Gevo at 15th Annual LD Micro Invitational: Sustainable Fuel Strategy Unveiled

On Thursday, 10 April 2025, Gevo Inc (NASDAQ: GEVO) presented at the 15th Annual LD Micro Invitational, outlining its strategic focus on sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The company emphasized its technological edge in producing cost-competitive jet fuel from renewable resources while addressing challenges in securing financing and dealing with airlines' commitment issues.

Key Takeaways

• Gevo's technology converts carbohydrates into jet fuel, capturing carbon and electrons.
• The company has secured contracts for several hundred million gallons with airlines.
• Financial stability and long-term airline commitments are seen as major challenges.
• Gevo's ATJ technology is cost-competitive with traditional jet fuel production.
• The company is developing a system for real-time Carbon Intensity (CI) scoring.

Technological Advancements

• Gevo's process involves converting carbohydrates into alcohol, then into jet fuel.
• The company's ATJ technology leverages renewable resources, reducing production costs.
• A unique carbon tracking system enhances the branding of renewable products.
• The CI score can be below zero, adding value through carbon capture and storage.

Operational Updates

• Gevo is actively working with ethanol and soybean plants to measure energy use.
• The company is focused on reducing the capital costs of building new plants.
• Realistic EPC projects are being undertaken to streamline plant construction.

Market Outlook and Strategy

• The market for jet fuel is expanding, while the ethanol industry faces overcapacity.
• Gevo plans to sell jet fuel separately from carbon to maximize value.
• Engagement with diverse sectors aims to broaden the SAF market.

Challenges and Roadblocks

• Financing remains a significant hurdle, particularly in the carbon credit market.
• Airlines' weak balance sheets and lack of long-term agreements pose risks.
• Overcoming skepticism in the SAF space is crucial for credibility.

Future Outlook

• Gevo aims to set a new standard where consumers value renewable origins.
• The company is navigating the marketplace for carbon credits to secure financing.
• Despite challenges, Gevo is committed to establishing a sustainable business model.

For a detailed understanding, readers are encouraged to refer to the full transcript.

Full transcript - 15th Annual LD Micro Invitational 2025:

Unidentified speaker: Made polyethylene, polypropylene, and stuff like that. Purity tracking is a business that tracks carbon through the whole value chain. It's a SaaS business using the TLT technology. So we could track where did the carbon come from, how did it get here, what energy was used during production, all the way, for instance, to see if it ever improved. So the question is, well, you know, to buy you buy a jet fuel, how do you know it's different?

That matters. That makes us a different game than that we're a developer. We have a huge amount of technology, huge number of patents. I don't have a roster So we are in an unusual position for a developer, and we have a strong balance sheet with several hundred million dollars on the balance sheet and cash. And so we're in unusually solid position They call it instead of sustainable aviation fuel, they're calling it synthetic aviation fuel, which is actually closer to the original name anyway, the ACM standards.

And so it's one of these things that I think is being overlooked is that people are just, god. You know? It's all things carbon are bad. No. Actually, it isn't about that.

About it creates jobs. It's potentially cost effective, competitive, with petrogenic, except for it's made from your resource. Oh, and it makes carbon too and creates a lot of jobs. So it's a little bit different game to play in different paradigm. One of the things that's really important that we always drive home is that this is a scatter plot, jet fuel price versus oil price.

EVOS are just a scatter. And an integrated ATJ plan that we're talking about is the green one there on the lower side, lower left. It's cost competitive. I'm not joking. You can make it from renewable resources and still be cost competitive on a production cost base.

Photosynthesis makes a carbohydrate. We take the carbohydrate, make it into an alcohol by fermentation. Then we do chemistry, make it into ejecta. We're capturing not just the carbon hydrogen, but all the electrons too. Everybody forgets that when they do the analysis.

Instead of having to mandate electronics, now we're getting them from photosynthesis directly and keeping them and preserving them throughout. That's why we have such an advantage. This is a economic curves or or bar charts against competitive technologies. Boils on the left. Our ATJ 60 economics are the one next to it there in the second from the left.

The gray is the cash cost production, the capital requirements to get good returns are the light green. But you can see why I'm seeing the cash cost reduction, we can be in the hunt with Metro. I find that astounding on fundamental level, fundamental economic level, we can be cash cost. But how do we deal with capital is the question. And you can see that we think you can lower it going forward at as we learn how to do realistic built EPC, you know, projects that has this the old fashioned way that, like, boost up cost.

And then import adds cost. They are disadvantaged. You have smaller plants that have fibers made for vegetable or waste cooking oil and things like that. We're up about half of their cash cost of production. That's a fundamentally important point.

Half of, though, is the one that's mostly sold by companies like Nestea, and people like that, kind of renewables. So we like the fundamental position at the capital is the issue. One of the things that you see on this thing up from this about CI score is our CI score to be below zero. Why? We're capturing renewable carbon, goes through the system, we get the new renewable electrons that come with it.

The ground. That's biogenic c o two into the ground. And doing that, that creates value. So you get from actually lowest cost of carbon. Spoke free is what the customer of that would be.

People that's voluntary. That's in addition to the regulatory work. It's what people get wrong about our company frequently is that they all it's all about alright. 45 z. No.

It's not. That's one part The other part is a state park. The other part is rigs. Oh, and on top of that is the bottom tier.

We just announced yesterday a deal with a company in Europe who's collecting and buying the carbon separate from the jet fuel. And I think that's actually how this market's gonna unfold. So jet a, it's just jet a. It gets valued as jet a, and then we sell the carbon separately. That's how it's gonna work.

And then this is what I just described. These are all the kind of customers that we talked to. Just lots of them. So it's a it's a developing market. We can get Phil Knight, the science guy up.

He's interested in this. He heard me talk and learn about this. Because it's different paradigm. Who who heard of a cost effective approach Well, this plant is the lowest carbon intensity plant that we're aware of in for ethanol production. That mean that turns into money and allows us to capture value from 45 z.

So here's another thing that gets wrong that the industry gets wrong or the. 45 z is a law. It's not getting undone. It is not getting undone. Sorry.

Too late. We're already partway in the year. It's included in this the bills that are being is a system of carbon traffic and trace. It really is tracking everything because how do you look. Here's analogy to this cup.

It's cup. Look at this cup. It's better. Why? It's plastic cup.

How do I know if it's from renewables? How do know if it's made from renewables? I said so. Proof where the carbon came from. That's our belief.

That's how you create value. Think of it as a brand. Anyway, that's what Garrett is about, tracking and tracing. We track it through all the manufacturing. We have that operating already at the testing it out in plants.

We're working with existing ethanol plants and soybean plants. We're already working to make sure that we can measure the energy, give direct real time CI scores along as we manufacture stuff. So we think the future we think consumers ultimately are gonna wanna know, something for that money? Think did I get something for it? That's actually what the game is about.

I met RNG. This is a we have 400,000 BTUs. We built this ourselves. We didn't like EPC it is also we can take any these building blocks. We can make propylene with technology.

Propylene, we would deal with LG Chem in Korea to do these kind of technologies. And there's also we can do these too. Again, how do you if you made these for renewals, how do you tell our different power back to? These all these pieces fit together with us. This will follow.

It won't be the thing that drives. The fuels will drive it to develop the business So the question is how big is the market? How was the potential? Could it how big is the potential? That's a really interesting question.

We were just talking about that. We're looking at jet fuel. So jet fuel is projected It's going to there's a lot of room for growth here. And then when you consider that the ethanol industry is placed in the gasoline pool pool and as mileage increases, there's less gasoline pool. NEDs will have an impact too, but it's a there's less it's not growing.

And yet production can increase, and corn production can increase. So here in The States, we have a situation. We have an abundant amount of corn, and we can grow more on the same land. Ethanol is becoming overcapacity is overcapacity already, we can stop that up. So There's a new.

Well, everything is wrong. Here in The States, we we could we don't have to. We can use we're the first to make economically? The the economics are advantaged here in The US. That's for sure.

Way more than Capital cost for the plant. Two capital cost. So here's the here's what I don't to push the cost down of the project. If I could build it myself and have the money to just build it, I'd be done. Other questions?

We already started working with airlines. We have. We have about we have several hundred million gallons of contracts already. They're the problem with airlines are terrible to your old customers. They don't have good balance sheets.

You can't trust them. They don't do long term off date agreements. It's part of that game. The airlines are on a problem. That's right.

So they and they can't take pricing. That's it. So this is the challenge. So remember remember, my plan was paid off. It's competitive with jet fuel.

Straight up against the weather. Now if I get paid for that carbon value in some way in the marketplace, then I don't need any government stuff, any credits. I don't need anything. That's what the future looks like. I would say so the question is, do we adopt is a new technology a new business model?

There are opportunities for incremental changes to technology? No. Today, we don't need that. We just put it. It's the business system that matters.

That's what matters. It's probably just our roadblock so far is all about financing. What's the marketplace for car? Who's gonna buy this stuff? Same questions.

They'll insure they'll buy all day long at the same price. Well, that's. So who's gonna pay their carbon value? That's the question. That's what we work on, and that's what we have to establish.

And that takes real things. And in this space, there's so much hype and BS. It's a mind boggling, which is kind of magical stuff. It's gonna save the world. No.

No. He's a giant. Two two two billion pounds of corn. Okay? 2,000,000,000 pounds of corn was a no plant.

It makes 1,300,000,000 pounds of animal feed, 60,000,000,000 gallons of jet fuel. Think about that. That's like a truckload of stuff every four minutes. You know? Think about the scale of these things.

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