomination to enable an election at a general meeting plus other procedural difficulties.

21:27 After the formal part of JGM ends, in fact, after the q and a's, would shareholders willing to be part of that absent please make themselves known to me and anyone willing to stand for election to the board? My questions to the board are, and I've given the chair a copy. One, what is their justification for not having any retail shareholder representation on the board?

21:56 Would a board appoint a retail shareholder to the board? Three, given that 60% approximately is owned by retail shareholders, how many represent representatives should there be on the board? Four, please can the chair, on a show of hands, hold this meeting on the question, should a retail shareholder representative be appointed to the board? Thank you for listening, Mike Fay. Thanks, Mike. And to be clear, this is a conversation this is a continuation of a conversation that Mike has initiated with us over the last couple of weeks, maybe slightly longer than that. So there are overall, I would say, we are positively inclined towards having board members who can add value to the the company. And we've seen, as you mentioned, Vicky's joining and adding considerable value.

22:56 So we don't come at this from the point from a defensive point of view of trying to maintain the status quo for the the the sake of the status quo. And I pointed out to you in private mind, you know, in fact, effectively, I'm a retail shareholder from the point of view that I have no better things to do than to look after the retail shareholders. So we are not against having retail shareholders on the board. The question of representation, though, is is something which needs to be thought through. And I think the best way to think this through is to continue our dialogue after this meeting and to see if we can find a way to find to understand what are the underlying concerns that we can address through additional skills or whatever that shareholders may be able to to help us with.

23:44 And so I think we'd like to we'd like to do that. So we'd like to take your option one, I think, is what we're saying, which is let's talk about it and see if we can get to an agreement about what it is that we need and what it is that we can we can do. But and that but we are somewhat resistant to the idea of representation, which is which sounds like that somebody is gonna direct is gonna come on to the board and only represent that selection of the

24:07 community. They need to come on the board and be a director for that for all the good and bad that that involves. And actually means that they can't communicate with the people they're supposed to represent any more than the rest of us can at at any any time. So we will talk about that. Will so will we appoint a retail shareholder to the board? I think, you know, that's the it's there's no reason why we wouldn't appoint

24:32 new skills to the board that we need. If it's somebody who's a retail shareholder, if they're a big retail shareholder, all the better. You know, alignment is a good thing. So we all would certainly be willing to consider that as part of the discussion. You've mentioned, given that 60% is owned by retail shareholders, and how many representatives should there be on the board? Well, let's start with let's start with considering who's the the next one, and then we can get moved from from that point. But I think the the point you raised in that question is around acting in concert. And that you raised also, you know, you won't like to hear from other shareholders who might be willing to work in concert with you on on what you're proposing if if we can't reach an agreement directly with the board. Just be careful that we need we all need to be careful that the shareholders don't act in concert in a way which would require them to make a bid for the company.

25:22 So

25:25 so just have that in mind. There is there are rules and regulations around all all this. And and then we are outside the formal part of the of meeting. But and there are lots of ifs and buts and questions still you might have about what Mike is saying or what I've responded. But I will allow a a show of hands on this. I mean, do you would you do you think that is it a conversation that you'd us to continue as a board with Mike with a view to adding additional skill, hopefully, from to satisfy Mike on a as a as a somebody who has a is amongst the retail shareholders.

26:01 First of all, are you willing to have a share of hands on this as informally?

26:05 Not lots of nodding. Right? So those of the can those of you who would who think that's a good idea, you'd like us to continue that conversation with Mike and others that he might put forward. Just raise your hand. Thank you. Is there anybody who thinks that's actually a rotten idea? There's two people who think it's a rotten idea. So hopefully, that debate about whether it's a good idea or a rotten idea will will come out in the course of our our conversations with you. I think we have the the okay from that you know, the the idea is to that we should be able to have the conversation, and maybe we can circle back to those who have expressed reservations and make sure that whatever we come up with

26:48 satisfies those reservations. But okay. That does that satisfy that point for that for now? Yes. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. So this is our disclaimer, which will be on the website. You can read that standard. So we're good. Welcoming you now to the the project update and for the for the AGM, which Jason will largely undertake the the presentation, and then we will we'll together answer questions.

27:24 But I would like to first also now welcome those who have been listening quietly on IMC joining us online. Welcome to the presentation and Q and A part of this. I know you've had a chance also observe the main part of the meeting. The main part of the presentation, as I said, will be an update from Jason. But there are some summary remarks I'm going to make now, which are in line with the update RNS which we issued this morning. So first of all, after much toing and froing to Morocco, we have now proven our products in the industrial application. Particularly, addition to mSAR, we've also proven Bio mSAR in a at an industrial scale.

28:11 So at long last, we have a route to commercial commercialization, and the the and the and the and Jason will give you further details

28:21 on that that from the RNS last week. At the same time as that, we we have an entry point into North America with us with the low with the low carbon fuels in starting with our bridgehead in Utah with with Valcor. And this is really an opportunity to to try to find a way to use the the Americans enthusiasm for their inflation reduction act, to find additional funding and scaling opportunities, in in the in The US and and beyond. So there's a there's a huge amount. And, actually, you're starting to see is other other parts of the world also trying to compete with the inflation reduction that would be in such a successful way of attracting investment. And so we believe that our Utah project, VAALCORE, is a good bridgehead into that, and we're looking to scale that up.

29:17 We're also looking to scale up our shipping business, obviously, MSC as a blueprint for that. And we are an important part of MSC's plans for low cost compliance. They have a very different strategy to to some of you will remember from the past. Has all had been doing a lot of buying of ships with methanol fuel fuels and and starting looking at ammonia fueled ships. People have tried and had different experiences with LNG as the price has gone up and down. But MSC are very much the guys, they said they they always do it. Show me the money. Yeah? And they are their strategies, low cost compliance. They wanna comply with the same things. They're being driven to comply by their customers, and they wanna do that. But they wanna do it in the lowest cost way, and they see our products as a way to do that. And they're also seeing more the customers demanding more of the bio products.

30:18 That's not to say there isn't still an opportunity in the MSAR, the traditional products. But what's driving that change and that enthusiasm is the is the is other biofuels that offer the route to low cost compliance as the as the pricing of carbon starts to to come in. And we have patent solutions, patent applications for blend on board and crude oil bioemstar, and these providing us with additional scale up options. So we obviously work with that with MSC, and that's a container fleet on fixed routes. But not all ships operate on fixed routes, therefore, the blend onboard solution is is is potentially applicable. And in answer to previous concerns, if you like, about the the the supply availability of of glycerin at scale, actually, we're finding that there is quite a bit of glycerin around. But, ultimately, as we succeed and scale up, there will need to be other product streams, other other components streams.

31:20 And crude sugar oils appear to be a very very good and carbon efficient route for that. And we're doing quite a bit of work on that at our QUAD facility. Bernard's here today at the back there if you have any questions after the event. And we're continuing to work on the on on net zero options for biomass derived sugars. And this isn't happening because ship owners are desperate to become green. Actually, it's being driven by customers, their customers. Shipping people shippers. We know the big ones. I'm not saying that there's a direct causal link here, the Amazons and the Ikeas of the world are driving faster appointment faster adoption of net zero fuels, and that's what's really making the change. And we're just starting to see companies now offering, do you want your do you want your shipping done with or without carbon? And they're offering a different pry differential pricing for And our ability to provide BioEmstar supports that differential pricing, and we're going we're seeing interesting you know, those people we're talking to can see the value of that already. And I think it's I think I saw saw that this week, Virgin Atlantic are using sustainable aviation fuel to cross the Atlantic in the air. So it doesn't seem out of out of the ordinary that we should be able to manage a sustainable marine fuel. And and we set ourselves a target of 2030.

32:50 Actually, I secretly hope we better do it before that, but there's a lot of work to be done in that to to to make it to make it real. Lastly, you might have been surprised or interested to read about our you know, we have a structured process going on now with within invest well, one of our investment banks to secure partners for the decarbonization of shipping, so the MSC and beyond, and for the low carbon fuels in North America, the Utah and beyond. And we are and this is where because this is where we see the the greatest investor interest. There is still interest for MSAR, but if we want new investment, we want to scale this up, it's the clean tech angle being bells for people, and that's what we're really focused on right now.

33:39 So thank you very much. I've done a lot of talking. I'm going to hand over to Jason to take us forward, then we'll have some Q and A at the end. Thanks very much, Andy. I have pretty much nothing to say now. You've covered it very well. But let me briefly go through the deck. And obviously, I think it's important the Q and A at the end as well in terms of answering some of your questions. I mean, the purpose behind QUADRISE is to address a very large market that I think we a lot of us are aware of now, over $200,000,000,000 a year. And there's a general transition where cleaner options are needed, and that's obviously the interest of MSC and others. I cannot emphasize enough the impact of some of the more recent legislation that's coming in that's really starting to drive change the certainly in the marine sector that we're with.

34:34 There's definitely a sizable amount of investment going on now with people like MSC modifying their vessels to really reduce their CO2 impact. And they're doing that really by modifying and using their existing fleets. Right? There's a limited amount of investment despite the big fanfares of the most of the world. There's a very large fleet of 700 plus vessels that need a fix. And that's really where we step in with our fairly low cost easy to implement technology. We have a three pronged approach. We basically look after energy solutions with our emulsion technology.

35:20 We also have some advantages in terms of what we do, and we're driving some development work in terms of the RDI to take advantage of some technological work, but also to combine that with sustainable biofuels. And I think that's really what sets QUADRISE apart from other people in the emulsion fuel business, for instance, is this ability to start to make taking advantage of sustainable biofuels which are water based. And nobody else can do that. The main genesis of the project was really to offer a lower cost heavy fuel oil, which you see in the doughnuts on the left, which is a blend of dilutes and residuals. Obviously, with MSAR, we have the ability to use some of the lower cost streams from the refinery or from the upstream application in the case of Utah.

36:13 And that in itself, when it works in an engine, obviously looked to demonstrate that again on the MSC trial. But previously, we got quite a significant reduction in CO2 emissions when you use the conventional emulsion fuel. And also now, there's a drive certainly in The US especially to combine if you look at some of the upstream projects, and for instance, in Utah, combine that with CCS by injecting CO2 underground, which essentially gives you a lower cost hydrocarbon to start with. So the MSAR with a low cost feedstock is actually quite an interesting feature, which is obviously part of the Utah project that we're looking at at the moment. And there are other opportunities similar to Utah in the wings as well. BioMSAAR is really from something that was, I guess, thought of just only a few years ago.

37:03 We had our first commercial trial of BioMSAAR at significant scale. You have to be there to see basically that fuel in action. And we've basically whatever we've been using whatever we throw at BioEmSight seems to work extremely well. Whether we put it in an engine or whether we put it through a massive furnace in the case of Morocco, this product delivers. And it's using a waste stream from biodiesel as starting point. And lower cost, there's lots of lower cost glycerin, which we're now finding out about through some of the partners we're working on with now on the supply side, which we can't announce yet, but we're working on at the moment. But there are streams of glycerin available to the scale that we need to drive the next two years of growth. Having said that, there's a lot of other opportunities as well to look at bringing in some other sustainable biofuels as well. And obviously, that drives the work we're doing with Vittorro and with BTG as well, bio liquids.

38:01 So there's a bit more work which we're going to be publishing in terms of some of the stuff we've been doing in aquafuel recently. But essentially what we're doing is we're swapping out the hydrocarbon component with biofuels, both on the water side but also on the oil side, ultimately to get us to BioEmSAR zero. And as Andy mentioned, you know, I think we all hope we can get there way before 2013. And the reality is the progress we're seeing so far demonstrates we will be able to do that. Having said that, the key thing is we now start making money out of bioemsoir and also emsoir as well. Multiple sectors that we address today, really looking at anything from the upstream and refinery world, top left. We are utilizing renewable fuels now from multiple sources. And I think the marine sector, industrial sector are going to be starved of molecules going forward. They are not going to get access to the molecules that are going into SAF, the molecules that are going into some of the HVO products, the hydro treated vegetable oils of the world, which are very good alternatives to diesel.

39:11 That will get snapped up by the aviation and transportation sectors. There's lots of other bio bio derived products that is not they're not easy to blend into conventional oil products, and that's really where our technology works extremely well. Obviously, to do that, we're using proprietary additives, and that obviously brings in other parties that are interested in obviously selling more of those products. And on the consumption side, really, three main sectors. Marine fuels, heavy industry includes power plants down the bottom. Heavy industrial uses, includes things like furnaces and, obviously, drying applications, is a case of Morocco. All driven around a limited commodity and a drive to reduce CO2 emissions, which just means that the price of CO2 is now starting to get priced in by anyone in their forward planning process. So all of the big companies that we're dealing with are factoring in the the value of c o two or the cost of c o two going forward and working out, you know, as part of their business plan in terms of, you know, the avoidance of having to pay a c o two tax is is really driving the demand for efficiency reductions, which people like MSC and others are spending a large amount of money on their fleet today, but also the drive towards more efficient fuels and biofuels going forward.

40:35 So there's a very clear trend now that this is a feature going forward, and obviously, the legislation in Europe is starting to bite as of next year. So the main projects we're focusing on, and we are very, very sort of this is our main activity is to focus on delivering these projects. Appreciate that. Obviously, the speed of these is sometimes not as we would like. But, really, we'll take you through each of these projects. I won't go into each of these detail. I've got slides to cover these. But we're covering a number of different sectors with all the activities that we're working on now. In the case of Morocco, we've finally completed the trial and appreciate shareholders' patience in getting to the promised land.

41:27 It's yes. It was a challenging trial at times due to one annoying component, which is a pump. I can I can maybe answer the answer the questions afterwards or if you have a question at the end, I can take you through that particular dilemma? But the been replaced, worked extremely well, delivered basically full load with MSAR over for more than fifteen minutes actually for the case of, you know, sort of fifteen hours of operation, both on MSAR and most importantly on bio MSAR. And the scale of this facility is it's one of the largest units in terms of the single demand from a from a burner. It's a 33 megawatt burner, which consumes the same amount of fuel as a container ship, it's one of the bigger ones. So you can see the right hand stack is actually the unit actually running on our fuel at full load. So worked extremely well, got full full load conditions from the from the from the unit we were operating on.

42:30 And now the plan beyond that is now to actually progress commercial supply. We had to get through that point where to demonstrate the fuel worked, but now commercial supply discussions can start with the client in earnest. And also closing out, obviously, the technical report that Phil and the team are working on at the moment. And the client, obviously, having seen how well it works in that particular site, is now looking at other applications, which we talked about before. And this is Site B. But Site A is their main flagship facility as well. So they're very keen to basically incorporate that as part of, obviously, the commercial rollout process. MSC. MSC, we've done I mean, MSC are in this because, I think as Andy mentioned, it's part of their forward looking plan for sustainability.

43:24 It's listed QUADRISE is listed in their sustainability report. And that's no mean feat, actually, for a small company. It's a family owned business, extremely successful. For them to put their name against anything, they're doing it because they really believe this works, and they actually want to show the shipping industry that this is a viable solution for people going forward. They also like it, frankly, in the case of BioEmstar and with the other major trader that we're dealing with at the moment. They like it because it's using components which are not going get gobbled up by any other sector. It's using, in the first point, renewable glycerin from waste based sources. But in the future, obviously, you can take advantage of some of the biomass derived sugar.

44:09 So they get the fact that there's limitations in glycerin initially up to a point. But they also see that the development work that we're doing and the results we're seeing with some of the other products offers a pathway for them to give them the scale up that they need. And as Andy mentioned now, there's lots of creative creative ways of getting money getting or taking advantage of some of the c o two credits of green solutions. So you can monetize actually the savings that you make, whether you do it as a company or whether third parties do it for you. There is money to be had in using some of these lower carbon green fuels, and that's certainly where BioEmSAR comes in going forward. So we we are in the process of finalizing the agreements.

44:54 And as they're announced, obviously, in December, you'll get to appreciate some of the the people that we're dealing with. There's a lot a lot of work going on in parallel. So the permits actually to actually do the blending for the BioEmCell trial in Europe have actually been applied for already. So that's underway. So it's on delay matters. And obviously, we're looking at fast tracking what we can do on the project side to get the project underway. We'll have our kit on-site in Q1 with a view to starting the trial early part of Q2 is the current plan. And as part of that plan, there's opportunities then to get the data from the engine both on MSAR and bio MSAR, look at it side by side. And I think there's some and questions coming in about, you know, this limited information about oil and water emulsions and the benefits. I think this will give us a flagship opportunity to start publishing, you know, some of the benefits of that.

45:52 And and, obviously, that's MSC very behind anything they can do to, obviously, assist and promote what we're doing, is a little bit unusual from the marine space. In the case of Valcor, we're waiting there's basically a number of projects where the Valcor are operating on at the moment. They have some downhole projects where they're doing drilling, and obviously, they're waiting to get drilling permits, which we expect will be issued imminently. And then on the other side of things, they also have another project with a company that's looking at conventional oil sands as well, which doesn't it's not contingent on the drilling permits. So either of those projects progressing, provided they get the project finance that they need and that work is very much in progress at the the moment.

46:45 That gives us the 1,000,000 from the first site license. So either one of those projects in fact, there's another one they're working as well. But the two main projects that they're working on are all in the the the sort of the final phase of getting project finance. And obviously, as soon as that's confirmed, then that will give us the $1,000,000 that we've agreed with in terms of the site license, and then a follow-up, obviously, of the $500,000 when the equipment is delivered to site. And it's opportunities. Obviously, The Americas, we really have a number of opportunities in Panama significantly, really with a view to the power plants there.

47:30 But the plan would be, obviously, then to have a have a a base for supply to the marine sector as well. So there's obviously a good fit there. It just so happens, unfortunately, that Panama is going through a state of emergency still in terms of very, very low amounts of water available for the hydro generation. So all of the power plants are running pretty much full load. So it's very hard for for them to commit to a trial. Otherwise, they get penalized basically financially. So in parallel, obviously, we've we've been working actually with fuel on with in terms of the fuel supply. And there are a number of parties that we are in discussion with at the moment in terms of how are we gonna facilitate the trial when it does start. It's a question of when, not if.

48:17 And also, with a view then beyond that, how can we supply the marine sector out of Panama as well. Down below, we have another project in Southeast Asia. This is a refinery refueling project with a view to having a base in Asia fairly well located for supply out of Singapore. So we have basically refinery consumer, which isn't a bit simpler than the we're having to have work out supply and demand. You can have everything in one place. So the plan there is to do a trial in the refinery that could then basically morph straight into supply to that particular refinery. And then that gives us obviously a good foothold also into that particular sector for future supply to the marine industry.

49:09 The ongoing work in terms of, I guess, bio EMSA optimization and product development. Glycerin is not glycerin. It comes from a number of different sources and supplies. So there's a lot of testing going on where we have, obviously, the major trader and some other counterparties providing us with glycerin samples going forward. They also bring in other streams as well that they say, Okay, well, why don't you try this? So BioOils, for instance, is mentioned, I think, top right. You know, that's come out of the work that we've doing on the glycerin side. We're also doing a lot of test work at the moment looking at conventional blends of biofuels, which are they use basically fatty acid methyl ester fame.

49:55 So the methyl ester by products we can use as an alternative to the fuel oil in bio EMSA. So we're doing some blends of b 30 together with the glycerin and in the future, obviously, the crude sugar oils as well to to progress to a net zero solution with bio with bio m star zero. So when we do that, we do that in the lab at a small scale. We do pilot scale testing, and then we do the engine testing in AquaFuel and then scaling it up, obviously, for the ship trial where we've been looking to bunker a thousand tons each stem basically to supply the MSC ship. So there's a pretty progressive and quick scale up from the lab to delivery. And we mentioned, obviously, the JDAs we've got with BTG, with Vittoro, but there are lots of other companies coming out of the woods, especially with regards to the biomass derived sugars, Hugely abundant source of product. And when you split, when you take some of these lignin cellulose cellulosic products and you split them, the valuable part is the lignin component, and that's not great as a fuel, frankly.

51:03 So that's what everybody wants. And then they're left with a crude sugar oil, which they don't know what to do with, and that's really where we come in. So it's a bit of a gap in the in the market that we think was very good to then match up with the marine sector. Obviously, that's why the, you know, the trading company and MSC and others very interested in that opportunity for this particular sectors we're working in. I think we presented this before, but really, you know, this hasn't changed in the last few years. Our strategic priorities is really moving towards, obviously, a net zero application. Vicky has come into the board, but she's been behind the scenes doing a great job in helping us in in putting together the sustainability report, which is how you know, our report. And, obviously, we'll have a bit more information to publish next year once we get some some further test results in there from from Bioemcel work.

51:58 But we we really believe in this ESG aligned strategy. It's really important for not just the company, but the people that we're dealing with. They really do understand that we take this seriously, and, you know, they're working with a, you know, a company that wants has blue chip ambitions. Andy mentioned before, there's work going on on the strategic side with an investment bank to look at strategic partners to accelerate our growth. So that's, you know, extremely important for us going forward is to, okay, we've got some great opportunities here, but how can we turn this immediately into into money at a scale that, you know, rewards the investors finally for all the, you know, the the patients in the company. From a financial perspective, obviously, we topped up our cash with a fundraise in the year.

52:49 Obviously, we are relying on the receipts from from Valcor as well, which will give us enough cash to the middle of the next year. And, obviously, for investors coming in, there are tax losses available that could be offset in against the future. The team hasn't really changed in the last year. It's such a very light team. See the picture at top right. You know, these are all the guys who have been involved in the in the trial. Bernard's missing there on that one, but he was there as well. So, yeah, I mean, we've got a very committed team of people who are willing to travel at weekends, get out there, and and get the job done. I can't stress the value of those guys enough. As well as the additional support of consultants that we have, one of the one of the guys in the picture is is Martin Jones, who's been you know, he's a burner expert from Alstom thirty years experience. So it's extremely useful to have those types of people, you know, still on call to, you know, provide the assistance that we need.

53:44 And as Andy mentioned, you know, we've we've appointed Vicky. I'm glad she she accepted to the board to strengthen really the strengthen the board as well, you know, and provide some some new impetus in terms of, you know, how we look at the world going forward. So then in summary, I think that's, you know, that that's covered the company pretty well. I mean, we are in very much focused on now in terms of, the decarbonization of the energy sectors, specifically the marine and the industrial power sectors that we deal with. The portfolio projects, they're taking a bit longer to to get to where we we would like them to be, but they're they're still very much active and very much, you know, could be transformative in the next twelve months.

54:30 And obviously, then, you know, we certainly believe we have the leadership and the technical capability to deliver on this as well with a very, you know, very lean but committed team of people. So we're looking forward next year to of delivering the trials to get to these commercial agreements, which we've we've mentioned several times, but, you know, we've we've certainly been taste them now. And in terms of the work going on in the background, obviously, biofuel work will continue. We're just going to keep on innovating and offering new opportunities to blend some of these more challenging products into a very stable biofuel that can be used at scale and very quickly. So thank you very much. I think, obviously, we can talk about this strategic partnership as well, again, with any questions, but I think that's covered what I would like to say today.

55:21 Thank you very much indeed. If anyone has any questions in the room, if you could just raise your hand and I'll come to with a microphone. Thank you. Hello, Jason. Sorry. It's Lionel again. Falcor, on the basis, it doesn't happen on it doesn't happen at all or the timing's somewhat out from what you've displayed on there, I guess you run out of cash q one next year. I think that's a reasonable assumption. Yeah. It depends a little bit on in terms of of because some of the expenditures, obviously, on projects is discretionary, and and RDI is discretionary. So But I understand your burn rates. But yeah. If we were £250,000 a month Yeah. Slightly more, but let's call it 250,000. You're raising a million dollars, 800 thousands.

56:12 Take that off from June, around February, March with some good savings. Mhmm. We're now approaching December. Most of December's a dead period from a corporate point point of view of raising, I guess. And all the presentations in in in the report and account you talk about June, you just said again to us. Well, the reality is as things get delayed frequently with this company, the Vowel Corp possibly may not happen as you wish by the end of December. On the basis that happens, what plans do you have to obviously keep the company functioning and and viable?

57:00 I do have one other statement after that's been answered. Can I answer that, Andy? Would like to answer? You have first go. Obviously, we have plans in place, Lionel, to look up and see. Plan a is Velcro coming in, but there's no guarantee of that coming in in the time available. So we certainly have plans in place that would have to kick in early part of q one should we need to. Obviously, the the key thing behind that is to make sure that we have if if we do need to raise money again, and we didn't frankly, when we raised money last time around, we probably didn't quite get the the funds that we we planned on getting. So it was a risk that we risk that we knew was there, but that's that's life. The plan would the plan is still very much to get the agreements announced and signed in December, which I think will be, from a share price perspective, be should rerate it a little bit when they see some of the other partners we're dealing with as well.

57:58 But, yeah, we'll likely have to raise money in q one again if the Valcor money doesn't come in. Yeah. I think you probably answered that. I think the you know, your question is is quite right. I think, you know, shareholders here must realize as we as we do, you know, the the company is in a a tight spot. We've got great technology. We've got a great projects, but we haven't got a lot of resources. And so we we know we gotta we gotta make that work. It can work. It'll help, of course, if we get the the the Valcor money in. But we probably have to assume that we don't so that we don't get caught out if it doesn't. But if we stand up here and say we're gonna raise money, then the people mark our shares down immediately. So, you know, we you just gotta leave it with us and do the best we can on that. It's it's clear that if we can get the news out, if we pass milestones, then the the share price will go up, and we will minimize the amount of of dilution. And, obviously, if there are if there are opportunities to square the circle by raising money that doesn't involve shares, then we would we would look at those as well. But, yeah, we're a young stage. Although we've been going for a while, we're still a young stage company, and fundamentally, it's an equity story.

59:06 So we're all in this together. You know, we're all we've all gotta face that. It's it's a tight spot we've gotta fight our way out of. Thank you. My my second question, which may be more of a statement, is I'd like to kick off to say that I am a supportive person, contrary to the way these questions are coming across. Andy, you you started off this this afternoon basically saying the management have been very busy. There's lots going on. I heard that last year with respect. I heard that the year before. The last two fundraises, this was a little top up, which was undersubscribed clearly from what your your objectives were. But the one prior to that, which I think was five, six million in totality, remember that what that was gonna see us through to being commercial.

59:53 And I just want to express these dissatisfaction and fatigue I know that you guys must all have as well, that everything seems to be delayed. The communication still again, it got through. It started to get improving. It's got worse. Private shareholders are out there wondering what's going on half the time, speculating on the wrong things. The share price is at its lowest it's ever been. Some of us other people were well down in terms of our investments. And, you know, I wish you all the best, but I want you to get on with things. I know there's third parties controlling everything, but my god. Delay after delay, quarter quarter after quarter, MSC particularly. You know, that $56,000,000, that was gonna see that through to the end.

1:00:42 And it's just it's repeated. And all wonderful things again. I leave here thinking, oh, it's it's good again. And I've done that year after year, but, actually, I've gotta stand up now and say, for god's sake, get some of this stuff commercial because it's just not happening. And my only observation would be, I know you're gonna say no to this, I would really decelerate the amount of effort going into research at the moment and the cost of that, which is half your monthly burn, which I know is for the future. But get over the some of the lines that we've over the line, some commercials on the things we've invested in for the last fifteen years, which still haven't materialized 1p for the shareholders. Thank you. Jess, do wanna comment? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think and I think coming on to your point, Donald's, obviously, appreciate they've been there have there have definitely been delays well beyond, you know, the level that we we expect. But there are and I'm not making excuses, but in in the case, for instance, of MSC, it's extremely important to partner up with the right supplier for the the business going forward. Okay? So that's and extremely important not just for QUADRISE, but it's extremely important also for MSC.

1:01:54 Okay? So there have been dialogues with, you know, with major trading companies and majors that take time to progress, and not all of them have got to the end successfully because everybody's got their own vested interests. So getting to the point of finding the right partner who can assist us and, you know, and work with us on the supply side that also MSC are willing to to deal with as well on the other side because MSC are not buying bunker fuel today from small traders, small little ventures. Right? They they work with very large entities, so you have to find the right counterparty. And unfortunately, that does take a little bit longer than we would we would all in this room desire. Having said that, once that counterparty is on board, it's because they wanna be on board and they see it strategically a good thing to do going forward. Okay?

1:02:46 Now, you know and that's great that we as QUADRISE have something that they that they would like to utilize as part and then put their name against. So it's frustrating. And I you know? And and, frankly, your feedback is the same feedback as I get from members of the board on a regular basis that get this get this done. You know? And I'd say that we're not fatigued at all. There are times when it gets gets you down when things aren't working. You know? I've been in a container in 45 degree heat in in Morocco, you know, swearing at a pump. Okay? So, you know, it's it's really frustrating, But we are really bored. I'm I have to say, you know, some of the things that we've heard recently, which basically we've been telling shareholders, but when you hear it from a client speaking to one of your counterparties in a meeting, that they're in it for the the same reasons that we we try to sell to to you and other people's business, I think that's that's really you know, the team are really energized in in getting this across the line. And we yeah. We have to get we have to start making money, Lionel. I totally agree with you. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, I and I've I've been in the business business in the company now for about it just over eighteen months. And I think I was stood here last year and talked about the the fact this is a business with a lot of moving parts, and that's fundamentally why, we get blindsided by things from time to time. And so rather than just say, sorry, guys. You know, that's how it is.

1:04:18 We're also that that's the background really to the work we're doing to try to find scale up partners. Because fundamentally, the business is undercapitalized for what it needs to do. Little old QUADRISE cannot decarbonize shipping on its own. So, we need to solve that problem. The question has always been, when is the right time to solve that problem? When is the right time to make deals with people if there are if deals are available and so on? And we're last time to say, okay. Well, you know, we've gotta get on with this. And that's why we are we are running a structured process. And so that might give us, you know, an answer in time that's relevant to the fundraising. We don't know yet. But we are not sitting on our hands is what I'm saying. We are trying to find other solutions to that problem of delivery.

1:05:03 Because what we need are people who, as partners, are people who can reduce the complexity of delivery or help manage that complexity of delivery. That will then mean that we're not always on our own buffeted by the things that come come at us. PLC: So coming back to your other point, Lionel, about the cost of the RDI facility here, it's certainly not half of our monthly cash flow at all. And if you think about, for instance, the Morocco trial, all of the components that were delivered to the Morocco trial, including the burner, the atomizer, everything else, that was all fabricated by us. Okay? So it's not just research work investment going in there that's saving us money because we haven't got to go to a John's Inc. Or a supplier. Okay? And, you know, because we can make it ourselves if we need to. So I say that I'll take on board your your comment and and where we we're moving to now with the JDA work we're doing with Vittorro and other people is that that cost is shared. So we're looking to try and reduce those costs for shareholders and ourselves and try and offset those costs with others.

1:06:14 And I think you'll see more of that as a theme where we start to get paid to do the work, basically, by others as well to try and minimize that cost. To stop it at this stage would be probably wouldn't be a good idea because just because of where it's leading to in terms of, you know, the work with the crude sugar oils and other things. I just think we have a really unique opportunity to on the back of the bioemstar work and the vessel testing that we're doing, there's then opportunities if it works very well to then bring in these group sugar oils way before anyone else can do it, and we've got then first mover advantage. So I think, Lionel, that's in the category of good questions, because he had a lot of answers. So just say that we've received in advance of the meeting a number of questions, and we're I I imagine that we're receiving questions online as well. We may not get to everybody today in order to keep in a meeting in a reasonable time frame. We will prioritize, at least for the time being, the questions in the room. But we will get to the we will answer the questions that are coming online and coming in at a later date. So please carry on. Thanks.

1:07:20 Yeah. Richard? Richard Body, private shareholder. Can I throw a a different point of view from Lionel in this constant speculation about when, if we're going to need additional aid knows fully well the difficulty is getting to commercialization And you need to know there are a lot of retail investors who would fully support? We will not walk away, I will not walk away from a significant investment in this company. We are led by world class scientist, Jason. And whilst I may be critical at times on, as others, inability to actually get to commercialization, we're not going to walk away. I'm not going to walk away.

1:08:08 It's not difficult to see that we can extend our runway from June to December with a very modest fundraise, which even at today's ridiculously low price, will not have a material impact on dilution. So please bear in mind, there are those that fully support. And whilst we all want to see success, we're here for the long haul, where I am. You very much, Richard. And I think Lionel prefaced his comments by also saying that he supports what we're doing. So it's and I think the the the both your direct express support and and Lionel's less direct, but nevertheless support, I think, are are important to us. Hi. Marcus, proxy shareholder.

1:08:58 On on the same, vein that's just been discussed about supporting the company, You know, I've I've been a long term shareholder, and I've invested a hell of a lot of money in this business. I believed in the business. But it does, and I I I take the point that was just raised about supporting the company, but that does become a point when you have to question what you are doing and whether you should put more funds in into the company. If I let let's let's go back to the fundraise in in June. And, obviously, yourself, Andy, you committed around about £40,000 to the placing shares overall.

1:09:46 Perhaps we should be grateful to Ondo for that, you know, in in helping us out there. But in comparison to the other board members, their investment was extremely low. It was depressingly low. And I should think that that must have, as well as myself, other shareholders, gotten questioning, you know, why should I put more money into this business? Why should I commit more of my hard earned cash if other board members are not showing the sort of confidence in the business that I think that they should show, considering that they have got a far better overview of those projects and actually what is what is going on with that with the business.

1:10:36 So I think that was extremely poor, and I think that's the reason why that that fundraising never actually got to where it was expected to be. So I I don't know if you've learned anything from that going forwards, but it's prevented me from investing more funds because I couldn't see any confidence from the board against what we were being asked to do. You were imploring us to support the company because the alternative wasn't worth thinking about. But the other board members didn't seem to share that same opinion. Yeah. I can't speak for all the other board members. They may wish to to comment.

1:11:22 But if I think this is certainly the case that Jason above ever above anyone has is is fully committed to this business. You can see that you could say I have just used the expression before, you know, your life's work, Jason. And and I I don't think there's a a sense which is not committed to it. And I would say that, you know, everyone got bills to pay, and somebody and the cash has to come from somewhere. So it does you know, everybody has different abilities to to free up cash at at a certain point in time for a for a placing. I I'm I'm put some money, and I will, no doubt, put more in if the opportunity arises in future. I don't want to put all my chips in the first first one if you like, but I wanna keep something so I can support the company going going forward.

1:12:09 But now you've you've made the point, and I think I don't know. I mean, Laurie, you've been a director for quite a while. Have you got any comment you wanna make on on that? Yes. Well, thank thank you, Mark. And I'm I'm going to be quite personal here, and Richard alluded to it. At the time, unfortunately, I did not have substantial funds available to put into the company. What I did do though, and that was my reply to Richard, is I put skin in the game in the sense of my time. And I've been fortunate, and I do say fortunate for very specific purpose. I've been fortunate to be working with this company since it launched in 2006. I've put an immense amount of personal time way beyond the non executive director's fees in an endeavor to realize what I truly believe will be a successful company going forwards.

1:13:08 I I certainly, at the time, would have invested considerably more, but unfortunately, at the time, those funds were locked up. Yeah. And and and, incidentally, I I I think I can speak for Phil Snaith. There is this and and please don't interpret Phil Snaith's departure in any way as being a lack of support for the company. Quite the converse, but Phil himself would put an a tremendous amount of time and advice towards the company, particularly towards project management, program management. And that was very very well received by the company, but it was not by any means a sign of him thinking that the company was going to fail. Quite the converse.

1:13:59 And in my case, yeah, he might look at my salary and say, why can't he put all of his salary into into a QUADRISE placing? I think the reality is that, you know, we all have I've got a young family going through university. That was literally all my savings went into there. And every every kind of fundraise comes through, whatever I have by way of cash goes back into the company. I can assure you that. It's just like Laurie at the time, who just didn't have any disposable income to put into that particular fundraising just because of expenses. So yeah. Yeah. I I accept, you know, what what you're saying there, but, obviously, it's you know, it was a very important time for the company to raise those funds. And there we were. Investors were left with this dichotomy of one being implored to actually, you know, make sure that they supported it and and invested to support the company.

1:14:52 But outwardly, you know, it totally conflicted, you know, the position of the board with that message. I think the main problem at the time was that the market share price fell below the offer price, and that gave people the opportunity to buy in the market, which obviously didn't help the company directly. So that kind of undermined us a little bit at that time. But I think actually, in the context of the timing and the news flow that we were able to put out, we act actually, it was quite a decent result. I get almost 2,000,000 in. It still leaves us in a tight spot as I described before, but we we have a we now get starting to get some more master. We've one milestone out last week. We're gonna get some more milestones. At home. Hopefully, we'll be able to finish the job pretty soon. I think I recall that there was a failed IPO on the day, and that had had a significant impact on the market. Yep. Yeah. That was spooked.

1:15:47 Okay. Mark, retail investor. Can you talk a little bit more about nondilutive funding options? So UK has reentered the Horizon Project recently, and there's also UK research innovation funding. Can you talk about how you've been chasing that down? How much of that is applicable? Jason, probably, I imagine. Yes. We've we've looked at several Horizon Projects ventures already. I would say that the first one we looked at got relatively well advanced, but the problem with any of these types of initiatives is that it doesn't deliver a tangible result in a period less than three years. In fact, the Horizon projects are generally longer term projects, which really don't deliver a trial, for instance, in terms of three to five years' time.

1:16:40 I can't keep coming to you saying that we've got non dilutive funding to do a trial in five years' time when we know that we can do it ourselves in a year. So some of these activities, they sound great on paper. They bring a lot of different academics together and companies together. But a lot people involved in it are not necessarily really doing it because they believe it's a commercial outcome. It's more because they should get involved in the first place. So we we certainly are looking at it. We've, like I say, we've done we've looked at one already and looked at another Horizon project more recently. Phil's been looking at as part of a a process. UK innovation funding is available. Yes. The UK government, unfortunately, seems to be hell bent on ignoring biofuels and going straight to hydrogen and ammonia. And the people, I guess, need to reassess what could be delivered today as part of the UK Innovation Fund. But we we we are looking at it, you know, David and and Phil are looking at it all the time as well together themselves to see whether we can take advantage of some of these schemes. But the problem is just the the the term and and the nature of these things that just take so long to get an outcome. It's a good source of funding, but you have to spend the money first and then get the money back afterwards.

1:17:59 So from a cash flow perspective, it doesn't really help us out either. So I mean, the bet best sort of nondilutive funding probably source will be sales. If we can get the Valcor money across in and the second tranche as well. And if we can get some of the other things going in in into into revenue, then that's non dilutive funding. Yeah. This isn't what I was sorry. Bob Sharp, long long term retail holder. This isn't what I was first going to say, but I'd like to say a great big thanks to Laurie, because what he stood up just then and said was the truth because I lived through it. In the days when he took a pay cut and I believe he went down to £17,000 per annum and money was tight, I used pop into the then offices of Victoria for coffee with the Williams when no internal matters were ever discussed of course.

1:19:00 And it didn't matter which day I popped in, Laurie was sitting there shuffling papers every single time I went in. Yeah. It was quite incredible. We were paying this guy the same as my cleaner. And he was he was there all the time. The other thing that what what I really wanted to say was that I took the opposite route to Mark. I put into this placing, whilst placing, via my various nominee accounts and my crest account, more than the entire board with the exception of you. So Mark's point is right. It did scuttle some of the potential investment, but I actually feel the thing that really scuttled it was communication.

1:19:46 I've nagged in all of your ears over and over again for years. You need to interact with your retail holders. Every time you want cash, great. This presentation, the the sustainability report, for example, is absolutely wonderful. It's the best one you've ever produced. But none of it actually gets money out of the retail people's hands because you go quiet ten minutes later. You you you disappear for months. And maybe it's the retail shareholders investors that bought fault as well. Maybe we don't have knock on your desk. But that lowers your chances of raising money. If you look at it, if you want 5,000,000, how many investors we got? If each one put a couple of thousand pounds in, you'd raise a great deal of money.

1:20:37 You know, what sorry. Not 5. 1,500,000. It's peanuts. You know, Richard and I are on the same song sheet song sheet there. There's no way I want to the company go down, but there is a limit to how much a poor old pensioner like me can keep putting in. Yeah. Well well, thanks very much, Bob. And your your tribute to dedication of Laurie is richly deserved. Laurie, you're doing mean, he's so much into the company. So yeah. Absolutely. And now I've lost the thread of the second part of your question. He wants a cup of coffee. Yeah. You know, the communication isn't it, basically. And we we we try to get it right, but we don't always. And what I mean by trying to get it right is that, you know, the ideal amount of communication, the official RNS communication might be you might say it would be once a month. If you if you had a company that had news every month, you say that was about right. If you're putting out news every week, it feels desperate.

1:21:37 And, so so then but then sometimes you don't have things to say at the right at the exact moment. And then so you say, okay. Well, should we supplement that with social media? And we did earlier earlier this year. We had we were more active on social media than we have been more recently. And the reason for that is because we put the as we got went on, social media became, oh, here they are again. Let's put out some let's put out some negative comment on them kind of thing. So we kind of thought, well, to avoid that, let's not create too many opportunities for negative comment. So, you know, so we do try to we do think about these things, and we do try to get it get it right. We and I think your point also is is it sort of echoes to what Mike was talking about earlier on about the the retail.

1:22:23 So I think we do need to find a way to improve communication within what we're all allowed to do to to get an maybe, you know, find a model which works for works for us all. I don't wanna come to this the solution without having a conversation, but I think we, you know, we are committed to seeing if we can find a way of doing that. Private Investor. Just two questions at the moment. One is why did why weren't there any warrants added to the open offer? David, this sounds like one that you could answer. It's It's It's on. It's Thanks.

1:23:09 Yeah. We we did a placing, obviously, and then an open offer, and we want to make sure that the the placees and the investors through the open offer are treated the same. We'd have needed to have headroom to give warrants to the place ease, which we didn't have enough headroom basically on that front. No, it's disappointing. So yes, would have to effectively half the number of shares available if it was one for one warrant or make room for the for the warrant. You don't know whether you're gonna get the money in or not. So shareholders have always had, since I've been around, always had QUADRISE in a bit of a tight leash when it comes to dissapplication rights. And so that's why we you know, we've we've we've we've been happy to work within the 10% that we've put forward today and that you've all voted on.

1:24:04 But it does have consequences if we are if we are have have a short a short rope on that because it means we can't or we don't have the flexibility sometimes to do things which might otherwise be desirable. Okay. And and the second question is whenever you see a list of future fuels listed like methane or not LPG LNG. Thank you, LNG. Why doesn't emulsion fuels appear? I would say that the simplest answer to that is that it's not being used yet at scale. I think that would change once we get the project underway with MSC and it starts to hopefully you would hope that the MSC's PR department will get behind it as well and provide us the impetus that we need, that people see that as a viable solution PLC: going forward. Do you think it will be seen as distinct from biofuels in general, or will it be kind of grouped into that, I think? We would sort of potentially be grouped into biofuels, but I guess not the conventional biofuel blends, which are oil based.

1:25:18 So, yeah, I think it does come in on if you look at the if it's like things like conferences, etcetera. And we're quite and we're quite active in organizations like Ibia, where emulsion fuels are listed on the Ibia site with as a solution. But at the moment, a lot of the industry is a little bit niche. I think when someone like MSC picks it up and goes with it commercially, then we move out of that niche bracket. But it's something, obviously, we want to work with work on. But, actually, the most important thing is probably getting the MSC trial underway and showing people it is actually, you know, a large scale commercial alternative that other people can use. Hi there, guys. Jeremy Nelson, retail investor. I think the gentleman over here asked one of the questions I was gonna ask about the warrants.

1:26:05 Just just going on to having funds available to invest, I think a good proportion of private investors hold other investments to support you, other investments that were doing well and or put money earmarked for other investments, which have now gone up but have not been invested in. So I think there's always a way and a means for people to get invested and support the company. So I'd just like to say that. The up the other thing is as far as the support for yourselves, I'm not seeing it from the nameless entities who can't be named in MSC in their PR. You don't feature. The only person supporting you that I take seriously is Vittorro.

1:26:53 There's nothing coming out of any of these entities, and that affects people's belief in whether you've actually got something going. Yeah. It's a good question, Jeremy. And I and I think, in the case of MSC, they have been willing to stand with us side by side. We were in last year's conference in Geneva, sat in a conference next to Prabhat talking about the project. Now obviously, the project has taken a little bit longer to get the partners together to proceed to the VESL trial. Once we get agreements signed off next month, then we'll definitely there will be further opportunities to work with MSC to obviously integrate with the PR department. But because there's been a little bit of hiatus getting everything arranged, it's obviously gone a little bit quiet. But it hasn't meant that we dropped off their most recent sustainability report. It's very much myself and Andy, you know, recently met with them as well. It's very much, you know, one of their one of the decarbonization levers that they feel that, you know, they're willing to put their name against, which is, you know, which is extremely supportive.

1:28:00 But, yeah, because of the project delays, it's it has impacted the day to day PR. Yeah. You're right in observing German. Hi. I'm Diamond Skinner, private investor. Two questions. This is really a refresh for me. On Valcore, the one when it comes in, not saying if, when it comes in, is it one and a half and that that's it? Or is there gonna be more and a royalty and stuff like that? Because we just talk about the one and a half not ongoing. That's number one. And then number two, we're just a refresh on the IP because you've got quite a few products going through. And I know it was fifty-fifty on one of them. I just wonder what the IP is for all your products. Just a general update on that would be quite useful. QUADRISE Yes. So first question was something about the IP, actually.

1:28:53 First question. Yeah. I'll go through the IP first. I mean, in terms of the IP, the most recent, obviously, we've got basic IP around the marine MSOL products. That's the first patent basically under the QUADRISE name, together with Axon Abel, now Neurion. Then the Bio MSOL product. We basically have well, basically, we have two two EmSAR patents, one of the cationic surfactants. We've two patents there on basic EmSAR. We've got the BioEmSAR patent that's been essentially granted. And then we've got another Bio M Soft flavor with you bringing in the sugars, and that one's jointly with Vittorro. There's another patent which is really 100% quadrized in terms of blend on board.

1:29:38 So most of the patents are fiftyfifty with Neurion for most territories. Ones with Fotoro and Coke in terms of the crude sugar oils. And the blend on board is a quadrized pattern. And there's more in the wings. There's some results that we're getting, which are certainly worthy of putting a patent against as well going forward. So we're not a patent generator, but where there's an opportunity to obviously protect our IP, that's really where we want to sort of strengthen the portfolio as much as possible. And the first part about Valcor. And the first part about Valcor, sorry, yes, was yes, there's 1,000,000 comes in from the site license agreement for one site, obviously up to a certain amount of fuel. 500,000 deliver the equipment to sites. We still own that equipment, so there's an opportunity for Valcourt to buy that within a two year period, for which we get potentially another million dollars. We also get paid 75,000 a quarter as part of a service agreement. As soon as that equipment is delivered to sites, we get 75,000 a quarter. And then there's a profit sharing scheme whereby once we the idea is to do site trials, and then once we basically deliver on a sell that product for a premium over what they can get today, then there's a 50 well, depending on what the input of both parties, roughly a $50.50 share in in the profit beyond what they would sell sell that product for today.

1:31:03 And then beyond that, if there are this we have drafted a sublicense agreement as well. So there's an opportunity then through Valcor, to sign that sublicense agreement whereby they can sell licenses or deploy licenses to sites for which we, again, get an income from other opportunities in that particular area as well beyond the first license. So it should be a trigger to many more things, but obviously It doesn't end at 1.5%. Correct. Just by way of explanation to those online, I think we probably aren't going to get to the online questions today because I think and I think to attempt to do so, we'll find that we're always saying we've answered that, we've answered that kind of thing. So we will have to get back to the online questions and the pre submitted questions afterwards to the extent that they're not haven't already been covered.

1:31:55 We wanna get people a chance to mingle with us informally as well. So I wanna try and draw the the formal part of this meeting to a close. If there are any further questions, then we can maybe give it another couple of questions, and then we we can finish. Andy, could I just say something? Please do. There has been a situation in the past where we've actually, unfortunately, closed the meeting too early. So I would encourage us to allow the floor to ask any questions that they have remaining. Okay. Well, let's let's if we're all have the same stretch target of ten minutes or so, let's see how we do. And and we won't we're not gonna close before you finish, but we do wanna have an opportunity to mingle informally as well. Yeah. On Morocco, why are we only now talking about supply a agreement with them? You know, we've we've been there in Morocco for what? Three, four years?

1:32:51 I know the finer points of it, maybe, are there to be discussed, but surely there's a a a framework that has been set up for once those trials were known to be successful. So that's the first part of the question. Second part is how long do you think this is all gonna take to get this fuel supply agreement sorted out? And thirdly, how far are we with the actual refiners in terms of a fuel supply agreement with them? So comprehensive Morocco question. What next? The client in question is very process focused. Okay. So although we have a framework and general principles set, which is basically why they got involved in the first place, they would not release their commercial team until they got the results that they required from the first facility that's been able to trial the fuel in their particular sort of fleet. So now Site B is done. That offers that particular site, that demand for that particular site and commercial supply discussions can formally commence. Now in parallel, myself and Phil have been involved with discussions already with certain refiners about the supply to Morocco alongside the supply to MSC and other people, right, because a refiner is not interested in just one client. It's looking at multiple opportunities. And obviously,

1:34:21 Morocco is very useful in that regard for MSC and vice versa. So those discussions have already started and very much are in progress. But on the client side, we had to, unfortunately, meet that milestone and conclude the trial, write the technical report, which we're doing. But now commercial discussions can formally start. And it's just the way they work. They have those procedures, you can't deviate from that at all. So in terms of discussions with refineries, you know, that's extremely important for the marine for the for the sorry, for the conventional MSAR business. Not necessarily so important for the biofuel for bio MSAR necessarily because the biofuel components we're using are all you know, are actually lower cost as well. So with the looking quite attractive just with blending conventional fuels or heavy fuel heavier fuels. So having said that, there's there's always more money to be made once you can access the residues. So yeah. But it doesn't necessarily need refiners, but, you know, you may wanna tap into then big trading companies like we are with MSC.

1:35:29 So there there's opportunities to supply Morocco, also potentially from the work that we're doing with the MSC project as well. Can I ask, I believe I'm correct, that the for marine, the boiler configuration and the changes necessary to allow mSAr to be burned will then allow bio mSAr to be burned and then even later generations of even more frankly bio insight? Is that correct, Jason? For marine, it's the the engine is the biggest consumer. The main engine, the two stroke. So that's if you think about a container ship, I'd say 90% of the consumption is on the main two stroke engine and then a smaller amount from the auxiliary engines and then they have furnaces as well. But whatever conversion you do for MSAR is applicable for bio MSAR.

1:36:28 So so yeah. And and in the case of it's the same in the case of, you know, the Morocco application. So we use the same supply system and the same burner setup for BioEmSAR as we did with EmSAR, and it worked pretty well, actually. Which is So can switch between the two independently. Which is absolutely bloody unbelievable. Are we shouting that enough from the rooftop Because we're a one stop shop. You start burning mSAR today, burn bio mSAR tomorrow. Burn the later generation further down the road. That is just phenomenal. It's certainly what we say to clients, but probably maybe we're not advertising it well enough on our website, which probably does need a bit of a refresh as well. We did a bit of work, obviously, as part of the rebranding of the company, but it needs another revisit to really probably And probably speed spell up it on the next RNS.

1:37:16 Sorry? And please raise that, mention that in the next r and s whenever that is. Noted, Richard. Thank you. This is a very good point because my recollection, Jason, is that blending different types of fuel oil is actually a challenge, whereas blending our products is relatively straightforward. Yeah. And we by adding the additives that we we add, and obviously using our technology, we we create stability that you don't have. Sorry. This was something I wanted to mention early on. Regarding stability, it shouldn't be forgotten how long the fuel was in Morocco. On the one hand, you might say, come on, guys. You should have used that fuel much earlier. But it did it does make the point that the fuel is extraordinarily stable.

1:38:09 So it was the same fuel used in refresh it? No. So are there any other questions? Yes. Welcome, Vic. Yes, Vic. Long term retail shareholder. On the I think we're all feeling pretty trial weary, and I doubt you as much as us. On on the back of the successful Morocco trial, do you do you perhaps see if another customer came along with somewhere else in the world with a similar requirement and saying, oh, we'd like to try this, that you could turn around and say, no. You know it works. Just have it. Do do you foresee a day when that will happen that we won't be going through trials with every new customer? I think yeah. I mean, unfortunately, the the nature of the Morocco application is that each of the units do tend to differ slightly. But I think in that particular application, because you've done the the trial in in that one particular site, the rest of the trials in similar sites will be more like a, okay, a commissioning phase before you actually get into full production. We've learned a lot ourselves as well. It's our own design burner, an air atomized burner, which is pretty new to us, which is the first of a kind but worked pretty well actually off path. So I'd like to say that's the case. Also, the marine side, you know, if we can get the letter of objection on the flex engine, then, again, there's very little objection then from anyone else to use it in that type of engine.

1:39:39 So it depends a little bit on the type of standardization in the industry. In the marine sector, it's actually better. It takes a long time to get the bit of paper, but then it opens up quite a large number of vessels. In the industrial application, you may have to do a little bit of tweaking. So every single reference customer you've got then helps to enhance the business going forward such that the duration of the trial, luckily, is actually quite short as well. Thank goodness it's not a six month period anymore. You can do something in a couple of weeks and then go to commercial phase. Sorry. I'm coming in here again. I think what we've got to be careful of is select and focus. And we've got a limited resource, and the non exec directors point this out, of course, to the management team. And and we need to be exceptionally exceptionally careful there. But I would make the point also that the work we're doing on potential partners would and and that's both in the context of potential financing, but also resources so that we can take these projects further, that that may be an opportunity that that we would pass on to a partner.

1:40:53 And and just just quickly, your your slide 12, I think it was, where you showed the output of the the burner at full chat. Is that is was that just steam coming out of it? Yeah. It's just steam. Yeah. That that needs to be plugged as well. But because you you see some environmental thing on the telly about how unclean everything is, and you see pictures of steam stacks chucking out just water. Yep. Yeah. No. It drives several 100 tons of products an hour, that particular unit. So, yeah, it's running at full speed. And it's just steam. Very low. Very, very low emissions. To be fair, also low emissions on fuel oil as well. But, yeah, but it's very impressive when you see it at full speed. Can we have one final question here? So how many counterparties were involved in the LONO trial? I think there's been a bit of confusion about who's doing what, how many parties are involved, is a refinery involved, is it just are we using heavy fuel oil as an analog for resid, etcetera? Could you maybe give us an idea of who's doing what without naming names and what so people can get an idea of what the shape of things is?

1:42:06 Yeah. Good question, Mark. So forgetting MSC, we have a major trading company that we're we're we're working on who supply the the biofuels component and and the oil component. We have a terminal that's also willing to host the trial, we can actually put our facility on, do the blending there and do the supply. And we have MSC, and that's pretty much other than the other stakeholders being people like Wartsila, people like Lloyd's Register, who are the class society and the flag state. Bunkering is done by the major trading company. That's what they do. So there's probably a few components, but you need to make sure that you're working with people that can do multiple things as well.

1:42:51 You know? And they a lot of the the a lot of the things going on behind the scenes beyond the permits to actually run are things like making sure that you've got the sustainability sustainability certificate as well for the product that you're delivering. So in the case of our product, you get ISCC certification for the product as well, which then gives you the ability to get some of the credits back from the Dutch tax system as well. So there's a lot going on in terms of that, but there's a relatively few number of counterparties that we're dealing with. That's great. Thank you to the Board of QUADRISE, and thank you to everybody for your engagement, both online and in the room this afternoon. Mr. Chairman, for our redirect investors to give you their feedback online, if there's any closing comments you wish to make.

1:43:40 Well, just to say, apologies again to the those online who had their questions answered, but we will definitely circle back to those. But thank you for attending and online. But also thank you very much everyone in the room for your engagement and today, and we very we very much appreciate it. Sometimes it's uncomfortable, but we need that feedback, whatever it is, to be able to to move forward. So thanks thanks thanks very much. And I believe the edited highlights or the whole thing will be available online before too long. Yeah? No editing. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you very much indeed. Could I please ask investors online not to close this session? We're now automatically reading you for the opportunity to provide your feedback in order that the company can better understand your views and expectations.

1:44:25 This may take a few moments to complete, but I'm sure it'll be greatly valued by the company. On behalf of the management team and the board of QUADRISE, we'd like to thank you for attending today's annual general meeting. Thank you.