Quadrise (LSE:QED) — Business Update

0:06 Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the QEDRISE PLAYERS International Business Update Investor Presentation. Throughout this presentation, investors will be in listen only mode. Questions are encouraged and can be submitted at any time by the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. The company may not be in a position to answer every question received during the meeting itself. However, the company will review all questions submitted today and publish responses where it's appropriate to do so. These will be available via your Investor Meet company dashboard. Would also like to remind you that the

0:38 presentation is being recorded. Before we begin, we'd like to submit the following poll. I would now like to hand you over to Mike Kirk, Chairman and Jason Marr, CEO of QUADRISE PLC International. Good morning, gentlemen. Good morning. Good morning. And good morning, everyone, and thank you very much to everyone that's taken the time to log on to listen to us today. What we've chosen to do today is the presentation is a slightly curtailed version of the one that we've been using most recently so that we can focus on the the business development updates that we announced in our r and s earlier on Monday.

1:14 I will, as usual, go through the initial part of the presentation, hand over to Jason to take you through more of the detail in terms of where we've got to with particular projects. Then Jason will hand back to me. I'll wrap up. Then we'll hand back to Paul and the team at Investor Meet company, and then we'll go into the sort of q and a session.

1:35 But if I could just start off and say that we're delighted to be using Investor Meet Company for this. We'd also be really pleased to hear what shareholders think about this. We think it's a great platform. There are some great advantages for us as a company, and we think you as shareholders in terms of how you can interact with us and actually see those questions answered not just on the meeting but post that meeting as well. So with that, if everyone's happy, we'll go through the presentation. I'm not gonna read out the disclaimer. I'm sure you'd be very happy to hear. Just very brief background. I'm Mike chairman. I'm the former partner in the energy sector. I authorized in 2015.

2:25 And by background, I'm a chemical and nuclear engineer. And prior to good moving into the city, I did about eight years in the chemical and nuclear industries I spent about fifteen, twenty years in the city upbiting companies in the energy and technology sectors. Jason? Yeah. And I'm the CEO of Jason Miles. I formally was with VP in petroleum state Venezuela when I left University. Studied chemical engineering. Like Mike, I also got an MBA from City University, as is Mike. And really, guess my background has been in motion fuels ever since I left university, especially oil and water emulsion fuels, which is what our what basically, the issue with our emulsion and now what MSR, the MSR project. So, yeah, delighted to give you an update later today. Thank you, Jason.

3:13 I think just just very quickly in terms of, you know, what we're about as a business and why we're here. There's a global problem in the HFO market. There's an oversupply from both producers and refiners who make too much heavy oil and heavy oil products. The recent 2020 IMO regulations significantly reduced demand for heavy oil products. For refiners, actually producing HFO is really uneconomic. One, heavy fuel oil sells at a discount to crude oil. But within that heavy fuel oil, there's a significant quantity of valuable distillers that they use for blending to a lower viscosity. But instead of selling at a premium, they're having to sell at a discount to crude. And on top of that, it's actually significantly polluting.

4:00 It consumes energy to handle in use. It's quite hard to burn, and it's got significant harmful emissions in terms of soot, NOx, SOx. And to give you an idea of the scale of this market, it's about 135,000,000,000 a year. So a really big market, and we're looking to address, you know, significant proportions of that market.

4:22 MSAR is a unique solution because we give a technology that eliminates the need for these oil or distillate based diluents. So instead of using them, we use water plus a very small amount of additives that we get from our partner, Neurion. It saves refinery distillates, providing them with cheaper energy and significantly improves refinery yields and profitability. And the resultant product is much cleaner to use and actually burns much more like a gas than a heavy fuel oil. We've got no direct competitors. We've been building this technology alongside Nurion over an over an extensive period of time. But based on the technology that Jason was instrumental in using in in ore emulsion in terms of creating a fuel that was actually used by for baseload power generation and about 60,000,000 tons of that fuel was successfully sold and used in baseload power generation.

5:24 So emulsion fuels aren't new at all. Our approach to it is unique, though.

5:31 We've got a unique combination of resources here at QEDRISE. We've got a world class team with emulsion field specialists like Jason. We've got refinery and economic refinery sector experts such as our chief operating officer, Mark. And I come with significant mark capital markets and PR and IR experience. For those who know us well, you'll know as well that we've got significant amount of both IP and know how that underpins our technology. And that comes from that know how from actually selling and using 60,000,000 tons of emulsion fuel from the sort of late nineteen nineties, early twenty twenties. And throughout that time, we've been working with our global technology partner, Neurion, which was formerly known as AXA and Abel.

6:21 We've got an exclusive additive supply and a joint RDI and RP program with them, and that has been going on for the last sixteen years. We're now gonna show you a short video which, for those who are not familiar with this, we will hope gives you a really good understanding of what we're about as a business.

6:42 Every year, the world uses $135,000,000,000 of fuel oil. This helps to generate electricity, power shipping, and support industry. Sustainable alternatives are still years away, so the world's finite resources should be used more efficiently at a lower cost to us all. Since 2020, the new IMO environmental standards have meant big changes for global fuel oil. QUADRISE has developed MSAR, a synthetic fuel oil that's cheaper and cleaner. We process heavy oil residues into tiny droplets using proven emulsion technology.

7:30 These are dispersed in water, which contains a very small amount of additives produced by our partner, Nurion. The result is EmSar Fuel. Fuel oil is normally made by blending the tar like oil residues with distillates such as diesel and similar expensive distillate products so it will flow. This results in a significant loss of revenue for refiners. But by using water and additives as a diluent, MSAR allows refiners to sell all of their distillate products at a premium, creating significant value for the refiner. This means MSAR can be sold at a lower price to consumers.

8:17 MSAR is stored and transported using fuel oil infrastructure. It can be used interchangeably with fuel oil. And in less than one year, MSAR can pay back the investment. MSAR can be used in diesel engines and boilers. The micro sized fuel burns cleanly and efficiently with no black soot and with typically 30% lower nitrous oxide and particulate emissions. EMSAR offers refinery upgrades at minimal cost with rapid payback, lower energy costs for consumers, a cleaner environment for us all, and an economical way to meet new environmental standards. QUADRISE is making innovative use of the world's finite resources.

9:06 Change doesn't happen overnight, but our tiny droplets can make a world of difference. Right. For those of you who didn't haven't seen that before, I hope you found that very helpful. We're actually quite proud of that. We think it gets over our message really clearly. Just in terms of our sort of global opportunities, what I'd like to do is just take a step back. If we look back two or three years, we had two major projects, one in the power, one in the marine sector. Around eighteen months ago, the senior team sort of developed a new strategy which is all about both broadening and deepening the number of opportunities that we're looking at.

9:52 This slide gives you an overview of the way that we're doing that, and we can do that in a very economical and a very effective way through the use of local partners. This has been particularly important during the sort of COVID crisis, excuse me, as we've had local people on the ground who have been able to have face to face meetings with our clients. Not all of the time, but we've been able to, we think, significantly mitigate the impact of that through the use of our global range of partners in particular markets. I'm gonna hand over now to Jason who's gonna go through a number of these in in more detail. Thank you, Mike. So the first project I'd like to tell you about is the International Chemicals and Mining Group in Morocco.

10:39 This is an industrial client. It uses fuel oil to power kilns, furnaces, and steam boilers within the country, various different sites. We signed the agreements with them at the end of last year for a pilot plant trial which was due to commence at the end of q one twenty twenty.

11:00 To meet that program, we delivered all our equipment, did a lot of testing beforehand as well, some of which I think you've probably seen in some of the videos on our website. And then we delivered then a quantity of of fuel to the site for the pilot trial. Unfortunately, obviously, COVID nineteen happened, so we weren't able to gain access. And even though Morocco has very recently opened up its borders, we're still not able to get into the site yet. The site is, to be clear to investors, the site is still closed to basically only only letting essential people in. So non essential people including management of the of that particular facility are still working from home. So they're treating obviously the operation of that facility as mission critical at the moment. So even where we can get in the country, can't get in the site. Having said that, recent discussions with the clients are that we plan to commence the trial next month.

11:55 That's when we, you know, we're jointly expecting for the site to open up to third parties. And obviously, we're looking forward to completing that trial. To maintain progress in the project, you know, and to show, obviously, show that the client is extremely committed to this project, we've actually started work on the phase two projects as well. So phase two are trials on larger units which would then then lead to commercial supply. So those trials are the were the next step. To do that, there's a lot of engineering work that needs to be done on-site. And at the moment, we're we're our team here in the office, which is where I am, and the guys in QF, we're working hard to to complete though that work. And again, we we plan to get to the draft studies for the for that particular phase two work completed to to submit to the client this month.

12:53 So working with it's definitely in progress with

12:56 the client. The client we have weekly calls with, and the team are very engaged with keeping keeping the program going. So it seems to be definitely is very good movement forward in that particular project. Obviously, we're subject to the pilot trial going ahead next month, which is the plan.

13:17 The Valkor Greenfield Energy project is, I guess, a subject of quite a few RNSs recently, both from ourselves and from one of the partners with Tomco. This is basically a heavy oil and a paraffinic oil application. So there are different oils that are available in Utah that could be utilized to produce an IMO compliant MSAL. The MOU with Alcoa was signed at the beginning of this year. We had discussions at the end of last year which led to the MOU. That's developed very, very quickly whereby, basically, there's now a commercial trial agreement signed last month with Greenfield Energy, which is the JV with Tomco. The first phase is a proof of concept testing planned for the end of this year in Utah.

14:08 The end of this year, basically, is contingent on them

14:13 commissioning and making modifications to the petro tech facilities which is where the site is big, where the trial and site is located. Provided that everything goes well there, then we plan to progress that trial at the end of the year. And that's really a precursor then to the commercial license agreement for MSR. Typically, the discussions so far have gone up to, we're talking about 10,000 barrels a day. The next project we expect to be in the orders of 5,000 barrels per day of oil. And the parties are obviously looking to expand their reach in the Utah Asphalt Basin, which I think is extremely prospective, combined with the technology that they've developed themselves and MSAR.

15:04 Excuse me. The next project is in Ecuador. It's a project that we've been developing very actively with three point commodities. Again, an initiative that was really kicked off at the end of end of last year. And then there was several meetings both at the headquarters and also at the refinery subsequently during Q1.

15:29 We've had lots of interchanges with the refinery in terms of sharing technical information, sharing economics. And based on that data, we then issued a proposal to the refinery. And specifically, the idea is that within the refinery, there's utility that can and some utility consumers that can actually consume the fuel. We're also in parallel

15:54 briefing the energy secretary of the country to let them know what's going on. And in parallel also we are looking at upstream applications of which we think there are several very exciting opportunities for MSO linked to heavy oil deposits there. So that's work in progress. And one of our colleagues, Matt, who's in the office today also presented to the petroleum the Society of Petroleum Engineers very recently. Mexico is something we're developing with Redliner. FreePoint are also active there. But Redliner, our main client communicator with the national oil company. We're looking to progress the refinery study. We haven't yet managed to get that get started yet due to various delays in their legal system due to COVID.

16:45 But we believe that study will be underway and at least, operator, we have progressed in putting that together this year. Excuse me. At the same time, we have been presenting information to the energy sector of the country. Again, there's a very good national fit.

17:04 And also, we presented information directly to the the heads of the national oil company upstream and refining divisions. So we've got various different levels of access to the client there which we're looking to progress the moment to get things moving.

17:24 In Saudi Arabia, we are working with Alcaffra. We've been working with the middle of last year. Excuse me. The idea is that we'll be working on a project to recommence the 400 megawatt boiler trial with the the major utility there, the power utility.

17:47 The discussions are direct with those guys at the moment to work out an exact proposal in in terms of how that's delivered. At the same time, we've increased our focus on in the region, looking at basically a new white paper and updates to our website to unlock some of the content and provide that in modern standard Arabic language as well, which will be very handy for the region. So that work is ongoing. And we we very recently had initiatives to speak to, again, to the the major OEMs there as we've contacts with this week where we we certainly believe we can work together in some of these initiatives. And also with the we've had interactions with the national company there as well, where there'd be some recent changes to management. So we believe that there's a very strong and positive initiative to recommence what we what we started several years ago. Didn't quite manage to deliver upon, but we believe that the opportunity is still very much live in Saudi Arabia.

18:49 And the audience is receptive now to to the MSAR proposal. So that's something we're progressing in parallel. And finally, I guess, my side anyway, we are looking at global marine fuel still. As you some investors recall, we were pretty close to getting a full low note trial done with Merceline. Merceline then changed their minds in terms of use of high sulfur fuel and scrubbers, which meant that MSAR was

19:22 put on the shelf, shall we say, until they decided what they were going to do. In the meantime, we've been very active in progressing discussions with two main fleet owners who are both significant players in the container sector and the bulk sector. And at the moment, we are basically looking at commencing low no trials for both of those clients. And I know there's there may be some questions about that later, so maybe I'll come on to questions about that. But those trials are we're looking to commence towards the end of this year, probably Q1. Obviously, agreements will need to be signed to do that this year. So we're progressing the technical discussions, the commercial discussions and looking to finalize the trial agreements with both of those clients.

20:11 The bunker business investigation has been put on hold due to COVID. It's quite difficult to do that remotely at the moment. So we'll we'll reinitiate that probably in the in the new year. Another projects we've been working on have been some joint collaborations together with Neurium. We're part of the Carlyle Group, and they own another energy interest there. So we've been reaching out to some of their particular clients. And we've had some new initiative underway to develop business in The Americas with a new agent there.

20:43 And, yeah, that'll be discussions with other clients, although there's been no material update. They are ongoing. This is nothing significant to report. But we've had interest both from our existing clients who are displayed on the map, but also several new exciting initiatives that seem to be progressing quite rapidly as well.

21:06 Thank you, Jason. If I can just, sorry, very quickly wrap up. Just in terms of what our strategy is, we've believed we've got a solution that actually solves a global problem now, not in several years' time. We produce this stable oil and water emulsion.

21:26 It's using existing proven technology, and we've got an industry leading team with IP and global partners to enable us to deliver that. For those who are looking to make this transition, we know that, you know, the future is about renewables, but it's gonna take a long time to get there at scale. And therefore, we believe absolutely the best way of utilizing fossil fuels in the meantime is to do that in the way that is the most energy efficient and produces the least amount of of pollution. And that is our technology. It makes oil burn like gas. It reduces cost for both consumers and producers, and it significantly reduces NOx, c o two, and eliminates black soot. And if you look at it from a refiner's perspective, it is absolutely the cheapest and most energy efficient way of upgrading a refinery

22:24 and getting more out of the bottom of the barrel. As we explained earlier in the presentation, we've moved over the last couple of years or so to have a a much broader spread and a much broader

22:39 larger number of opportunities. We hope we've provided you with an outline of how a number of those are progressing. Through the use of carefully selected partners, we're able to ensure that we can progress these in most corners of the globe simultaneously. And we've seen some questions about what our sort of capacity and capability is to deliver against those, and hopefully, we'll come on and answer those questions shortly.

23:04 And the other thing is just to bear in mind that when we put our initial funding in place in 2019, that was gonna get us through to the end of calendar twenty twenty through a combination of our proactive approach together with some of the restrictions that COVID nineteen have has placed on us, such as we haven't been able to travel as much as we would normally doing, we've actually been able to ensure that that funding gets us through now to mid q two twenty twenty one, which we think is a significant benefit for both the company and for shareholders and gives us that much longer runway to bring a number of these opportunities to the point of of being able to progress to commercial operations. That concludes the formal part of the presentation.

23:53 I'm now going to hand you back to the team at Investor Meet company and then we'll move into the Q and A session. That's great. Mike, thank you very much, Jason. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, do please continue to submit your

24:05 questions using the Q and A tab situated on the right hand corner of your screen. But just while the company take a few moments to review those investor questions submitted already, I'd like to remind you that recording of the presentation, along with a copy of the slides and the published Q and A, can be accessed via your investor dashboard on the Investor Meet company platform. Lastly, before I hand back to Mike and Jason, I'd just like to remind you, and as Mike said actually earlier, your feedback is really important to the company. So do please take a few moments to complete it. You'll see immediately after the presentation has ended, you'll be redirected to the opportunity to provide that feedback submit that as we come through. Mike, Jason, just before we look at the questions that have been submitted today, I wanted to ask you a number of the questions that we have had pre submitted by investors. And I think just seeing that Mike's just we have a small technical issue that he's just coming back in.

24:59 Can you spare me for minute as Mike just comes back in? And then we'll go through these pre submitted questions and then on to the live Q and A. So please do bear with us one second. Great. Just while we're waiting for for Mike to come back in, Jason, I think we could perhaps start with a couple of the questions. I can address them to you, if that's okay. Yeah. Sure. No problem at all. And hi, Mike. Hi there. Yeah. But please go ahead as you've just outlined. Yeah. Thank you. No problem at all. Okay, Jason. Perhaps we we could start this one. A couple of questions here just around Morocco. In Morocco, how much of the phase two trial work is completed? Immediately after the trial pilot completes, please outline the next steps as much detail as possible.

25:52 Okay. Yeah. I'll do my best to answer that question. The Phase two work, I think, as I alluded to in the presentation, is pretty much done. We're looking to submit the draft reports to the client during this month. So hopefully, definitely before the end of the month, but hopefully during the next few weeks. We then need to go to site, be active, actually, to be on-site to finalize the exact details of the implementation of phase two. So we do actually need to to get on-site. But we've a lot of the information has been provided remotely already. So based on that work, then the phase two exercise is complete. So it will certainly be completed in detail and submitted formally in full to the client during in October.

26:41 In terms of how quickly can the phase two work or the phase two trials commence after the pilot trial work, yes, there will be a there will be a phase implementation that the pilot trial will happen first. And the the phase two work can only commence, obviously, once we've signed agreements and issued those to commence. Obviously, we get paid for that work as well. So we're looking to find finalize those agreements again during during Q4 this year and as early during Q4 as possible to commence the Phase II work. That's great. Thank you. And just to perhaps expand on that Morocco question, we had another one in. Can you please elaborate on the detailed plans to get into Morocco to start the trial? I would expect this happens as early as mid September and not in October as outlined on Monday. Yeah. I mean, we can travel to Morocco. That's not the issue.

27:32 Obviously, that's recently changed. So, I mean, we keep active. You know, we're actively looking at all of the restrictions to all of the countries that we deal with. So Morocco is obviously one of those. The issue with Morocco is not getting into the country at the moment. It's actually getting into the site. As I mentioned, I think, during the presentation, the access to the site is actually restricted for people who are not operators or not key to operations at that facility. There are several thousand people actually employed on that site. But obviously, operations and sales of their key components are key to them. So even certain management within the company, some of which we're dealing with, are actually not on-site. They're having to work remotely as well. So until they open up the site itself to third parties, then we can't get on-site to actually carry out our work and complete the pilot trial. Having said that, the discussions and the joint discussions we've had very recently are that October is provisioning that date, obviously, subject to any changes in the current situation with COVID.

28:39 You very much indeed. Mike, perhaps I can address this one to you, please, Basically around funding, I had a couple of questions obviously here, but I think we can just deal with this here. There's been a lot of concern among some investors about the effects of the Bergen arrangement in terms of continual share price suppression by Bergen's constant selling and severe dilution of shareholders. When further funding is needed, would you consider trying to avoid drawing the second tranche by instead approaching shareholders for funds via an ordinary rights issue or similar? We've had a number of sort of comments and statements from shareholders regarding Bergen funding. I think it's worthwhile taking a little step back and looking at where we were around this time last year. And at the time that we announced the Bergen funding, which was in the back end of August of twenty nineteen, That was a a total of a potential 4,000,000 net to us, face value 4,300,000, of which we were drawing down 2,000,000 initially.

29:39 We that enabled us to actually underpin the open offer which was fully underwritten by Peel Hunt at 1,800,000. And on top of that, we got about another 700,000 in via subscriptions. And I and the board absolutely stand by. That was absolutely the right funding structure for us to put in place at that time. And we have seen, I think, that Bergen have been a responsible convertible holder. They've recently increased the amount of conversions that they've done. There have been some concerns from shareholders as to how long they're looking back in terms of being able to look at the the price at which they convert.

30:25 That is something that we can't disclose. It's commercially sensitive. However, what I have highlighted to people who've asked that question is if you look at the way that their share price has actually responded over the last two or three months, there have been a number of occasions when the share prices almost or, in some cases, more than doubled in a very short period of time. Therefore, that that actually does give you a position where Bergen can actually then convert at a price which actually looks quite low to the then current share price. But that is something that we we knew was a potential issue. I'd highlight the fact that actually if we if we go through the period when they've actually done the most recent conversions, From the earliest to the current conversion price, that conversion price has more than doubled.

31:15 So I admit that there is dilution there, but actually that dilution has been significantly reduced over what it could have otherwise been. In terms of what we're doing in terms of of funding for the business going forward, as I outlined, we've got funding for our business development activities through to q two twenty twenty one or mid q two twenty twenty one. We're therefore looking at what our funding options are, and we will continue to put forward the very same things we did when we put the funding in place in 2019. We want a structure which is in the best interest of all our shareholders That may or may not include some form of convertible or other alternative security. We think it's important for us as a business that we have the opportunity to draw down that second tranche of the Bergen funding. Whether we choose to do that or not is is a decision that we could we can take at some point in the future. But it is absolutely vital for us that we have that opportunity there because we think that enables us to unlock the best value funding for shareholders as a whole through other potential means as well.

32:29 Jason, perhaps I can push this one to you. In KSA, please outline what stage of engagement process you are at, including which Q3. Kossa with signed off by the end of this year, certainly diminishes. Having said that, we've got very good engagement with the utility. We're dealing with some very senior people in the electricity unit utility who are very, you know, they're pretty much sold on the emulsion fuel idea already. I see there's another question coming separately online via the liquid GE power, which I'm going answer separately. But certainly, we're engaging at a very senior level with the energy utility.

33:21 The next plan that we're looking to conclude is then essentially getting an online presentation together with utility to the energy ministry and then taking that back to the national oil company. That's the they're the next phases. The national oil company is required to they're still the supplier of fuel to the main utilities and all the industrial users in kingdom. So there have been several changes to management in that regard, which is positive for us as well. So, you know, we believe there's a very we've got a very, very good platform to move forward, you know, aligned with the work that we do in the white paper and other work in the region as well. We see this is a really it's always been a very large opportunity for us, but we haven't given up by any stretch of the imagination at all. Know, efforts have doubled. And in fact, people in The kingdom now are more receptive to online communication than they ever were before. So which has really helped us actually turn the get our message across to key people.

34:26 Paul, could I just step in and then Of course. I think the as as we outlined during the presentation and Jason did, the the publication of the white paper, which highlights the scale of the opportunity in Saudi Arabia in particular, but The Middle East in general, is part of our approach of actually just ensuring that we're able to raise our profile in the kingdom and actually sort of talk to a number of stakeholders and influencers there. That we think is is fundamental to how we can progress this. And it's been really interesting when we've talked to people within the region that they see the fact that we've been in country for so long as as an asset and not an and and not a a liability.

35:13 It often takes a huge amount of time and effort to get things in the region working. The fact that we've been there over this period of time, people within the region see that as something that is is really important to them where they don't like companies and, sort of technologies that sort of flit in and out as required. The fact that we've been committed to this region and spent significant time and effort with a number of parties over there is seen as a real asset. And we're making sure through the white paper we're able to raise our profile and and reinforce our commitment to the region and the ability of us to actually deliver significant value to the kingdom. I thought it might be worthwhile. Jason highlighted it. But, Prajpaul, the the question that came in from Marcus regarding the work being done by the utility over there, it might be helpful for Jason just to clarify that.

36:12 Yeah. I I guess people can see, Paul, can they they can see the the No. No. No. No. No. Just yourself. Okay. So the question for please. Thank you. Yeah. I will be. Yeah. Sorry. The question for Marcus was the electricity company. So electricity company and GE Power signed an agreement in November last year for a project including the emulsion of fuel, which is highly likely to be MSAR, is what Marcus was saying. This is extremely positive SEC to seem to be 100% of time the technology stroke project. Can you tell us how close we are to the final piece of the jigsaw, ex MSAR production for the trial at a refinery in KSA? Has been more than fifteen months since we signed the MOA with Elcaphra. A very good question and a good observation from Mark. The actual agreement that was signed between SEC and GE Power really related to basically a fuel water and fuel emulsion technology, which they were looking to develop to improve the combustibility of fuels in gas turbines as well as steam boilers. But it's a different technology to us. It's different to MSR.

37:20 So work that's been done by them, obviously, has progressed together with with QUADS as well. The good thing is that, you know, having looked at the technology and looked at the concept, the people that we're dealing with in SCC are extremely, you know, extremely, you know, extremely now adept at understanding the benefits of emulsion fuel, having seen the results that they get from the water and fuel emulsion, which is a, you know, we would say an inferior version of what we have today. So the final piece of the jigsaw is the 400 megawatt trial. It doesn't necessarily require a production actually in the KSA refinery. We're actually looking at other options to do that more locally to the power plant at the moment.

38:09 So is a little bit complicated, obviously, because there are many players involved. But we believe that the, you know, both the technology, the concept and what we propose in terms of the trial are definitely we're definitely preaching to the converted now. PLC: That's great. Thank you, Jason. Guys, I think we have got some more pre submitted questions, but just conscious of some of the questions that have come in live. Again, perhaps if you could just have a little scan through, just read out the question and the answer where appropriate for that would be possible. Yes. This one from David B, which is an interesting one on the markets in terms of diesel. The question is regular diesel is going to be in decline going forward, so perhaps more surplus available at the refinery. What are your expectations?

38:57 I guess, the expectations from our side is certainly there has been a decline in demand for diesel. And that was in place, obviously, before COVID. It's really been dramatically impacted since COVID has taken effect. On the contrary to diesel demand for road transport, however, there's obviously been a very large increase in potential demand in the marine sector for low sulfur fuels of which diesel goes into. So even though there's been a decline on the road transport side or there's a steady decline in road transport side. On the marine side, the demand has increased quite dramatically, which drove the prices to certainly increase considerably at the beginning of the year. So we expect diesel to be continue to be in demand, albeit more for marine the marine sector and less so for the road sector.

39:53 But overall, refiners will still wish to produce diesel fuel because there's a good very good premium for them in the marine sector, certainly when demand recovers. And if I Helen h has asked a question regarding the potential use of the product produced if we progress our activities with with Vowelco's stroke greenfield. Perhaps if I can start off with that, but actually just then hand over to Jason that we've outlined that the the agreement with with greenfield is on the basis that we'll do the phase one work in terms of some testing there at their site in Utah, and that's timetable to become to be completed this calendar year.

40:41 They're then going to look at how they can ramp up production ultimately to potentially, know, 10,000 barrels of oil a day, which would be 15,000 barrels of of m star per day. But we highlighted that that's probably gonna be a license deal. So ultimately, it's it's down to the customer to find the end users. But Jason and I were on a call with the chair stroke chief exec of Valcour yesterday. And, Jason, I don't know whether you just want to to go through in a bit more detail of, you know, the sort of discussions we were having regarding how we can work together collaboratively on that. Yeah. I I think, you know, initially, the scale of the trial is relatively small. So there are industrial users nearby that we believe can be earmarked for the trial quantities to get the proof of concept done.

41:32 The larger scale volumes are then, you know, we are working on a joint study together with a greenfield where, you know, we're looking at the various markets that are available as quantities increase according to their production plans. So that's aligned with what quality of fuel are they providing, whether it's the conventional asphalt type material or whether it's paraffinic. And then, you know, how far afield does it need to travel by way of logistics to get it to market both within The U. S. Or potentially as an export, either to power plants or as a marine fuel, as a low sulfur IMO compliant marine fuel. So that work's ongoing. You know, we've just kicked off that activity from the call yesterday.

42:20 So, yeah, it's work in progress. K. And there's a question from Farooq d. Well, a couple of questions actually. Fine. One was on whether we could use potentially primary bid, but Farooq also makes the question of saying it's the shareholders' fault for allowing us to issue shares on a non preemptive basis. If I take the the sort of latter one first, I think it's quite it's absolutely normal that every company, whether on the main market or AIM, would have some non preemptive ability to issue shares. What we are particularly proud of and that we have done over an extended period of time is alongside any placings that we've done, we have put in place the ability for our retail shareholders to be able to subscribe on equal terms with any institutions through putting in place an open offer.

43:13 We did that most recently back in September, October of last year, And we would always be considering anything when it comes to funding, ensuring that our retail shareholders are looked after in this. And, you know, we're we think we've done a good job with that regard compared to many in the in The UK market, and we'll continue to regard that as something that we we put a high degree of emphasis on. Whether that's through primary bid or whether that's through the use of an open offer, I can't say, but we would absolutely be ensuring that our retail shareholders are looked after. And Farooq's also asked that or made us a comment that we say the same things a lot, but why aren't the companies actually using the fuel?

44:03 That's quite a complex question to answer, but I think, in essence, it's historically been a case of the sort of chicken and egg between producers and consumers. And I think the the trial that we undertook with with Maersk at SEPSA is a good example. SEPSA went into that on the basis of being able to look at a a potential opportunity with Maersk to supply marine fuels of around perhaps, you know, upwards of a a million tons a year. When we got to the end of that trial and there wasn't that commercial opportunity there, SEPSA took the decision after a period of time because of other uses for the land on which the MSAR unit was set that they needed that back. We're in active discussions with both SEPSA and a number of refiners about being able to produce fuel for the marine market.

44:58 Ultimately, we think and it doesn't matter whether this is upstream, industrial, power, or marine. We need to get one customer over the line showing that they are using this fuel on a regular basis, and we'll see all the other markets open up very quickly to us. And I know we've been saying that for a long period of time, but we believe that's absolutely the truth. So the the work that is being done primarily by Jason, Mark, and the team in terms of the business development activities across the piece are absolutely vital to us being able to get one of these over the line as quickly as possible. We've also highlighted, you know, one of the issues in KSA. It's an extremely large and complex country to do business in.

45:47 One of the advantages of the work that's being led by Jason in in Ecuador is the first element of that is got one single customer, the refinery, because it's a refinery refueling project with with further utility applications. So where we can, with projects, look at simplifying them because we end up with one customer, that's absolutely what we're trying to focus on. There was a question in from Ian Jay with regards to, I guess, the marine well, definitely the marine project. Basically, it was where will the m star for the low no trials be supplied from. We can't disclose that as yet. There are a number of different options that we are currently looking at together with, you know, some of the existing suppliers that we've used before for the the previous McDonald's trials as well as potential for production in fuel terminals as well. So we've got an initiative ongoing at the moment to look at various different production sites that could be triggered once we get the the the various of the various agreements signed with the marine clients. So we can't be specific about that yet, but I thought I'd address it without letting it go.

47:07 Jason, I don't know whether you want to have a answer the question from James g right at the bottom just regarding I know we've alluded to some of this, but perhaps try and provide a little more flesh around how we might look at producing the and selling the fuel from Utah if that goes commercial with greenfield. Yes. The question was, Jason, it was mentioned that MSAR could be possibly used for marine from The US. How will that be realistically transported from Utah? Also, you mentioned that you are looking at possibly another agent in The US. I was under the presumption that three point had exclusivity, question mark. So two questions there. So could MSAR be realistically supplied as a marine fuel from The US?

47:55 Potentially, yes. And that's one of the things that we're looking at at the moment as part of this marketing study. The most likely exit point would be LA as an exit port. They've got quite a big bunker, bunkering volumes going out of there. So the logistics would appear to work from there potentially. But that's something we're looking at in more detail for some of the low sulfur fuel oil users. And in terms of the other agents in The US, that was specific to The Americas, really looking at the specifically for the Central America region as well as The Caribbean. We are not exclusive to FreePoint. We have a case by case agreement with FreePoint where if they have, obviously, a good platform like they have in Ecuador, then we'll work we'll go we'll agree with FreePoint to be exclusive on that basis. But if there are other areas where other agents have better cover, then we'll work with them as well, which is the case for the the new relationship that we have with agents there.

49:09 Jason, I don't know whether I think we probably both know who Richard b is, but whether you want to just pick that up. You did high you did make comment about it in the presentation, but perhaps just to the one pretty much at the bottom now just in terms of our approach on the marine bunkering opportunity. Yeah. I mean, the the marine bunkering opportunity, you know, is definitely there still. We it's something that we, you know, that we have had a good look at. But at the moment, the margins in that business have been eroded due to COVID and due to demand. So the difference between the cost of conventional bunker fuel and cargoes, which really drives that business, has diminished a little bit. So at the moment, the economic drivers, whilst being there, are not as strong as they were before.

50:01 So at the moment, if we're going to you know, spend any efforts in progressing that or progressing other things, we'll we'll progress the other things first and then wait for the margins to recover in that business and then initiate the the work that we've done that we've done up to this point. Thanks, Jason. I'm I'm just gonna take a a couple of questions now. First from there's a couple from from Mark s. The first is, could we commit to providing a nonfinancial business update and investor q and a every quarter going forwards? I guess I I'd like to answer let let's be unequivocal about this. Yes. And we probably like to do this through the investment company platform because it's got a number of advantages for us.

50:47 We do want to feel that we provide regular updates to our shareholders. We think this route has actually got some benefits over the telephone conference calls we've used most recently, but it would be helpful to get feedback from our shareholders on that. But I can absolutely say, yes. We're very happy to to do this on a regular basis. We think it's got value to us as a business, and we think it's hopefully got value to you as shareholders. Mark also asked if we were sort of submitting a bid along with three point on the Esmeraldas refinery. I don't that's not something that we're looking at. One of the question supplementary to that question was how does that affect our work in the in Ecuador?

51:41 And I think I'll hand over to Jason to sort of allude to how we're working with both the refinery management, the national oil company senior management and the sort of energy ministers to ensure that we've got as many options covered off on that as we can. Yes. I guess this question refers to, I guess, public statements by the Energy Secretary in Ecuador that they're looking to get third parties to invest in the downstream business of Petro Ecuador, which includes Esmeraldas refinery. They're expecting third party investors to come in and spend upwards of $2,200,000,000 and run the refineries over a period of twenty five years as a means to basically get investment into the country.

52:30 We obviously are aware of that and that particular initiative has been ongoing before we even started this particular project as part of maybe a year ago. It was the first announcement in that regard. So we're very much aware of that process and the desire by the energy ministry for that to happen. Having said that, we don't believe that there's that's likely to yield any particular bidders for that particular process. And specifically, we are dealing directly with both refinery and the senior management within the clients, you know, within the national company in Ecuador. So we're dealing at various different levels. And we've got very, very good engagement specifically to how we're going to save money for the government and, you know, and the clients in Ecuador as well.

53:24 One that I'd like to pick up from Victor a, which was, was the KSI grant paper a reactionary document produced following questions, queries from potential customers? Victor, absolutely not. This was something we proactively pursued with with our advisers both in country, in The Middle East, and based here in London as a means of really increasing our profile within the region so that we can tackle as many of the stakeholders as is possible to really highlight to them the benefit that our technology provides to the country. And we think that's sort of fundamental to us being able to make progress here. Janine has asked a question. Out of ten, ten being it's done, you have just said we only need one company to sign a contract and others will follow. So give us poor old long term holders. Just how near do you think we are?

54:22 As you might expect, Janine, that's a it's a very astute question, but one that's really quite difficult to ask to answer without creating a bit of a hostage to fortune. But I'd have to say that at this current time, I don't think we've ever been in a better position with a number of opportunities that have got the potential to go very rapidly from demonstrating our technology on-site to commercial operations. If I were to sort of try and put a number on that, I think that might be sort of somewhat challenging. I mean, I don't think it's appropriate for me to do that at this time. But I would say that we're in the best possible position we can be, and I've been amazed by how we have been able to progress a number of these notwithstanding the challenges of COVID nineteen.

55:18 And, actually, with that in mind, there have been a number of questions just, you know, how are we gonna get into, for example, North America? And, Jason, I don't know whether you want to just talk about some of the things we were chatting about on our call yesterday with with Steve Biles. Yeah. I mean, there there seem to be that in terms of getting to The US, there seems to be additional program for business visas where there is access you can access or apply and get access very quickly. So we're aware that one of the one of the the Tomco people are actually flying out this week following going through having successfully gone through that process. So it appears that there is a means of getting into The US on a business basis, providing us a genuine reason to to go there. So we'll be looking into that particular avenue to see.

56:09 And hopefully, it's applicable for us. You know, if not, you know, as people have mentioned in terms of, you know, other routes in, there are other means of getting into US as well, other countries, which obviously involves some means of quarantining at some stage. But that's all of these things we're we are looking at at the moment, but it keeps changing. So, you know, we need to focus on the the here and now as well as some of these other things which we're flashing red in the future or green as, you know, as things develop. It's not it's quite a fluid situation. And I I saw I can't find it now, but there's a question asked earlier just in terms of our capability and capacity as well. And Yeah. From David there. Yeah. Yeah. Think, you know, our view is that we've got the capability and the capacity.

56:57 And if we look at, you know, particular activities that we've we've announced, we're expecting to progressing in q four of this year. We're absolutely committed to being able to deliver both of those, and we will then just review how we are able to commit to other opportunities that may open up alongside those as well. But, you know, we will be expanding every effort that we can to actually prove our technology on the ground, get it demonstrated, and then being in the best possible position to move from a demonstration project to, you know, commercial projects at the earliest possible opportunity. It's worth maybe adding to that, Mike, is that, you know, we we as QUADRISE obviously have a limited number of resources, but we also utilize consultants where we need to.

57:50 And we also utilize subcontractors. So for example, when we operated the or ran the SEPSA trial, we actually had subcontractors from the mill supplier who were actually operating the unit for an extended period of time. Know, we have the ability, even though we are fairly lean lean and resourced, we have the ability to use both, you know, highly experienced consultants and subcontractors to carry out these with this work. Mike, Jason, just slightly conscious of time. Yeah. Sure. Coming up to the hour. Obviously, you've answered a great number of questions. We've got a few more there. So I think perhaps what we will do is the company will, of course, review all questions submitted by investors today, we'll publish those answers on the investment company platform where appropriate.

58:36 Just just to wrap up then, Mike, perhaps if you could just wrap up for the investors before we redirect them for for the feedback. We know that's important to you guys. Yeah. I think, first of all, thank you very much to everyone that sort of logged on and listened to us. Whether you've asked a question or not, I hope you found that our sort of responses have have met your needs. I can see from one particular question that's been put, there is a desire that we absolutely give more detail on a, you know, number out of 10 as to where we are. I still think at this stage, it is better for us to reinforce that we have a high degree of confidence and we're absolutely committed to being able to deliver on our promises to shareholders.

59:23 We realize that we've got a limited runway, albeit one that's been extended significantly through our own actions at the start of this calendar year. And we have got a very high degree of confidence that before new funding is required, we will be in a position to provide that funding at what we believe will be very attractive on very attractive terms for the company and for shareholders. That's great. Look, thank you, Mike. Thank you, Jason, for updating investors today. Could I ask investors not to close this session as you will be automatically redirected for feedback via webinar and take a couple of seconds to direct you to that. If you've accessed the meeting via our website, the feedback will appear directly in front of you. If you've accessed it via the link in the email, we'll just ask you to log in to submit your feedback.

1:00:11 So on behalf of QUADRISE PLC International PLC, an investor meet company, we'd like to thank you for attending today's presentation. That concludes today's event. Thank you very much indeed.