Earnings call transcript: Hazer Group Q1 2025 highlights growth and innovation

Published 16/04/2025, 02:54
 Earnings call transcript: Hazer Group Q1 2025 highlights growth and innovation

Hazer Group Ltd (HZR) showcased its financial and operational achievements during its Q1 2025 earnings call. The company reported a strong cash position and no debt, emphasizing its commitment to innovation and market expansion in the hydrogen sector. The stock saw a significant return of 14.29% over the last week, reflecting investor confidence in its strategic direction and technological advancements. According to InvestingPro data, the company holds more cash than debt on its balance sheet, though analysts note it’s quickly burning through its cash reserves.

Key Takeaways

  • Hazer Group’s cash position increased to $10.3 million.
  • The company completed a Commercial Demonstration Plant test program.
  • Secured two key patents in Japan and the US.
  • The hydrogen market is expected to triple in size over the next 25 years.
  • Hazer aims to target 10 projects in the next decade.

Company Performance

Hazer Group demonstrated robust financial health with a cash position of $10.3 million and liquidity of $12.5 million, marking an increase from the previous quarter. The company has no debt, which positions it well for future growth. InvestingPro analysis shows a strong current ratio of 5.53, indicating the company’s liquid assets well exceed its short-term obligations. With a market capitalization of $47.49 million and impressive revenue growth of 43.33% over the last twelve months, the company appears slightly overvalued according to InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis. The completion of the Commercial Demonstration Plant test program and securing patents in key markets underscore its commitment to leading in methane pyrolysis technology.

Financial Highlights

  • Cash Position: $10.3 million, up over $1 million from the previous quarter.
  • Liquidity: $12.5 million.
  • No debt.
  • Revenue contributions from Canadian projects and grant milestones.

Outlook & Guidance

Hazer Group is optimistic about its future, with plans to target 10 projects over the next decade. The company is exploring opportunities in industries such as oil and gas, refining, petrochemicals, and steel, with a focus on geographical diversification in Australia, Canada, and potentially other global markets.

Executive Commentary

Glenn, the CEO, highlighted, "95% of that 97,000,000 tons is dirty hydrogen," emphasizing the potential for clean hydrogen solutions. He also stated, "We’re a global leader in this space," reflecting confidence in Hazer’s competitive position. Tim, the CTO, noted a significant industry shift, saying, "We’re seeing a real shift," indicating growing interest in clean hydrogen technologies.

Risks and Challenges

  • Market Competition: Intense competition from other hydrogen technology companies.
  • Regulatory Changes: Potential changes in government policies could impact operations.
  • Technological Challenges: Scaling up new reactor technology may present unforeseen issues.
  • Market Adoption: The pace of adoption for clean hydrogen solutions could affect growth.
  • Economic Conditions: Global economic fluctuations may impact investment and expansion plans.

Note:

This article does not include sections like "Earnings vs. Forecast" and "Q&A" due to the absence of specific data. The focus remains on providing a comprehensive overview of Hazer Group’s current standing and future prospects based on available information.

Full transcript - Hazer Group Ltd (HZR) Q3 2025:

Hannah, Moderator: Forbes who will run through the highlights of the quarter. Following the presentation, we will have time for some q and a. We will begin with those questions that were submitted in advance of the call today, and then we’ll move on to questions from the floor. If you would like to ask a question, please do so using the q and a button at the bottom of your screen, and we will try and answer as many as possible. So to begin, I will now hand over to you, Glenn.

Thank you.

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: Thanks, Hannah. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our webinar. I’m joined on the call by Tim Forbes, our chief technology officer. Together, we’re presenting our q three results plus some other highlights which you’ll have seen in our materials that were released this morning.

And if we can go to the agenda, please, on slide three. We’re gonna start with the highlights, then we’ll provide an update on the hydrogen market. Tim will present the details of our commercial readiness and our important scale up strategy. Then we’ll turn back to talk about the commercial projects, in particular, Canada. And then for the first time, we’re gonna share some details and some of the dimensions of how our customer pipeline is shaping up, then we’ll finish with a corporate update.

We’ll recap on our 2025 priorities, and then open the call, as Hannah said, for q and a. We can move down then jumping straight into our highlights. We had a solid quarter. We continue to advance our commercialization strategy. There were three quite important milestones, during the quarter.

Firstly, we confirmed the commercial readiness of our technology following some quite detailed evaluation of our CDP data. Tim will talk to this very shortly. You’ll recall that we completed that test program back in November of last year ahead of schedule. And then since then, we’ve also had some external and independent verification of our process as well as our operational stability, so in a very, very good position from a technology perspective soon after our CDP. Secondly, we have made some great strides on our scale up strategy to meet the growing demand for larger scale units.

We’re seeing that grow. Canada, of course, is 25 times our commercial demonstration unit. We’ve got a new reactor program in flight that is capable of reaching over 20,000 tons per annum to meet some of that demand that we’re starting to to see in the industry as well as for our technology. Corporately, we ended the quarter with a robust and very flexible funding position. We’ve got no debt.

We’ve got a very discretionary work program. We’ve got liquidity, as I like to say, of over 12 and a half million dollars. The cash position is $10,300,000. That was actually up on the previous quarter over a million dollars. That was driven by further revenues coming in from Canada as well as us meeting a couple of important grant milestones.

So a lot of non dilutive funding coming into the system to effectively put us in a very robust funding position as we go forward into the year. And, of course, we kicked a few goals. You will have seen on the intellectual property strategy, we secured two very important patents, one in Japan as well as one in The US, and I’ll talk to those very briefly shortly. So overall, very good momentum. The last quarter, we built on the success of the CDP to position Haizer for that go to market strategy.

So in terms of our strategy here on this slide, we’re moving up that staircase. As you will see today, we’ve built that solid foundation for our commercialization. The CDP, all of that follow-up evaluation and analysis has substantially derisked this technology for commercial deployment. Graphite volumes are being shipped. They’re being tested.

That is going on with key stakeholders in a range of applications that we’ve shared in the past. And very importantly, we are developing that strong sales and customer pipeline in addition to our foundation projects, and we’ll share for the first time some of the details of that very shortly. We made good progress on our commercial scale up strategy, Canada, other projects in Japan and Korea, and we are in we are exploring several strategic partnerships to effectively get bigger and get it faster into the market. Our target is to get this technology to market at scale as quickly as we can. Our business plan has been premised on 10 projects or 10 facilities in ten years, and I’m confident, and the team are confident that we have got everything to be successful in achieving that ambition.

Moving to the hydrogen market. It’s been a while since we provided an update on the market. A lot has happened in the market in the last twelve to eighteen months. Look, it remains a very large market. It’s set to triple, almost triple in the next twenty five years.

If you look at the chart on the right hand side, today’s current market is or current demand or consumption, if you like, is 97,000,000 tons per annum. It is valued at close to 200,000,000,000 US dollars. Production, as you’ll see from that first bar on the left, is concentrated in three industries, refining, ammonia, and methanol, and a lot of attention is being now effectively deployed on the, you know, the ammonia market, and a little bit of the hydrogen market is used for steelmaking, in particular, direct reduced iron. The problem with this industry is that 95% of that 97,000,000 tons is dirty hydrogen. It’s produced through a carbon intensive process called steam methane reforming, which emits a massive amount of c o two.

In fact, it emits 10 times the amount of hydrogen that’s produced. You’ve heard me you’ve heard me say that several times. So the industry emissions coming from the hydrogen industry is close to a billion tons of c o two. It’s 920,000,000 tons. So that’s the market that is today that needs a solution.

It’s not a market in the next ten years. It’s a market today that’s very large, it’s very dirty, and needs a solution today. And that’s Hayes’ disruption, as you see on the slide, to replace that dirty hydrogen with an affordable clean hydrogen. And steam methane reforming, there’s something in the order of around 2,000 plants worldwide. Our ability to switch and disrupt this market with a comparable switching cost is one of our great competitive advantages.

If we move to the next slide, we’re drilling down a little bit now on on some of the observations that we’ve seen in the industry, particularly over the past twelve months. The industry is getting bigger. It’s growing on average globally at about two and a half percent per annum. It’s getting dirtier. As I said, there’s over 2,000 of these steam methane reforming plants that need replacing.

Green hydrogen, which uses electrolyzers to split water, that’s been hampered by high costs, slowed progress. You’ll have seen some of the very high profile projects worldwide that have stalled. That’s an opportunity for us. The industry is shifting towards methane pyrolysis as a viable alternative. Why?

You can see it there on the right hand side. We convert gas into clean hydrogen and a graphite co product. We bypass those c o two emissions of gray hydrogen or SMR and the inefficiencies of green hydrogen. We integrate into existing infrastructure and existing supply chains. And, of course, with that graphite co product and zero emissions, we’re very well positioned not only as a technology, but as a company to provide a very real available now solution to industry to decarbonize.

I might just hand it over to you if you’ve a few words to say on anything here and and perhaps then move into the commercialization or the the the technology slides.

Tim, Chief Technology Officer, Hazer Group: Yeah. Thanks, Glenn. Good day, everyone. Great to be here again today. Yeah.

In terms of the shift towards methane pyrolysis, I think what we’re really seeing is people waking up to the reality of the thermodynamics and the energy intensity required to split water. I think we’ve been saying that for some time. It is five to eight times easier to split a methane molecule than a water molecule. And what that means is the renewable energy costs associated with green are substantially higher. And as people are working through the details of their projects, they’re realizing that it it just doesn’t quite stack up, and they’re starting to see that technologies like HASA can be clean as well as affordable.

And we’re also seeing that the recognition that a fluid bed process is scalable, and then, of course, the upside with the the graphite co product. So it’s starting to sink in, and we’re and we’re seeing a real shift. Thanks, Hannah. If you can move on to, yeah, commercial readiness. So we get we get a lot of comments and questions about commercial readiness.

So I always when when I address this, I like to talk about, first of all, a process needs to be technically ready before you can monetize it and before it’s commercially ready. So the CDP test program in 2024 goes a long way to validating the process performance and the technical readiness. Go building on that independent assessments, verifying stability and data integrity of that of that work, further bolstering that technical readiness assessment. And so when when you’re at sufficient technical readiness, then you can start to look at commercial deployment and commercial readiness. So when I talk about commercial readiness, I’m specifically referring to Arena’s commercial readiness index scale.

And so on that, if you go and look at that scale, it’s easy to look up. At CRI two, we’re talking about a commercial trial or our demonstration plant trial, which we’ve completed last year. And then the next next activities on that scale, three to five, are commercial scale up, multiple applications, and then widespread spread deployment. So we’re currently working on all three of those, larger scale reactor design, pursuing multiple business opportunities, which we’ll talk more about, and then that will obviously lead to the widespread deployment. So at at this stage, we’re less focused on the the numbers and really, you know, it’s more about what does it take to deliver those projects.

And and people always come back to it it needs to be sufficiently derisked. So we look at our IP is strong. We understand our chemistry and kinetics and our reactor performance as demonstrated by the demonstration plant program. We’ve shown that our reactors are constructible. We understand materials selection and operability.

And, ultimately, then people see that the the business case is sound. It’s economic, and fluid beds are proven to be scalable. And add to that the graphite upside. So, really, what what we’re saying is we are commercially ready. We’re ready to go, and we’re seeing a lot of strong interest that’s substantiating that, and we’ll we’ll talk about shortly.

So if can go to the next slide, please, Hannah. K. So we are we are commercially ready. Now what we’re looking at doing is accelerating that scale up. So we wanna go bigger, faster, better, cheaper, and at low, you know, low risk.

So what what are we doing to to deliver on that front? First of all, the the modifications at the commercial demonstration plant are progressing well in terms of construction, engineering, installation. That is all ongoing and under control. In parallel with that, we’re looking at other low cost means to further accelerate and derisk our scale up. And in this last couple of months, we’ve engaged global experts, Articulate Solids Research Institute out of Chicago, recognized global experts utilized by all the major oil and gas companies and and many technologies in assisting them with their their scale up.

So we’ve done a few things with them. One, we’ve increased our internal capability through some fairly world class training, and we’ve had a workshop with them reviewing our scale up strategy. And the resounding feedback is that it’s positive. We’re on the right track. We have identified a few low cost items that we wanna work on to further bolster the confidence in the technology, and we’ve we’ve developed that work plan with PSRI.

And the kind of testing there, we’re talking about comparatively low cost work where we do larger scale cold flow testing to get a more detailed understanding of our particle fluidization behavior, and then also evaluation and upgrades to our reactive kinetic model to enhance our large scale performance predictions. So, really, by engaging these experts, we’re building capability, allowing ourselves to go faster whilst making sure we’re on the right track and and reducing reducing risk. Thanks. I’ll hand back to Glenn to talk about the pipeline now. Thanks, Tim.

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: Nice segue into into Canada and the scale up of of our reactor and our our process 25 times over the CDP. The main focus during the quarter there was the successful completion of the test rig that was developed there in conjunction with Fortis as well as the the Clean BC provincial government that has been supporting the project. Results have gone very well. We put out an announcement last quarter to provide some more context on on that, and that really supports, as Tim said, the the scale up of our reactor into that larger scale commercial sizing. Orders will now turn to or to return to focusing on the site post, that industry application, and that all important off take, which all comes together with that site.

And the sites that have been provisionally identified are being effectively high graded on their ability to scale larger. 2,500 tons per annum, we see that growing to much larger scales on the ground ultimately over over the future, but that’ll be the focus of the project. It is I’ll just remind folks that it is a it is a project that is funded through to FID in part by some clean VC funding provincial government grant money, and the project achieved an important milestone during the quarter there. And we continue to receive revenues from that project under our engineering service arrangement with Fortis directly. Moving on to the next slide.

It’s the first time we’ve included some of the details on our pipeline. We felt it was an important time to do that. The tech is moving through that commercialization phase now, as Tim referred to. And we talk a lot about what the pipeline looks like in terms of shape, and we’ll evolve this over the over the coming twelve months, I’m sure. But currently, we have somewhere between forty and forty five real customer licensing opportunities.

This has expanded enormously over the last twelve months, in particular, on the back of, as I referred to earlier, that green hydrogen pivot towards kind of methane pyrolysis. Of course, the the great time of us having our technology and our commercial readiness through that CDP validated and verified. The aggregate demand, if you add up all those projects in our pipeline, actually amounts to over a million tons per annum. And if you recall back the the size of the market, that’s actually close to a percent of today’s total demand. All of these 40 odd opportunities, if you like, are currently under NDA or confidentiality agreement.

So there are various stages of deal maturity if you like. Some have ex some have been through extensive diligence. Some are at the early stages. So we’re managing quite a quite a broad portfolio. It comprises you’ll see on the charts there, it comprises a number of different customer bases, you like, oil and gas companies and super majors, naturally then into refining in the petrochemicals group consistent with where the demand is today and and that in all important ammonia and methanol sector and the players that operate in that space.

Steel making might be a surprise for for some, but there’s a nice dual application of our hydrogen in both graphite co product in the steelmaking process. We’ve referred to that in the in the past, and it is somewhat of a sweet spot for the tech. You’ll see there’s quite a bit of of interest in steelmaking. And as a and I said, it’s a sweet spot building on the the POSCO partnership that we have developed over the last twelve to eighteen months. That geographical diversification, given given recent events mitigates that geopolitical as well as policy risk.

Drilling down into Australia, we have somewhere in the order of eight to 10 live discussions on potential project opportunities. I know not all of them will come to fruition, but we, again, see a shift in Australia from some of the from some of the earlier projects that haven’t been successful back into kind of, you know, traditional opportunities like methane pyrolysis. And in addition to that, we have several strategic partnership discussions that are in flight to support the acceleration of our technology. As Tim said, we’ve got to get bigger, better, faster. And here, we’re also not showing any graphite opportunities, but we do have a number of potential graphite customers or offtake opportunities that are currently reviewing the quality of the product and its fit with potential applications.

And our focus, of course, is converting these projects, opportunities into licenses. We’ve got this business plan that effectively has 10 projects in ten years. We’ve now got the depth in the pipeline that drives us forward, and that is forcing us to think about how big can we get and how fast can we can we do it. Moving on to then the corporate focus IP, very briefly, we were awarded two key patents in the last quarter, one in Japan, another one in The United States, both for hydrogen production using iron ore as a catalyst and and a fluid bed reactor. The US is particularly important.

It’s not just a strategic market, but it is also often in the IP world. There’s a cascade effect around The US. Often, you know, many countries follow in in the award of patents after they’re secured in in The US. And, of course, with having that strong US presence in our portfolio, it deters copycats from trying to do what we’re doing. Both of these patents continue to strengthen our IP portfolio.

The latest count is around 70 odd patents that have been awarded or are pending in over 30 jurisdictions around the world. Moving on to the corporate focus. Hannah, please. Thank you. Look.

I think it’s fair to say, the world is experiencing a period of global volatility and uncertainty. We’re very aware of that. Of course, that’s making us think at HAES to exercise cost and capital discipline. You’ll have seen that coming through the numbers in the last quarter. Where do we get the best bang for our buck in our spend?

We exited the quarter with a strong funding position of that $12,500,000 of liquidity that comprises the cash as well as remaining grant funds that are due this year. It was bolstered by those revenues from Fortis in Canada. We do expect further milestones from some of those grants to be realized again in the next couple of quarters, and then we start moving into the R and D rebate cycle, which is in the third quarter. We lowered operating costs. You’ll have seen that again in the numbers substantially.

We built on that half yearly momentum that we had, that 12 reduction that we came out of the half year with. And the final note to make there is that Tim and I, Tim Tim Goldsmith, our our chairman, and myself spent some time in Canberra engaging government and as well as opposition to raise the profile of Hazard. It’s the first time we’ve spent time there. It was very well received. Met with industry, science, energy, critical minerals office, and I’m very encouraged by policy and the way that they’re thinking about policy.

There’s clearly a need to reflect the current situation, and that is something that we would like to see. But we definitely see the thinking there is evolving. They have guided us in the direction of some other industry grant programs, which we are currently actively exploring. But I can see ourselves spending a bit more time in Canberra as well as with state government and just making sure that that HAES is thought of as a as a viable hydrogen, low cost production technology that can disrupt the industry today. Finally, we’ll move to our strategic priorities.

Nothing’s changed here. We’ve got that catalyst rich twelve months ahead of us. We’ve got that derisked tech that Tim refers to commercially ready. We’ve got that rapidly expanding pipeline now of commercial opportunities, that robust funding position, and and dare I say it, that market that is much savvier now to the advantages of methane pyrolysis and and and seeing that shift. We’re a global leader in this space.

We’re very well positioned as a company this year, and I see a number of value inflections or rerating opportunities through that scale up program, unlocking value in graphite, that those licensing opportunities in those project and those strategic partnerships. And, you know, we’ll do everything we can to ensure that we can unlock the the deep value for shareholders in PACE’s technology. Hannah, I think that’s a great time to probably pause and and open up the call for q and a.

Hannah, Moderator: Thanks, Glenn. I will just remind everybody on the call. If you do want to ask a question, please do so using the q and a button at the bottom of your screen. And we have received quite a few, so I hope I can get through as many as possible. But just starting with the ones that we received in in advance, is the new reactor at the CDP commercially viable in its own right?

Tim, Chief Technology Officer, Hazer Group: So yeah. Yeah. Thanks, Gwen. Yeah. Thanks, Hannah.

So, I mean, the the CDP is a is a demonstration plant. So we’re looking to show that large commercial scale deployments are are derisked. The reactor design itself is reflective of the of the large scale designs. But what we’re really looking for is is that derisking aspect. So when when we demonstrate the new reactor in the CDP, that exact same design is is the commercial design.

We’ve already shown that that’s viable. So largely, that’s already derisked with the 2024 campaign showing chemistry kinetics, and then our recent testing in in Canada showing that the heat input method work is effective and will achieve design scale. So it it’s already largely derisked. And and what I go back to is what people are looking for is is that the the reactors derisk. So, yeah, that design is is viable.

I need to deploy at a larger scale. Thanks.

Hannah, Moderator: Alright. Thanks very much, Tim. Next, is the Fortis FID dependent on a successful outcome of HAES’ testing program for their m k two reactor?

Tim, Chief Technology Officer, Hazer Group: Yeah. I’d say not really. And, again, I’ve I’ve kind of answered that with the last question. What what people are really looking for is that the the risk is under control and the technology is proven. So, again, I come back to 2024 test campaign data, shows we understand the chemistry, kinetics, reactor sizing, recent test program in Canada as we understand heat input.

And between those two, we’re also showing that we have a constructible reactor. We have our material selection correct, and we’re able to able to operate it. It it’s always nice to have a further demonstration, but we’re really ticking most of those risk boxes already.

Hannah, Moderator: Yep. Alright. Thank you, Tim. Okay. So I’m gonna move on to the ones we’ve received whilst on the call.

Is there a minimum feed for commercially sustainable operation? And they mean methane tonnes per unit time.

Tim, Chief Technology Officer, Hazer Group: So, Glenn, I might I might have a go at at this at

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: that. Yeah.

Tim, Chief Technology Officer, Hazer Group: Yeah. Absolutely. So, I mean, if we if you look at the size of plants globally, average size of steam methane reformer is in the in the order of 50,000 tonnes per annum. We see a lot of demand in that range. And certainly, as you as you have a single larger reactor, you you get economies of scale.

Now our process will be viable at numbers lower than that, but from a technology standpoint, I’m looking to provide options, and we’re working hard to accelerate that scale up to those large scale designs. What I would say as well is that with with HAZAR deploying a fluid bed technology, fluid beds are not new. They’ve proven to be scalable. Biggest fluid cat cracker regenerators are in the order of 16 meters in diameter. If we can get to those kinds of scales, we’re gonna be well in excess of those 50,000 tonne per annum mark.

So we’re on track to, you know, to get to economic production shortly. And I would like to contrast that with some competing technologies and not scalable. They appear to cap out at in the order of 5,000 tons per annum. So I think we’re we’re well positioned for economic deployment.

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: Mate, that’s a good time to maybe, Hannah, pick up on this question around competitors in the methane paralysis space that Ross asked. There’s a there’s a handful of them, Ross. The the the notable ones are ourselves, of course, as one of the leaders in the pack. There’s another group out of The US called Monolith, which is doing something similar, but with plasma torches which operate at substantially higher temperatures than than what we do. Of course, that means more energy in the system and a higher cost ultimately, so we think we’ve got an advantage there.

And, of course, with plasma, you know, there is the production of carbon black as opposed to graphite. So some distinct differences between hazer and some of the the the competitors. As Tim referred to that fluidized bed reactor is one of our advantages of getting to scale, which is where a lot of the demand is coming from. I’m not sure if we refer to it in this call, but in the past, two or three years ago, we were seeing demand numbers in industry 10 to 20,000 tons per annum. We’re starting to see numbers now exceed over 50,000 tons per annum.

So the fluid bed reactor puts us in a really good position to to meet some of that demand in the future.

Hannah, Moderator: Alright. Thanks very much, Glenn. So one here from Joseph. What process, if any, is required to the iron ore to be suitable for use in the fluid beds, and do we have supply for large scale production?

Tim, Chief Technology Officer, Hazer Group: Yeah. So I might I might take that one, Glenn. So I guess the the catalyst performance is is getting at the heart of our our know how. So we we have a fair amount of testing results, detailed analytical, and and ongoing research to really understand how catalysts perform well. The good the good part of that is that we’ve done a lot of that work already, and we understand them.

And also that processing is not particularly complicated. So many many iron ores are suitable. There are some tricks, so we need to, you know, we need to make sure we follow our processes. But, really, large scale supply is really not an issue, and in fact, we get we expect that to get easier as we move from the demonstration scale through to the 2,500 ton and and beyond. Yep.

Hannah, Moderator: Alright. Thanks very much, Tim. How do you prevent catalyst poisoning by h two s?

Tim, Chief Technology Officer, Hazer Group: Yeah. So, I mean, generally speaking, our our gases feed gases are low in sulfur content, and it’s not a concern. Should there be sulfur there, you know, there’s many, you know, proven technologies depending on the level level of sulfur to to remove that. So I don’t really see that as as an issue. For for low levels, there’ll be fixed bed absorbents, which are low cost.

For really high levels, if it were justified, there’s other higher cost applications that typically expect that fixed bed absorbent type approach.

Hannah, Moderator: Alright. Thanks, Tim. There are quite a few questions on the installation and commissioning of the M K 2 reactor. So is there an update there that you can provide?

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: Yeah. I can I can provide the update there, Hannah? The engineering work, I think we referred to it in the in the quarterly, is is ongoing. We’ve obviously got to do this properly and ensure that we get it right. It’s an important aspect of of our scale up program.

As we referred to in the past, the reactor is is very well advanced, and it’s sitting in Perth, but the engineering work is the critical path, and that’s what we’re focused on at the moment.

Hannah, Moderator: Alright. Thanks very much. Another one here is it’s good to have some visibility over the project pipeline. When do you think one of the 40 projects could be realized?

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: Very good question. Look, we anytime, frankly. We’ve got active discussions of various in various states of maturity. Some have been going on for some time. Some have been only a short period of time.

One of the challenges is we’re dealing with very large organizations, some very big organizations. So they do take their time. They do a lot of diligence. That’s the importance of having a diversified portfolio with multiple opportunities, but we’re confident what we see in there. And some of these brands and that that we’re talking with will be very familiar to to folks in in a number of those industries, but it does take time to get through them.

I’d be disappointed if this year we don’t we’re not able to come out with further advancement in terms of of, the deployment of our technology into industry worldwide with some of the biggest players, that are that are reviewing, their shift to methane pyrolysis.

Hannah, Moderator: Alright. Thanks very much, Glenn. Is a few more questions on on this, so I’ll consolidate. Is there any update on the site selection in Canada?

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: Yeah. I think as I spoke about just earlier in terms of Canada, a lot of the focus in the last three to four months, of course, has been on that important testing program of the reactor, which was which was successful, and their attention now is turning to that site. It it was difficult to do that without that testing program. So those commercial discussions with with hosts as well as off takers is now back in flight. And so we’re hopeful that Fortis can have a site selected imminently.

It’s not going as fast as I’d like. I appreciate that. Again, another very large organization that has processes to work through, but we’re confident with Fortis who are a very large utility and operator in Canada that they’re working through this diligently and that they’ll come to the right solution in the right time frame.

Hannah, Moderator: Thank you, Gwen. One more on the reactor. It says, as the M K 2 reactor is not part of ARENA’s original grant and therefore not subject to the renewable only model, will it be connected to natural gas so it can operate to its full capacity?

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: Well, it’s just another react oh, sorry. Tim, go ahead. Sorry. I’ll jump in after that.

Tim, Chief Technology Officer, Hazer Group: Yeah. I I guess I mean, that’s not really our focus. The focus is demonstrating the technology viability, and connecting it up to natural gas would probably be a unnecessary complication and higher spend activity. It doesn’t really deliver any significant improvement in risk or performance understanding. So no plans at this stage.

Hannah, Moderator: Okay. We are running out of time, I’ll just do a few more. One here that says, what what is the minimum output from an anaerobic digester that could have a feasible haze or installation?

Tim, Chief Technology Officer, Hazer Group: Yeah. So I’ll I’ll take that one, Glenn. I mean, again, what we’re seeing is what people are focused on is cost and emissions, and that’s why we exist. We deliver low cost, low emissions hydrogen with a with a graphite upside. So we we’re not really seeing the the focus on the anaerobic digesters where the demand is in larger scale applications, which are typically gonna be LNG or pipeline gas.

Having said that, we understand how to process biogas and wouldn’t be surprised if a, you know, biogas as a supplementary feedstock sweetens a project, but it’s certainly not the main focus.

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: Yep. Hannah, I just see a question. Maybe this is the last one. It’s a good place to probably end, but it’s a question from Atosha here Yep. In terms of the end users and what proportion is for green steel and ammonia.

I think it comes back, Atosha, to some of the earlier work that we’ve been doing on on the the the way that the hydrogen market is shaping up and also that portfolio. We have seen quite a shift in interest towards green steel as well as ammonia. Ammonia is definitely a sector that is of a very high interest to us. That is, of course, one of the identified vectors for transporting hydrogen as well as one of the clean fuels identified for from for marine shipping. So it’s a it’s definitely a space that’s growing.

If you look at the way that the the demand and the consumption is playing out over the next twenty five years, we’re seeing probably a big uplift in steelmaking, slight reduction in refining, but a dramatic increase in ammonia as well as methanol. So they’re the right sectors to be in. What proportions of our pipeline is sitting in those two? Quite a lot. Depends on whether you think about it as capacity or as numbers of projects, but they as a combined group of industries getting close to 50%.

So that’s, in some respects, hopefully, a bit of insight into how the pipeline is shaping up and and how we’re sort of adjusting to that. Ammonia facilities are large. They need very large hydrogen inputs. So that is a very big sector that could be very valuable for Hazer in the long term, and that is alongside green steel quite a sweet spot. Of course, with steel, there’s iron ore, there’s fluid bed reactors, there’s, of course, graphite and carbon throughout the system, and hydrogen is used as a as a reducing agent in DRI.

So both are very interesting sectors for us, and we are seeing that interest expand in the pipeline.

Hannah, Moderator: Alright. Thanks very much, Glenn. That’s a good time, I guess, to leave it now. To anyone whose question we didn’t get to, we apologize. If you do really want an answer soon, please send an email to us.

Our contact details are in the last very last page of the presentation that is on the ASX, and we’ll come back to you very soon. The recording for this call will be uploaded to our channels hopefully today, if not possibly tomorrow. And before we close, I’ll hand back to Glenn just for some closing remarks.

Glenn, CEO/Executive, Hazer Group: Thanks, Hannah. Look, just a big thank you for everyone for joining us today and for all those insightful questions. I know we we can’t get through all of them, and we will endeavor to respond to to shareholders and and those that join the call throughout the next week or so. Look. The first quarter for us or at least the third quarter of the financial year has been a real period of strategic focus for us.

It’s it’s you hopefully, you’ll see that forward momentum that we bring with Hazr. Look, we are I’m very confident we’re we’re we’re very well positioned as a technology as well as a company. The tech is derisked. We’re robustly funded through a very tricky period in markets and as well as, you know, a lot of quite a lot of geopolitical risk. We’ve got that funding flexibility now in our pipeline and as well as in our in our company.

The pipeline’s expanding. The my the market, as you’ll have seen, is ripe for disruption, and we’re bringing focus to all of this to unlock the value for shareholders in in our technology. So thank you for your support, and we look forward to updating you in in the further coming quarters. Thank you.

Hannah, Moderator: Thank you, Glenn. Thank you, Tim, and thank you to everybody for joining.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.

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