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Fusion Fuel GreenD
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2026-05-15
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Earnings documents stored for HTOO.

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Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-15

Fusion Fuel Highlights First Quarter 2026 Financial Results of Majority-Owned Subsidiary Quality Industrial Corp., Highlighted by Return to Profitability and Significant Operating Expense Reduction

GlobeNewswire

QIND Achieves Positive Net Income and Operating Income While Reducing Operating Expenses by Approximately 56.6% Year-Over-Year Al Shola Gas Awarded 16 New Engineering Subcontracts Subsequent to Quarter-End with Aggregate Expected Value of Approximately $1.14 Million DUBLIN, Ireland, May 15, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fusion Fuel Green PLC (Nasdaq: HTOO) ("Fusion Fuel" or the "Company"), a leading provider of full-service energy engineering, advisory, and utility solutions , today highlighted certain financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2026, as reported by the Company’s majority-owned subsidiary, Quality Industrial Corp. (OTCID: QIND) (“QIND”), and provided an update on QIND’s business progress. For the three months ended March 31, 2026, QIND reported the following results: Revenue of $3.67 million compared to $3.62 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025 representing an increase of approximately 1.4% year-over-year, resulting from an increase in revenue of QIND’s 51.0%-owned subsidiary, Al Shola Al Modea Gas Distribution L.L.C. (“Al Shola Gas”) Gross profit of $1.0 million, up approximately 4.7% from $0.96 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025 Total operating expenses declined to $0.8 million from $1.9 million for the three months ended March 31, 2025 representing a reduction of approximately 56.6% Income from operations of $0.18 million compared to a loss from operations of $(0.95) million for the three months ended March 31, 2025 representing an improvement of approximately 118.6% year-over-year Net income of $0.1 million compared to a net loss of $(1.3) million in the three months ended March 31, 2025 In addition, QIND reported that Al Shola Gas was awarded 16 new LPG engineering subcontracts subsequent to quarter-end with aggregate expected value of approximately $1.14 million. Frederico Figueira de Chaves, Chief Executive Officer of Fusion Fuel, commented, "The first quarter of 2026 reflects continued progress in our strategic pivot toward cash-generating industrial operations and demonstrates the operational improvements achieved across the business over the past year. QIND delivered revenue growth, increased gross margin, significantly reduced operating expenses, and returned to both operating income and positive net income during the first quarter of 2026. Importantly, these improvements were achieved while con...

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-05-08

Fusion Fuel Reports Revenue Growth to €14.4 Million in Fiscal Year 2025 and Provides Business Update

GlobeNewswire

Dublin, May 07, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fusion Fuel Green PLC (Nasdaq: HTOO) ("Fusion Fuel" or the "Company"), a leading provider of full-service energy engineering, advisory, and utility solutions, today reported selected fiscal year 2025 financial results and provided a business update. Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Results Highlights Revenue increased to approximately €14.4 million, up 798.1% compared to €1.6 million for fiscal year 2024, primarily due to the inclusion of a full year of revenue from the Company’s indirect majority-owned subsidiary, Al Shola Al Modea Gas Distribution LLC (“Al Shola Gas”), in 2025, compared to consolidation beginning in the fourth quarter of 2024 following its acquisition. Gross profit increased to approximately €4.2 million, up 855.4% compared to approximately €0.4 million in fiscal year 2024. Operating loss decreased to approximately €7.9 million from approximately €17.3 million in fiscal year 2024, a 54.4% decrease. Administration expenses decreased to approximately €11.9 million from approximately €16.5 million in fiscal year 2024, a 27.9% decrease. Loss before tax decreased to approximately €1.1 million from approximately €15.3 million in fiscal year 2024. Total comprehensive loss decreased to approximately €1.0 million from approximately €15.3 million in fiscal year 2024. Non-IFRS adjusted operating loss decreased by 64% year-over-year to approximate €3.7 million from non-IFRS adjusted operating loss of approximately €10.3 million in fiscal year 2024. Fiscal Year 2025 Operational Highlights Completed the first full year of consolidated Al Shola Gas operations in fiscal year 2025, compared to one month of consolidation in fiscal year 2024, while continuing to expand the platform in the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”) energy services market through new contracts, fleet capacity, and recurring utility service opportunities. Continued to expand the Company’s energy services business through Al Shola Gas, securing approximately $7 million in new engineering contracts and approximately $2 million in annual recurring fuel distribution contracts. Pursued the Company’s strategic repositioning toward a diversified energy and industrial services platform. Bright Hydrogen Solutions Limited (“BrightHy Solutions”) developed its hydrogen platform through new agent agreements, tenders progressing to final negotiations for two projects, an...

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2026-04-02

Fusion Fuel Highlights Fiscal Year 2025 Results and Business Progress of Majority-Owned Subsidiary Quality Industrial Corp.; Achieves 45.9% Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth to $16.3 Million

GlobeNewswire

Dublin, April 02, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fusion Fuel Green PLC (Nasdaq: HTOO) ("Fusion Fuel" or the "Company"), a leading provider of full-service energy engineering, advisory, and utility solutions, today highlighted certain fiscal year 2025 financial results of its majority-owned subsidiary, Quality Industrial Corp. (OTCID: QIND) (“QIND”), and provided an update on QIND’s business progress. QIND Fiscal Year 2025 Financial Results Highlights For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2025, QIND reported: Revenue of approximately $16.3 million, an increase of 45.9% compared to approximately $11.2 million in fiscal year 2024; Gross profit of approximately $4.8 million, compared to approximately $4.0 million in the prior year, representing a 20.8% increase year-over-year; and Non-GAAP adjusted net income of $564,465, compared to non-GAAP adjusted net loss of $160,774 in the prior year, representing a 451% increase year-over-year. Governance and Financial Position During fiscal year 2025, QIND: Transitioned to a three-member Board and reduced management level costs; Settlement of legacy compensation obligations and exit arrangements with former management; Reduced accounts payable by 45%; Wrote off assets deemed non-recoverable of approximately $3.5 million; and Reduced balances under convertible notes by 13%. 2026 Outlook For fiscal year 2026, QIND expects: Expansion of its United Arab Emirates (“UAE”)-based majority-owned subsidiary, Al Shola Al Modea Gas Distribution L.L.C. (“Al Shola Gas”), supported by incremental fleet capacity, a growing pipeline of contracted engineering projects, and continued geographic expansion into the northern emirates; Further deleveraging efforts, including the servicing or restructuring of outstanding debt obligations; and Revenue growth targeting approximately $20 million, subject to market conditions and the absence of prolonged disruptions in the UAE and Persian Gulf region. “Fiscal year 2025 was a significant period for QIND,” said JP Backwell, Chief Executive Officer of Fusion Fuel. “Through disciplined execution, we strengthened governance, streamlined the cost structure, reduced certain liabilities, and supported continued operational growth at Al Shola Gas. As a result, we believe QIND is now better positioned to generate more consistent, scalable performance and contribute to Fusion Fuel’s consolidated results.” “Looking...

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-11-07

Fusion Fuel Announces EGM Results: All Shareholder Proposals Approved

GlobeNewswire

DUBLIN, Ireland, Nov. 06, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fusion Fuel Green PLC (Nasdaq: HTOO) (“Fusion Fuel” or the “Company”), a leading provider of energy engineering, advisory, and utility solutions, today announced that all shareholder proposals were approved at the general meeting of shareholders held on November 6, 2025 (the “EGM”). The meeting took place at the offices of Arthur Cox LLP, Ten Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland. Shareholders approved all items of business, including the proposed increase to the Company’s authorised share capital, related amendments to the Company’s articles of association, and the authorizations to allot and issue shares and equity securities for cash. In addition, shareholders elected Pierce Crosby and Steven Gold as Class II Directors to the Board of Directors. In connection with the election of Mr. Crosby and Mr. Gold, each of Jeffrey E. Schwarz and Rune Magnus Lundetrae resigned from the Board of Directors. John-Paul Backwell, CEO of Fusion Fuel, commented: “We welcome both Pierce and Steven to the Board of Directors and look forward to continuing to execute on our strategy to be an owner and manager of multiple independent, fast-growing, profitable companies in the energy and utilities sectors. In addition, we thank Jeffrey and Rune for their service and contributions as members of the Board of Directors over the past five years. Today´s vote allows the Company to continue the potential transaction discussions around large-scale strategic transactions currently under discussion, including opportunities related to both digital and commodity asset treasury initiatives. We reiterate that this does not mean the Company will issue all authorized shares, but that it now has the flexibility for these negotiations.” About Fusion Fuel Green PLC Fusion Fuel Green PLC (NASDAQ: HTOO) is an emerging leader in the energy services sector, offering a comprehensive suite of energy supply, distribution, and engineering and advisory solutions through its Al Shola Al Modea Gas Distribution LLC (“Al Shola Gas”), Bright Hydrogen Solutions Ltd (“BrightHy”) and Biosteam Energy (Proprietary) Limited (“BioSteam Energy”). Al Shola Gas provides full-service industrial gas solutions, including the design, supply, and maintenance of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) systems, as well as the transport and distribution of LPG to a broad range of customers...

TranscriptFY2025 Q22025-09-17

FY2025 Q2 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 35 paragraphs
John-Paul Backwell

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everyone, depending on where you are joining us from in the world. We thank you for joining this Fusion Fuel Investor Update today, where we'll update you on our results for the first half of 2025, as well as some of our subsequent events and progress. So my name is John-Paul Backwell, CEO of Fusion Fuel, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker HTOO, and I'm also joined today by our CFO, Frederico de Chaves. So before we begin, let me draw your attention to the forward-looking statement disclaimer. As with any company operating in the dynamic global markets, some of what I will share with you today, or what we will share with you today, concerns our expectations, our plans, and projections for the future.

John-Paul Backwell

These statements do involve risks and uncertainties, but they also highlight the extraordinary growth opportunity that lies ahead for Fusion Fuel, so I encourage each of you to review the disclaimer in detail, but for now, let me add that our strategy is built not on speculation, it is built on tangible contracts, on operational execution, and a platform that is designed for sustainable growth, some of which we will be discussing today, so with that said, here's what we will cover today. First, a reminder of who we are and our growth strategy before I summarize some of our key highlights of our performance thus far in 2025, and following this, Frederico will give an update on our financial performance, and then we will both give a business update that dives into our subsidiaries and our growth engines, Al Shola Gas and Bright Solutions, or Bright Hydrogen Solutions, respectively.

John-Paul Backwell

Before we give an update on our M&A pipeline, and finally, we'll discuss some of our milestones and the path forward for the company. So by the end of this presentation, I believe you will see that Fusion Fuel is executing a true transformation, one that positions us not only to survive but also to thrive as one of the more innovative companies or energy companies on the Nasdaq. So for those less familiar with our company, I'll provide you with an introduction. We are an integrated energy platform that specializes in designing and engineering energy systems and solutions, as well as supplying energy to homes and businesses. Currently, we focus on green hydrogen and gas, but as you will see, we rapidly are expanding into the broader energy sector worldwide.

John-Paul Backwell

Our vision is quite simple yet powerful: driving sustainable growth in today's energy and tomorrow's energy market by fully leveraging the opportunities available in today's energy market. So energy for us is not a distant theme. It is the foundation of every economy, of every business, and every home. And with that in mind, our mission is to be an owner and operator of fast-growing, profitable businesses in the energy and utility sectors. This means that we're not limiting ourselves to one technology or to one vertical. Instead, we're deliberately building a platform that captures today's immediate energy needs, like gas supply and engineering, while simultaneously developing tomorrow's clean energy solutions, such as hydrogen. This dual approach allows us to deliver revenue and profit now, today, while also positioning ourselves at the heart of the global energy transition. So next slide.

John-Paul Backwell

Fusion Fuel is more than a single product or a single solution company. We're building an integrated energy platform, as I mentioned, that spans from conventional LPG and gas engineering to innovative hydrogen and renewable solutions. So today, we supply energy for heating, cooling, cooking, transportation, and the many other essentials of modern life. Tomorrow, through our hydrogen and clean energy initiatives, we will be supplying the solutions that global industries, that cities, and governments demand as they decarbonize. So this combination of present-day cash flow with future-oriented innovation is rare. It means we are resilient in today's market without needing government incentives or constant dilution of capital investment, like so many renewable energy companies need just to survive. Yet we're also unlocking exponential growth potential in the years ahead.

John-Paul Backwell

So if you've been following our company for the last or over the last six months, you'll have noticed that our operating businesses are growing organically, with multiple new contracts awarded. That said, we've also been very busy pursuing profitable acquisition targets, which we believe will certainly scale up our business internationally. And then alongside this, we've also been working on innovative deals that are intended to further boost shareholder value, which we anticipate discussing further in the coming weeks. So before I hand over to Frederico, I'll run through some of our key highlights of the year so far. Now, it has to be said that we did enter 2025 facing an uphill battle, just being transparent about that, and I'm sure many will have recognized that. We did recognize that we needed to stabilize and transform the company while positioning it for significant growth.

John-Paul Backwell

Now, towards the end of 2024, the company was at serious risk of being delisted from the Nasdaq, and it couldn't continue its operations without a significant restructuring, so the rest of our core team and myself took on this challenge, knowing that in all likelihood, we may not succeed. You know, banks, analysts, and many others had completely written us off, but we did bring in a profitable gas business. We dramatically reduced our expenses, as you will see, and dramatically really is an understatement, and then we began the painful process of rebuilding the business, so we worked hard through Christmas, managing to raise just enough capital to get some momentum at the start of the new year, and then that momentum grew as we overcame each of the several obstacles that we faced as a company.

John-Paul Backwell

Most significantly, we restored our Nasdaq compliance, and our results show that. Our revenue has surged while our operating costs have been substantially reduced. This marks a major turnaround for the company, in my opinion at least. Revenue is up 70%, and costs are down 54%. In July, we successfully raised capital on favorable terms, and we largely cleaned up our cap table. Our balance sheet has also improved. Our stockholders' equity is healthy for a micro-cap. Our operating businesses are growing, indeed thriving, and of course, we're executing an aggressive, I would say aggressive M&A growth plan, where we've made substantial progress over the last month. So I can confidently say that 2025 has been the most important period in our company's history so far. We've achieved the turnaround that was needed, and we're quickly moving towards profitable, scalable growth across the energy sector.

John-Paul Backwell

But with that said, to show you the details of this, I'll turn it over now to Frederico, who will walk you through some of the key events of 2025 so far and also discuss the recently published financial results. Thanks, Fred.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thank you, JP, and thanks everyone for watching our update. As noted, we have had a truly transformative first half, and also two defining months with all the developments in both July and August. As JP mentioned, we've been able to address the three Nasdaq delisting issues we had, namely stockholders' equity, minimum share price, and also the holding of our AGM. As part of this effort, we executed a 1-for-35 reverse split of our Class A ordinary shares. In addition, we raised over $8 million this year, which allowed us to strengthen our balance sheet, simplify our cap table, and also invest significantly into growth activities in both Al Shola Gas and Bright Hydrogen Solutions. Al Shola Gas continues to show strong and sustainable business growth, having secured engineering contracts for the next 18 months and also more than $1 million worth of recurring annual fuel sales.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

In Bright Hydrogen Solutions, the team has secured agent agreements with two globally leading hydrogen equipment providers and has already won several tender offers, which are now in the contracting process. In addition, the team is advancing towards the closing of the non-binding term sheet it secured for a EUR 30 million commitment for its new hydrogen investment vehicle. We expect further growth activities to take place before year-end, and in particular, we are working towards the closure of the M&A activities that we've announced, such as the U.K.-based fuel distribution company and the South African steam power generation joint venture, which JP will elaborate more on later in this presentation. Now onto our first half financials. The company recorded EUR 6.9 million in revenues for the first half, effectively all from Al Shola Gas, of which 55% came from recurring fuel distribution sales and 45% from engineering and maintenance contracts.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Historically, the fourth quarter has the highest fuel sales for the year, and therefore we expect continued growth from this channel this year. Our operating costs came in at just under EUR 3 million, a decrease of around 60% when comparing to the first half of last year. This reflects the substantial and fundamental change that the company has made to its business composition as we work to ensure long-term sustainability and move towards profitability. Some of these costs are tied to capital raises and SEC and Nasdaq-related activities, and we expect to further reduce these costs in the future. In the first half, we saw around EUR 1.5 million of one-off expenses driven by historic QIND personnel expenses, transaction-related expenses, and also taxes.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

As we've done with each result presentation, we continue to have non-cash share-based expenses related to equity-linked compensation and changes in underlying value of our outstanding warrants and convertible notes. I will note that as of end of August, nearly all of the convertible notes outstanding for Fusion Fuel have been converted and are no longer on the cap table or accruing interest. The EUR 490,000 adjustment shown in the presentation is a bridge between QIND's total annual loss and the portion that is actually attributable to Fusion Fuel. As Fusion Fuel owns 54% of QIND, only that share of the loss is recorded by Fusion Fuel, while the remaining 46% is allocated to minority shareholders. Including the minority shareholder adjustment, the group's total expenses for the year were about EUR 2.8 million, and adjusting for one-off costs and non-cash items, the loss comes down to roughly EUR 900,000.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

This really highlights the difference between where the company was and where it is today. There are some of the one-off items that are expected, while some other one-off items are expected in the second half of the year. The path towards break-even is now clear, and we're very much pointed towards sustainable profitability in the near future. Our balance sheet has continued to strengthen, although this is not yet reflected in the figures here, given that most of the improvements occurred in July and August. During this two-month period, EUR 4.3 million of total liabilities were removed from the balance sheet through a combination of note conversions and repayments of outstanding liabilities, reducing the value of the notes outstanding to approximately EUR 1.5 million today. We fully expect to show a substantially improved balance sheet by year-end, reflecting the actions already taken during this third quarter.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

We expect to deliver substantial revenue growth in 2025, up 70% from the adjusted revenue figures in 2024. In 2024, Fusion Fuel posted modest revenues as it could only formally consolidate one month of the QIND transaction. However, when we take into consideration the full QIND results for 2024, the revenues would have been around EUR 10 million versus our expected year-end revenues of EUR 17.4 million. Our revenue figures, although impressive, have been impacted by the weakening of the U.S. dollar against the euro. In U.S. dollars, our growth would have been even more pronounced, closer to a full doubling of the revenues posted. In addition, BrightHy, that operates in an industry with long lead times, has secured substantial first half revenues, sorry, first year revenues, and is in the process of closing contract negotiations for several million euros of business volume.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Equally as impressive has been the cost reduction efforts that we've been executing. Our operating expenses have reduced by more than 50%. In particular, the difficult and painful decision to close our loss-making and capital-intensive activities in Portugal has contributed significantly towards establishing a leaner, healthier cost base from which we can operate and grow sustainably. Our cost run rate is much lower than before, and with much of the first half impacted by one-off costs, we expect the operating expenses to continue to improve relative to our growing top line, both in the second half of 2025 as well as into 2026. Now I'll turn to our business update section of the presentation, starting with Bright Hydrogen Solutions, or BrightHy as we like to refer to it.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

For those who have followed Fusion Fuel for several years, you'll be acutely aware of the extensive hydrogen expertise that the group has developed from being one of the first companies to install multiple hydrogen projects in southern Europe. We've taken that deep engineering expertise and hydrogen-focused experience and created BrightHy, a company able to deliver best-in-class hydrogen solutions tailored to clients' needs. We've already developed key strategic relationships with some of the companies that we recognize as being industry leaders in the hydrogen equipment space. In addition, we have long-established relationships with players in the hydrogen industry from our five years of operations in the field, providing a healthy pipeline for the business. As we've recently announced, BrightHy has won various tenders for hydrogen projects in the past weeks.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

It's important to note that in the hydrogen project decision process, there is first the competitive tender process, and only after being selected as the provider for the project do we move forward to a one-on-one contract negotiation to finalize certain terms such as payment conditions and warranty requirements. The three projects that are in closing phase are a 2 MW project to support decarbonization efforts of a cement company in Iberia, a 0.6 MW project in Iberia where BrightHy will act as a procurement advisor, helping to identify the right equipment for the client, followed by integration and commissioning processes and services for that equipment, as well as a 15-megawatt engineering services contract for a plant in Iberia where BrightHy is responsible to deliver the full FEED engineering services.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

In addition to these projects, BrightHy is in the final tender rounds for several projects ranging from full project delivery and installation to specific equipment sales and engineering provisions. With this pipeline and ongoing projects underway, BrightHy is on track to achieve break-even within its first 12 to 15 months and targets revenues of up to EUR 5 million by 2026. Once again, BrightHy's unique experience in the space and its strategic partnerships continue to put it ahead of our competitors throughout these tender processes. BrightHy has a privileged position of having first access to many hydrogen projects, and we've seen a particular market opportunity to create an investment vehicle to invest in projects that we identify as extremely compelling and that have a strong investment case.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Therefore, we decided to create Bright Hydrogen Holding Company, which is focused on identifying hydrogen plants in the EUR 2 million-EUR 5 million range, ideally, that have attractive IRR and investment-grade off-take counterparts. The target is to gather investors to fund this investment vehicle that will be fully managed by BrightHy in exchange for a management and performance fee. With a capital base secured, BrightHy can support attractive projects by providing not only the hydrogen solution for the build-out but also the necessary project funding. For example, the project with the cement company, which will be the first hydrogen plant of the investment vehicle, is one where BrightHy can provide the client with a leasing-based financing solution. This allows the client to avoid the substantial upfront CapEx while delivering to the investment vehicle a project with an investment-grade counterpart and very attractive returns.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

BrightHy has already secured a term sheet for a EUR 30 million capital commitment for this investment vehicle, and the company and the investor are currently working together on the investment contract, governance documents, and responsibilities. This marks a truly strategic move by the company, securing its position in the southern European market and also helping us to be not only enablers of the hydrogen industry but also key drivers of it. Now I'll pass you to JP, who will provide an update on Al Shola Gas and on the M&A activities that we are working on. Thank you.

John-Paul Backwell

Thanks, Frederico. Right, so I will start with a quick refresher on Al Shola Gas. The company has been operating since 1980, and today it remains one of the most trusted gas engineering and supply companies in Dubai, where it's headquartered. So for those who don't know, and I suspect many don't, the Dubai market is extraordinary. Dubai is one of the world's fastest-growing economies, with construction and infrastructure development driving sustained demand for energy, which has in turn been driving our growth. It's one of the fastest-growing populations on the planet at the moment. So that's very important for our growth. And then it's also very important to note that our majority-owned subsidiary Quality Industrial Corp, or QIND, as it's known, has invested over $1 million in Al Shola Gas this year.

John-Paul Backwell

Based on the results so far, the business is on track to exceed its year-over-year growth average of 30%. We're very pleased with the progress we've been making in Al Shola Gas. In the first half of the year alone, Al Shola Gas secured approximately $6.7 million in new engineering and installation contracts. Additionally, the company is expected to generate approximately $1.7 million in annual recurring revenue from new gas supply agreements that it's been awarded. Today, we're certainly proud to say that Al Shola Gas services nearly 38,000 end customers in the region where it operates, and both our vehicle fleet and our operational team are rapidly expanding to meet ever-growing demand in the region. Looking at some key comparative metrics for the first half of 2025 versus the entire year of 2024, we can see that we're on track to surpass sales and deliveries in our main areas.

John-Paul Backwell

In the first six months, we're ahead of schedule for both new customers and new engineering contracts, and we're on pace to exceed the LPG sales from last year. Next slide. So firstly, looking at the engineering and installation side of our gas business, we have an experienced team that designs and engineers central gas systems, and you can see pictures of some of the work or the installations that take place. Additionally, we have a large and also experienced team that is out there in the heat of Dubai six days a week on construction sites installing central gas systems for our customers. And our customers are largely the region's main real estate developers and property management companies. Next slide. So we install and commission every part of each central gas system, and we're very proud of our safety record in the region.

John-Paul Backwell

We're also widely recognized by property developers and contractors in our region for the high quality and the reliability of our installations. Next slide, so just summarizing that progress on engineering and installation, we secured $4.5 million in new central gas system projects so far this year. What that means is we now have an 18-month backlog that provides us with clear visibility into reliable revenues through 2026. We're also expanding our team of engineering and installation experts so that we are ensuring that we can deliver new contracts efficiently. At the same time, we've also been growing our sales team. We can't be complacent, and we're doing that in order to increase our market share as we look to expand into neighboring Emirates and across the Middle East, and then on the bulk supply side. Next slide.

John-Paul Backwell

We deliver gas to customers in both bulk formats, as you can see on the left, with bobtail trucks and cylinder formats, as you can see on the right. Our fleet of vehicles includes both bobtail trucks for the bulk gas delivery and standard trucks which are converted to transport gas cylinders safely to our customers, and those include sort of hundreds of restaurants, commercial facilities, and residential customers. Next slide. As mentioned earlier, we obtained new contracts for bulk supply to the tune of approximately $1.7 million, and that amounts to recurring revenue, which is all important for Al Shola Gas. We also received over $500,000 in existing contract renewals, so that's from existing bulk supply contract customers. Our trucks are on the road up to 16 hours a day for bulk supply, that is. That's six days a week.

John-Paul Backwell

They're filling and refilling bulk LPG tanks at customer sites across Dubai. Very importantly on that bulk supply side is that we're achieving margins of over 40% on that supply side of our business, and that's a testament to the efficiency and the strength of our business in that area, and then to cater for the growth we're experiencing, we've also ordered two new bobtail trucks costing approximately $185,000 each, with the chassis and superstructures being imported from Europe. Now, we expect to add these new trucks to our fleet within the next three to four months. Each new bobtail truck generates six-figure roughly revenue monthly, approximately $100,000-$130,000 per bobtail truck in revenue that we're able to generate, so that's an example, a powerful example, I'd say, of our capital deployed into Al Shola Gas translates into rapid payback and sustainable growth across our business.

John-Paul Backwell

That's it regarding Al Shola Gas. I think simply put, Al Shola Gas is the backbone of Fusion Fuel's present-day drive towards consolidating profitability and a growth engine in its own right. Of course, let's move on to our all-important M&A growth strategy. I would say that our M&A growth strategy certainly extends well beyond our organic performance. We're actively pursuing strategic acquisitions to enhance and diversify our energy platform. The UK fuel distribution company, as you can see on the top right, is a deal that we are negotiating, and it's a perfect example of a profitable cash-generating business that complements our operations and significantly increases our scale. The business generates over $50 million in annual revenue and more than $12 million in net income annually. Importantly, we're advancing the acquisition without using dilutive capital.

John-Paul Backwell

So far, the acquisition terms and structure have been agreed upon, and we've made solid progress on the debt financing, bringing us closer to finalizing the transaction. And then beyond this, we've also signed a binding heads-of-terms agreement to establish a joint venture with a South African company called Alien Energy that was recently publicized in a press release. And in that joint venture, we will be holding a 51% stake. That joint venture will develop a large-scale biomass-powered steam energy project at a large dairy processing facility in South Africa. That facility is owned by a global multinational food and beverage company, and we would expect that after our investment in the joint venture, we will generate approximately $700,000 in annual returns starting in 2026.

John-Paul Backwell

Very importantly, we're also exploring additional projects with Alien Energy, considering the innovation and the reliability of their steam energy solutions, as well as the potential carbon credit benefits off the back end, and then for now, we have paused on the acquisition of a United States solar panel distribution company, which delivers quite significant revenue. However, we've been assessing the impacts of the recent renewable energy policies in the U.S., and we'll make a decision as time goes on during the remainder of this year. That said, we are still exploring several other U.S. acquisition opportunities, and then just to say regarding new acquisitions, we are disciplined, and we are targeting those that expand our customer base, that diversify our revenues, and provide immediate accretion to our earnings.

John-Paul Backwell

We believe that beyond our existing organic growth, this is how we will accelerate our growth curve as a company while also protecting value for our shareholders. And then finally, it's also important for me to update QIND shareholders on the transaction after Fusion Fuel acquired 69% of QIND in late November 2024. So the first step was to restore Nasdaq compliance, within which we've been successful. We've also invested heavily in Al Shola Gas, something which QIND, as an OTC company, could not have done alone. There's just no way that it would have been possible. And we're now in discussions with Nasdaq about how to treat the acquisition. So based on that, several steps may or may not remain, and depending on the feedback from Nasdaq, we will proceed accordingly. Of course, we will update QIND shareholders as soon as we have definitive information.

John-Paul Backwell

In the meantime, we're continuing to invest in the business and significantly expand it. And then next slide. So just as we begin to wrap up this update, I think it's quite clear that 2025 is already a year of transformation for Fusion Fuel. We are generating solid revenues and scaling up our businesses while moving quickly towards sustainable profitability. So far this year, we've raised capital on favorable terms, and we've strengthened our balance sheet quite significantly. And having, I would say, stabilized the company and achieved growth in our businesses, we are now focused on securing suitable debt finance for our next acquisition. We've worked very hard to address our Nasdaq compliance deficiencies, and we've achieved compliance in all areas. And then, as mentioned, we are delivering organic growth, but we are also fully aware that we cannot become complacent.

John-Paul Backwell

Therefore, as I mentioned, we are expanding our LPG vehicle fleet. We're adding new members to our operational teams, and we are continuously pushing into new markets in that area. We've also successfully launched Bright Hydrogen Solutions as our hydrogen subsidiary, and that's led by, as Frederico said, a renowned team that has directed some of the most prominent projects in the European green hydrogen sector. We're working on our first projects, and the results from the team's efforts are certainly expected to be seen by the end of this year and gaining substantial momentum into 2026. For me, that's very exciting. We're also in the process of launching our EUR 30 million infrastructure investment vehicle, which we expect to go live next year. Also very exciting. And then, of course, on the M&A front, as we've hopped on about a fair bit, but it's very important to our growth strategy.

John-Paul Backwell

We're in negotiations, and we are progressing on strategic acquisition targets as we aim to drive revenue well beyond EUR 75 million in 2026 and achieve double-digit profitability with those acquisitions, of course. Yes, I know it's ambitious, but then we've already made strong progress towards our goals this year. What remains now is to close our current transactions and kick off the acquisition and integration. So I guess in conclusion, our trajectory is clear. Fusion Fuel is evolving from a development-stage company into a profitable, diversified, and scalable energy platform. We are delivering significant revenue growth along with recurring revenues, while we are also very aggressively pursuing growth through both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions. We aim to increase the regions in which we operate around the world and position ourselves eventually as a leader in both today's energy market as well as tomorrow's clean energy future.

John-Paul Backwell

I think with that, I would trust, or we trust, that you found today's updates informative. Should you have any questions, and some of you may, please feel free to email us at [email protected]. I'll just repeat that for you. It's ir for investor relations, so [email protected], and we'll endeavor to respond to anything non-spam-related as soon as possible. Thanks again for your time. We really appreciate your support, and we look forward to updating you again soon. Bye for now.

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-09-11

Fusion Fuel Green PLC Announces Highlights of First Half 2025 Financial Results and Corporate Developments

GlobeNewswire

Dublin, Ireland, Sept. 10, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fusion Fuel Green PLC (“Fusion Fuel” or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: HTOO), a provider of integrated energy solutions, today announced highlights of its financial results and other corporate developments during the six months ended June 30, 2025. Period Highlights: The Company generated approximately €6.9 million in revenue during the six months ended June 30, 2025, compared to no revenue during the same period of the prior year, primarily due to its acquisition of the liquified petroleum gas (“LPG”) engineering and distribution operations of Quality Industrial Corp. in November 2024. The Company reported an operating loss of approximately €2.9 million for the six months ended June 30, 2025, compared to approximately €7.9 million for the six months ended June 30, 2024, driven by the Company’s reduction of loss-making operations. The Company held its annual general meeting, at which it obtained shareholder approval for all of the Company’s proposals. The Company gained an extension to regain compliance with certain Nasdaq listing rules and transferred its publicly-traded securities to The Nasdaq Capital Market tier of The Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”), allowing the Company to regain compliance with all applicable Nasdaq Listing Rules after the end of the period ended June 30, 2025. Fusion Fuel established Bright Hydrogen Solutions Ltd (“BrightHy Solutions”), a wholly owned subsidiary, as the Company’s relaunched hydrogen solutions platform, offering engineering advisory, equipment sourcing, and project oversight services. During the period, BrightHy Solutions signed strategic agency and commercial partnership agreements to extend its hydrogen services throughout Europe, Latin America, and Iberia, and a non-binding letter of intent for a €30 million commitment for hydrogen infrastructure investments. Fusion Fuel signed non-binding heads of terms to acquire a United Kingdom fuel distribution company, which, subject to negotiation of definitive agreements, would further expand the Company’s energy portfolio. “Over the first six months of 2025, we continued to make progress toward regaining compliance with all applicable Nasdaq Listing Rules, which we subsequently obtained, as announced in August 2025. Moreover, we reported approximately €6.9 million in revenue in the first half of 2025 compared to none during t...

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-06-26

Fusion Fuel Announces AGM Results: All Shareholder Proposals Approved

GlobeNewswire

DUBLIN, June 25, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via IBN – Fusion Fuel Green PLC (Nasdaq: HTOO) (“Fusion Fuel” or the “Company”), a leading provider of energy engineering, advisory, and utility solutions, today announced that all shareholder proposals were approved at the general meeting of shareholders held on June 25, 2025 (the “Annual General Meeting” or the “AGM”). This fulfills the Nasdaq requirement, as part of the Company’s delisting notice, to hold an Annual General Meeting. In addition, shareholder approval of the first proposal paves the way for a planned share consolidation (“Share Consolidation”) of the Company’s Class A Ordinary Shares (with a nominal value of $0.0001 per share) (the “Class A Ordinary Shares”) intended to raise the share price of the Class A Ordinary Shares above Nasdaq’s $1.00 minimum bid price requirement and position the Company to resolve this outstanding item. The Company plans to share details on the Share Consolidation and its timeline in the near future. John-Paul Backwell, CEO of Fusion Fuel, commented: “The AGM and the approval of all items mark another important step toward closing legacy issues and enabling management and the board of directors of the Company to focus on growth and delivering on the growth targets for the year. In particular, we look forward to continuing the strong trajectory of Al Shola Gas, advancing BrightHy Solutions, and executing on promising acquisition opportunities.” About Fusion Fuel Green PLC Fusion Fuel Green PLC (NASDAQ: HTOO) is an emerging leader in the energy services sector, offering a comprehensive suite of energy supply, distribution, and engineering and advisory solutions through its Al Shola Gas and BrightHy brands. Al Shola Gas provides full-service industrial gas solutions, including the design, supply, and maintenance of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) systems, as well as the transport and distribution of LPG to a broad range of customers across commercial, industrial, and residential sectors. BrightHy, the Company’s newly launched hydrogen solutions platform, delivers innovative engineering and advisory services enabling decarbonization across hard-to-abate industries. Forward-Looking Statements This press release includes “forward-looking statements.” Forward-looking statements may be identified by the use of words such as “estimate,” “plan,” “project,” “forecast,” “intend,” “will,”...

Investor releaseQuarter not tagged2025-04-28

Quality Industrial Corp. Reports Fiscal Year 2024 Results; Subsidiary Al Shola Gas Achieves 31.1% Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth

GlobeNewswire

SAN FRANCISCO, CA , April 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Quality Industrial Corp. (“QIND” or the “Company”) (OTC: QIND), an industrial and energy-focused company providing comprehensive solutions for the liquefied petroleum gas ("LPG") industry, today announced its financial results for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024. Through its operating subsidiary, Al Shola Gas, QIND offers consulting, design, supply, installation, and maintenance of LPG systems, as well as bulk and cylinder LPG distribution services. The Company serves a broad range of clients, including commercial buildings, mixed-use apartment complexes, shopping centers, food courts, heavy industries, labor accommodations, catering units, and commercial kitchens. Fiscal Year 2024 Highlights: Total Revenue: QIND reported total revenue of $11,177,567 for the year ended December 31, 2024, primarily driven by the acquisition and consolidation of Al Shola Gas beginning in April 2024. Subsidiary Performance: Al Shola Gas generated revenue of $14,268,840 for the twelve months ended December 31, 2024, representing a 31.1% increase compared to $10,839,209 in 2023. Operating Expenses: Operating expenses increased to $3,280,008 for 2024, compared to $2,766,256 in 2023. General and administrative expenses remained relatively consistent year-over-year but shifted from being primarily share-based expenses in 2023 to operating expenses of Al Shola Gas in 2024. Professional and Legal Fees: Professional fees increased to $849,925 in 2024 from $315,011 in 2023, driven by one-off expenses, including a reaudit of the Company's financials by its new auditor, Bush & Associates CPA ($95,000), and legal fees related to the Company’s merger with Fusion Fuel Green PLC, handled by Lucosky Brookman LLP ($525,994). Net Income: QIND achieved net income of $266,780 in 2024, compared to a net loss of $4,232,732 in 2023. Al Shola Gas contributed net income of $2,051,645 in 2024, an increase of 17.6% over 2023, factoring in a new 9% United Arab Emirates corporate tax provision implemented in 2024. John-Paul Backwell, Chief Executive Officer of QIND, commented: "We are pleased to report a significant turnaround in financial performance, driven by the consolidation of Al Shola Gas and sustained operational improvements. The early momentum in 2025, reflected in recent orders from both existing and new customers, positions us well...

TranscriptFY2024 Q12024-06-05

FY2024 Q1 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 33 paragraphs
Ben Schwarz

Hello everyone. Welcome to Fusion Fuel Green’s First Quarter 2024 Investor Update. My name is Ben Schwarz, and I lead Investor Relations. I would like to first remind everyone that some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management’s current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It’s possible that our actual results and financial condition may differ from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For discussion of some of the risks and important factors that affect Fusion Fuel’s future results, please see the risk factors in the company’s latest annual report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Fusion Fuel assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and shall not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. So, with that out of the way, thank you again for joining us today. I’ll briefly run through our agenda. As always, I’ll begin with an overview of Fusion Fuel, followed by some observations on the market and industry dynamics within the green hydrogen space. Gavin and Frederico will then review first quarter highlights, subsequent developments and commercial updates, including a deep dive into our pipeline, before wrapping up by checking in on our progress against our 2024 priorities. We’ll then open up the floor for facilitated Q&A. As in previous quarterly calls, questions can be entered in the chat box in the webcast platform at any point during the next hour. Alternatively, you can also submit your questions to the Investor Relations mailbox, which is [email protected]. So, without further ado, let’s begin again with a brief refresher on Fusion Fuel, our value prop, and positioning in the green hydrogen sector. So Fusion Fuel’s mission unchanged is to unlock the energy transition through the design and development of innovative green hydrogen solutions. Again, at the heart of everything we do is our proprietary HEVO micro-electrolyzer technology. It employs a simplified modular design and decentralized parallel architecture that unlocks multiple sources of advantage for us, including superior long-term performance, market-leading efficiency and high-throughput industrialized production. Our micro-electrolyzer technology lends itself to a turnkey building block approach to project development that delivers unprecedented flexibility and enables us to play competitively in small- to mid-scale projects, a segment of the market where we continue to see considerable demand growth. We’ve developed a complementary end-to-end service proposition that positions us to deliver solutions for our clients no matter where they are in their hydrogen journey, enabling us to capture a meaningfully greater portion of project spend. We’ve built a robust pipeline of actionable near-term green hydrogen projects with diverse avenues for monetizing value creation along the development cycle highlighted by our flagship IPCEI Project in Sines, Portugal. And finally, we are well positioned to take advantage of the significant growth ramp as the market develops with a large and diverse pipeline featuring projects across more than a dozen countries underpinned by our world-class electrolyzer production facility located in Portugal. So, next slide, please. As we’ve done for the last few quarters, we want to share our perspective on some dynamics within the green hydrogen sector that we hope will help contextualize our presentation today. The story of 2024 thus far is one of green hydrogen at a crossroads. Looking at the market as a whole, we’ve seen a lot of activity and investment further up the value chain over the last few years in improving electrolyzer technology and ramping production capacity. However, the demand side has been and still very much is a work in progress. The subsidy programs that many hoped would serve as a forcing function to create downstream demand have proven insufficient and the continued premium for green molecules is keeping much of the legacy consumers of hydrogen on the sidelines, reluctant to sign long-term offtake commitments. This asymmetry has created a challenging commercial and capital markets environment for electrolyzer manufacturers who really were banking on deployment of their large-scale centralized systems. But the picture isn’t all gloomy. We’re seeing a significant uptick in demand across emerging use cases, like commercial mobility, steel, cement manufacturing and other industrial applications. These projects tend to be smaller in scale, are typically for self-consumption, where the hydrogen is consumed on site as part of a production process. These projects also happen to be where we have historically focused our commercial efforts, as we believe our modular, scalable HEVO-Chain solutions are uniquely relevant for that segment of the market. Over the course of this presentation, we hope to convey the ways in which our tech and our end-to-end service proposition leaves us well positioned to create value for our customers and grow alongside them. So, with that, I’ll now introduce Gavin Jones, CFO of Fusion Fuel, to share some highlights from the first quarter of 2024.

Gavin Jones

Thank you, Ben. Good afternoon or morning to all of you who have joined our first quarter investor update call. During the first quarter, we received notification of the European Commission’s acceptance of our HEVO-Portugal Project as an important project of common European interest for IPCEI. Frederico will provide an update on this project later in the presentation. We raised net proceeds of €5.9 million through our ATM facility during February, with the lion’s share of this being raised on February 16th, when we witnessed unprecedented trading volume following the above IPCEI award. We were rewarded a separate grant from the European Commission as part of the H2tALENT consortium. The total value of this award was just above €1 million and we are currently finalizing our first drawdown. We received provisional grant approval for our 25-megawatt HEVO-Aveiro green hydrogen project. This grant represents an estimated €5 million in grant funding. The grant approval was awarded as part of the second funding call of the Portuguese Government’s C-14 grant program, which is focused on accelerating the energy transition by supporting the production of hydrogen and other renewable gases. For those familiar with the Fusion Fuel story, one of our projects in Sines was previously awarded €10 million as part of the first funding call of the same program. The company is also involved in a second submission for a 10-megawatt green hydrogen project led by a Portuguese Industrial Company, which has also received funding approval. Our HEVO-Aveiro project will have our HEVO-Chain technology installed, along with the associated balance of plant equipment. This plant will produce an estimated 2,100 tons of green hydrogen per annum, which is expected to be used by the local ceramic industry. Finally, we convened an EGM to secure shareholder approval, allowing the company’s Board of Directors to allot securities above the 20% annual cap imposed under Irish law. After the end of the first quarter, we drew down on the first tranche of the Macquarie facility, which amounted to $1.15 million. We intend to work with Macquarie to finalize a second closing on the facility as soon as possible. We completed the installation of a 300-kilowatt HEVO-Chain system for a global cement leader. Frederico will also discuss this project in a bit more detail. This morning, we announced that we signed a technology sale contract for a 100-kilowatt HEVO-Chain system for a hospital client in Iberia. The hospital intends to capture the green oxygen created as a byproduct of the electrolysis process for medical applications and to use the green hydrogen generated to produce emissions-free power for the facility. The project also includes an R&D work stream aimed at developing and testing new materials for our HEVO technology. And finally, we continue to widen our strategic commercial relationships. These relationships reflect a strong perception of our technology and engineering capabilities. As we deliver small- to mid-scale projects, our strategy is laser-focused on creating follow-on opportunities, which in turn will add value to the company as we continue to increase the track record of our HEVO technology. We will now move on to the financial results for the first quarter. Please note that all values discussed are in euros unless stated otherwise. No revenue was recognized during the first quarter. At the end of the quarter, we had €0.7 million of inflows that did not meet the revenue recognition requirements, and instead, these amounts will be recognized as revenue later in 2024. Given the nature of our contracts, the key driver of revenue recognition is delivery or client acceptance. I had noted previously that our 2024 revenues would be weighted towards the second half of the year. For our 300-kilowatt HEVO-Chain system that has been installed, the milestone for revenue recognition is client acceptance. This will take place after the commissioning phase is completed. We continue to sell or scrap our legacy HEVO-Solar materials and received inflows of €0.24 million during the first quarter. These sales have continued into the second quarter and we will continue to realize as much as possible from the components previously impaired. We did not book any impairments during the first quarter. You may remember from our fourth quarter presentation that we had some credits recorded against our operating cost base relating to grant inflows. These credits were not repeated during the first quarter and this is why we are showing an increase in our SG&A. Once we excluded the credits from the fourth quarter expenses, our cost base decreased by €1.5 million. This is the fifth consecutive quarter that we recorded a reduction to our operating cost base. Our cost base continues to be a source of focus and we achieve further reductions in areas like motor, travel, legal and general operating expenses. The pre-tax loss for the quarter amended to €5.1 million and included non-cash items relating to share-based compensation expense of €0.6 million, depreciation and amortization of €0.7 million and a fair value loss associated with our warrants of €0.6 million as our derivative liability increased. The non-current assets and inventory balances are shown net of historical impairment charges. The increase to inventory is down to two items. One being the reduction of the provision for impairment as items of legacy inventory were sold or scrapped. And the second being purchases made to fulfill our current technology projects. Until we recognize the revenue associated with technology sales, the equipment and materials related to this revenue remain part of the inventory. In May, we received a deficiency notice from NASDAQ regarding our shareholders’ equity. Under the listing rules of the NASDAQ Global Market, companies are required to maintain a minimum of $10 million in shareholders’ equity. We have 45 days to submit a plan to NASDAQ to regain compliance. If that plan is accepted, NASDAQ can grant an extension of up to 180 days to execute the agreed plan. We are finalizing this plan and it will be submitted in advance of the 45 days permitted. The notice has no immediate effect on the listing of our ordinary shares, which continue to trade on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol HTOO. Our bank balance was just over €1.5 million on March 31st. Since then, we have received $1.15 million from Macquarie along with various other customer inflows. Following the drawdown of tranche one of the Macquarie facility, we notified the placement agents of the termination of the ATM sales agreement. As mentioned earlier, our EGM took place during the first quarter. Under Irish law, the company must have authority from its shareholders to issue any securities. The company’s shareholders previously authorized the company to issue securities of up to 20% of the issued ordinary shares of the company during any calendar year. We sought and received approval from the company’s shareholders to provide the company with authority to issue securities above and beyond this 20% cap. We continue to believe that uncertainty around our capital position is the greatest concern of the market and that resolving the capital constraint will remedy our long-standing valuation disconnect relative to our peers. As noted in previous updates, we continue to explore multiple options to solidify our capital position. A priority of ours is to exit cash burn by the end of 2025 and to do this we will need to reinforce our balance sheet. A strengthened balance sheet should assure our teams, investors and shareholders that the company is sufficiently equipped to achieve its goals and targets. It also provides our customers with further assurances that the warranties that are being offered as part of our technology contracts can be fulfilled. The shareholder approval allows management to move quickly and decisively in the event of a prospective capital raise or strategic partnership. We have significant grant amounts expected for 2024 which will mostly be to reimburse us for spend relating to R&D, our production facility and engineering services for our projects. Due to the strengthening of our balance sheet in February and as we are now receiving customer inflows regularly, we are satisfied that the operational inflows coupled with the drawdowns from the Macquarie facility provide us with a runway to execute the capital raise efforts in progress. As noted in our investor letter, we intend to secure strategic and structural financing that will enable us to execute our business plan and accelerate growth. Finally, I am -- I want to confirm that we are maintaining our guidance for 2024 which was communicated earlier this year. I will now pass you over to our CEO, Frederico, who will provide a commercial update.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thank you, Gavin. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I’m thrilled to be able to share with you the latest images from our project with cement major in Spain. This is not only the first commercial installation of the HEVO-Chain system but is also the first project where we are also capturing the oxygen released in the process. This 300 kilowatt facility was a turnkey solution delivered by Fusion Fuel. We took the work on from the conceptual design through all the engineering work required and finally the supervision of the installation and commissioning. It’s a special project in the green hydrogen world as it is commercially viable already without financial support and grants. This is pretty unique in the hydrogen market today. One of the main concerns for such an installation is the availability of the hydrogen and ensuring the production does not stop and impact the operation of the kiln. This is where our HEVO-Chain system truly differentiates itself. The system is made up of 15 HEVO-Chain cubes, each operating independently. Therefore, any issue with any underlying HEVOs will not impact the continuity of the plant’s operation. We see a significant competitive advantage for our solution in the sector with both the performance of our system and the availability advantages. And as outlined in our letter, we have already received multiple requests for follow-on proposals from the same client and others in this industry. This plant is finalizing its installation and starting the commissioning process now. As mentioned, the commercial advantages of our offering are substantial for the market we are focusing on. We are not the solution for every challenge in the green hydrogen space, but for the sub-10 megawatt plants and where availabilities are concerned, we have an excellent solution. We have a market-leading system efficiency for the electrolyzer system, thereby reducing the cost of green hydrogen produced. We can ensure strong availability of a hydrogen plant both through an industry-leading nominal load range, meaning that we can produce hydrogen even with the smallest power inputs to a system, as well as with the modular design of the system. This modularity, as I mentioned previously, allows us to be able to do partial system shutdowns when operational maintenance work is required, thereby minimizing the risk of production stoppages for clients. This applies to both the container and the cube solutions. The modularity and independent operation also brings another strong advantage. Given the operational independence of each of our HEVOs, we’re able to significantly reduce the contagion effects that occurs in traditional systems. In many systems, if one membrane has accelerated degradation or performance issues, it can contaminate an entire stack. In our case, each HEVO is its own independent stack, and therefore, an issue in one does not impact the broader system. Lastly, our plug-and-play models -- modules allow us to deliver to a client a system perfectly sized to their needs, while also allowing for a simple scale-up of a plant later if the hydrogen need increases. We have recently been working with partners where they have requested a phased increase in electrolyzer capacity over several years and our system can manage those requirements extremely well. For the next two slides, I’d like to focus on our commercial pipeline and the offers that we have outstanding. As you may recall, we truly started marketing the HEVO-Chain solution in the third quarter of last year. The shift we made last year from the HEVO-Solar to the HEVO-Chain solution massively increased our addressable market and it -- and makes it significantly easier for clients to understand our system. Also, towards the end of last year, we made a concerted effort to broaden our reach beyond our home markets of Portugal and Spain. Since then, I’m pleased to note that we have a very strong pipeline with over 200 megawatts of offers and tenders made to clients in 16 different markets. We’re very happy to see the traction we’re seeing in the market with our offering, and as expected, most of our offers are for under 10 megawatts. This is really the segment where our HEVO-Chain system differentiates itself from the rest of the markets. To expand further on our pipeline, as mentioned, we have broadened our market reach substantially, although most large projects continue to be in Portugal and Spain, given our local presence and strong renewable energy profile in these markets. In terms of number of offers outstanding, it’s a near 50-50 split between Iberia and the rest of the world. A trend we believe will continue to develop further with the rest of the world growing over time. In terms of types of proposals, the majority of the offers outstanding lie in the 5 megawatts or under category. This is deliberate and it fits with our commercial strategy, as this fits our solution particularly well. But also because the majority of early green hydrogen projects being made and actually being undertaken are small projects. The industry has not yet proven its ability to deliver consistently large systems and government actions are continuously delayed. Therefore, we believe that apart from a few projects, most of the actual installation efforts in the next couple of years will be in the small- to mid-sized project range. As we have highlighted in the past, our engineering expertise, our hydrogen market experience has been a real asset in proposals and in discussions with clients. As you can see here, over 80% of our offers offer services in addition that include electrolysis provision, as well as engineering services or balance of equipment purchasing. This means that we’re able to capture a bigger share of wallet of the hydrogen projects we’re involved in. The push of full plant solution, as well as the focus on small projects, is all in the spirit of seeking the client who needs our product, be it electrolyzer or hydrogen engineering expertise. Now changing gears slightly, I’d like to briefly update on our own project portfolio. To remind everyone, several years ago, our focus was to create our own hydrogen projects to develop our own pipeline, as our technology was very new. We currently have six development projects that are fully owned by Fusion Fuel, where we have the intention to either sell the projects to a third-party infrastructure player or partner with a capital player on these. The heart of this portfolio is the Sines projects. We’re showing the first quarter was designated an important project of common European interest, then IPCEI, and I’ll go into more details on that on the next slide. The remaining three projects listed here continue their development journey, both in the negotiations with hydrogen off-takers, as well as with potential project investors. Most recently, the Aveiro project was awarded a grant during the first quarter as well. So now all projects in our portfolio have government funding awarded, are in various stages of negotiations with investors and partners. We believe that this portfolio will provide a substantial added value to the pipeline we outlined before and bring substantial value-add to our shareholders as well. For those that have a good memory, you will notice this is the same slide that we used last quarter on our Sines IPCEI. However, this is such a substantial project that we wanted to highlight it again and provide a short update with what we can say at this stage. So after four years of submitting the request for IPCEI consideration, along with substantial work and replying to all the various queries over this time, we finally received confirmation that our project was designated an IPCEI project by the European Commission. This 630-megawatt project, which incorporates our Sines 1 and 2 projects as well, that already have grants from Portugal’s Government, looks to supply 62,000 tons of green hydrogen per year and aim to avoid 650,000 tons of CO2 per year, all with the goal of being installed by the end of the decade. With the IPCEI designation, we can get support from the Portuguese Government, the European Investment Bank and apply to the European Innovation Fund, all to help cover the premium associated with the green hydrogen production versus traditional grey hydrogen production costs. This provides this project with substantial value. The project is too large Fusion Fuel to undertake alone, as we’ve mentioned before. We’re actively in discussions and negotiations with partners regarding this project, looking to secure very meaningful value to the company and shareholders over the long-term. Given its size and the due diligence work required as part of these negotiations, we still expect it to be several months before we can share with you the outcome of those ongoing discussions. Earliest we would say is end of summer, but these can obviously go on for quite a long time. Recently, we were awarded a substantial Work Package worth €1 million for a project called H2tALENT, which spans six markets and includes a consortium of 28 parties that is supported by government grants. This project directly relates to our IPCEI and the injection into the Sines hydrogen backbone, as it is paying for the FEL I and II studies for our Sines projects. It also includes further developing our demonstration plant and capabilities in Aveiro. We’re pleased to be part of this project and of having the opportunity to build relationships for the future with the other 27 members of the consortium. In addition, we’re proud to be part of the only green hydrogen valley in Europe’s clean hydrogen joint undertaking that is led from Portugal, cementing our leadership position in this market. Now, before we go into Q&A, we want to cover the 2024 priorities and value drivers. We are on our way to deliver five to six full HEVO-Chain systems to European clients this year, five of which are full project deliveries. Of course, the installation of the first system we mentioned previously is a critical step in that journey. To note, we can install a project today in less than four weeks for the HEVO-Chain system, given its plug and play nature. Strengthening our balance sheet remains a vital task in which Gavin, Ben and I are all closely involved in. These discussions have been in the works for a significant time, but given the sensitive nature to them, we can only provide information on these once they’ve closed. Having Macquarie line now operational is an important tool for the company in this effort. Of course, as Gavin mentioned, we’re looking to secure more strategic sources of capital so that we can fund ourselves clearly through to cash flow breakeven, something that we feel will go a long way to address the valuation disconnect between Fusion Fuel and our competitors. As mentioned earlier in the presentation, we have made significant strides in broadening our commercial reach, and during this year, we want to further solidify that by certifying our product for the North American and Australian markets. On the cost front, we continue to make progress. You heard before from Gavin that we have reduced operational costs for five consecutive quarters. At the same time, we’ve increased the efficiency of the HEVO production line. With now more than 12,000 single HEVOs produced, as a reminder, each HEVO is a miniaturized stack, our production team has significantly optimized the production process and we have already surpassed the reduction of 50% of product transformation costs from about a year ago on this current HEVO generation and expect to reach a reduction of 70% in those transformation costs by year end. These are not the raw material costs, but the costs related to the creation of the product in-house. This is a phenomenal achievement by the production team. Lastly, we have established relationships with multi-project developers for portfolios of small projects. As noted, this is where we see activity in the near future and being able to work on multiple projects with single clients means that we can efficiently grow our pipeline. Three of those clients that we are currently working with have portfolios that would signify around €90 million in potential business for Fusion Fuel, for services that include electrolyzer provision and engineering services. We see this as an important angle for us to keep developing and we will continue to pursue these type of relationships. With that, I’ll close the first portion of the update and ask that we move on to the Q&A portion of the session. Thank you very much.

A - Ben Schwarz

Great. Thanks, Frederico. So, we’ve got some questions in via email, as well as through the webcast platform. A reminder, anybody who has questions, please submit them. So, I’ll begin with some questions from a couple of our analysts or I’ll begin with Erwan Kerouredan from RBC Capital Markets, who asks why we elected not to provide a formal update on our 2024 revenue guidance.

Gavin Jones

Thanks, Ben. Yeah. So, I think, just in terms of the guidance that we previously communicated, we’re maintaining our guidance, sorry, that I mentioned in my session, and we’re maintaining the guidance for 2024 as it remains our best estimate. We haven’t had any substantive information since we last communicated, so felt it appropriate to keep it as it is. As Frederico mentioned during his session, we’re working hard to monetize the Sines portfolio, but this will take time. We had previously included or still include revenues from our Sines portfolio in that guidance, but until we have further clarity on the current process, I think, it would be inappropriate for us to revise the guidance right now and that’s why we’re remaining with the same position.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Gavin. Next question concerns the certification process for HEVO-Chain in North America and Australia. What are the steps required to achieve that milestone?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thanks, Ben. So, this is really engaging with an external certification company, such as TUV. So, what we have going on with them is capturing all the certifications and requirements needed for those markets and then the HEVO-Chain goes out for testing with them to ensure compliance with all of those. This is something that we expect to be able to execute by year-end and this is a timeline that we are working on with our external partners.

Ben Schwarz

Sticking with HEVO-Chain, can you provide any customer feedback that the company has received with respect to that solution?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So, the -- as I note, we are installing the first customer unit now at the cement factory. So, as I say, we’re currently finishing the installation, going into the commissioning process. I would note that the fact that we’ve been asked by the same clients to provide four other plant proposals for their -- some of their other cement plants will be -- is a pretty good indication of the -- that they are content with our service and our solution there. However, the plant hasn’t yet gone live.

Ben Schwarz

And a final question from Erwan. Can you provide any commentary on how much capital the company is looking to raise to secure or strengthen the balance sheet this year?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

I don’t think we’ve provided, before we get ourselves into trouble, I don’t think we have provided a specific number in the past. So, I want to make sure that we don’t move into that space. However, we’d note, and as Gavin noted before, that we have -- we want to reach our cash flow break even towards the end of the year, end of 2025, sorry, apologies. And that we have, on average, a band rate of somewhere around between €1.2 million, €1.3 million per month. It’s not exactly flat month-by-month because we get inflows from grants, from clients, et cetera. But that could give an indication if someone is looking to work a sort of rough range for themselves. Of course, how much we’d want to raise also depends on how actively and so on we execute the facility as well.

Gavin Jones

Exactly. I’ll just add to that, if that’s okay. As part of our previous guidance, we expect to have between €8 million to €10 million in CapEx throughout 2024. So, again, that kind of adds on to the point that Frederico mentioned in terms of working that out. But again, just want to reiterate that, that spend will continue to be dependent on the inflows. So whether it be client billings, the financing activities that have been mentioned and those grants that have been so important to us recently.

Ben Schwarz

Okay. Moving on to a couple of questions from Jeff Grampp at Alliance Global Partners. Frederico, you touched on, in the question around customer feedback, you touched on these follow-on opportunities from the cement customer. Do you have a timing expectation for when that customer may decide on the additional projects that have been proposed?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

We don’t. The four projects are in three different markets. Let’s call it two projects for one market and the other two for the two different markets. So we’re working through with them on those projects now. For us, the natural stage here is that after the go-live would be when, any decision, I don’t expect any decision to be taken before the go-live. The go-live being only in less than 10 days for the plants. But, of course, as we’ve seen with hydrogen, final decisions can always be delayed.

Ben Schwarz

Speaking with the subject of technology sales or that part of the business, we mentioned in the presentation 73% of projects in the pipeline are under 5 megawatts. Within that bucket, are you able to further parse that to an average project size?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. The average project size is around 3 megawatts from those under 5 megawatts size. However, I will note they range all the way from 0.1 megawatts all the way to 5 megawatts. So a substantial amount of the 1s megawatts in that bucket are at the 5 megawatts range. But the simple average is 3 megawatts.

Ben Schwarz

Great. Moving now to the product development side of the business. Can you provide an update on the status of some of those prospective project sales? Are there any timing risks related to the expiration or sunset of grant funding?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Yeah. This is a very good question. Of the projects, the grants have a deadline of 2025 or 2026, with the exception of Sines 1, which has an expiration date of this year. That said, because it is incorporated in our Sines 1 portfolio, we have already asked for the extension of the timeline to fit with the overall Sines IPCEI. So because this is all being negotiated and discussed as one package, this has been explained and discussed with the grant authorities why that extension is required. So we do not expect at this time that to be an issue, but that would be the risk that we currently see for the Sines 1. Only the others are further down the line.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. And lastly, at what stage would you characterize the conversations with the prospective partner for the IPCEI project and can you touch on any expectations that you may have on timeline for due diligence?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Also, they have put a substantial team, including two or three external policies involved in the due diligence. This process has been ongoing for a couple of months now. So I would say pretty advanced on the due diligence stage, but just starting the negotiation stage at this point in time.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. Now, moving on to questions from the audience. There were a couple of questions on the NASDAQ non-compliance notice. Gavin, perhaps, you can provide some commentary here. With respect to the plan to comply with the $10 million equity requirement, noting that the 45-day period ends in two weeks?

Gavin Jones

Yeah. Thanks, Ben. So I think our requirement is to submit a plan to NASDAQ within the 45 days. I think in terms of going through the plan in detail here is just not appropriate. We are confident and pretty comfortable with our plan and where the equity is currently. Again, we’re looking at March 31 numbers as part of this presentation. So things have obviously changed, as I think is mentioned in the chat with the Macquarie drawdown as well, which obviously improves the equity situation. So I think to be respectful to NASDAQ, we will present that plan to them and then once we have discussions with them, we will make the appropriate filings and press releases subsequent to those conversations.

Ben Schwarz

I would just note two things. The first, it was a question with respect to following the ATM, the proceeds from the ATM sales in February and then the first drawdown on the tranche of the Macquarie facility. How is it that the company does not have sufficient equity to meet that requirement? That non-compliance was based on our published audited financials at the end of 2023. So the delisting notice does not take into account any additional equity generated or created during 2024. The other thing I’d mention is we also have the option to transfer to the NASDAQ capital markets, which has a lower, I think, it’s $2.5 million equity requirement among other less stringent criteria. So that’s the other context that I would provide there that would provide some comfort to the audience. There’s a question here on opportunities in the U.S. market and whether management feels that that market could represent a significant source of growth for the company once the Treasury Department finalizes the highly anticipated guidelines with respect to $3 per kilogram PTC?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Look. Absolutely, this is even just as recently as today, we’ve been submitting an offer for the U.S. markets. So we certainly think that the U.S. market is a critical market for the hydrogen industry and for Fusion Fuel in the future. There is a reason why we want to make sure that our product is certified for the North American markets. So, yes, expansion into the U.S. market is something that definitely is in our books. We do work with a number of partners in that region, as we’ve announced already. It’s Electus Energy, Elemental Energy, so on and others. So we do put significant amounts of time where possible to develop our relationships for that market.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. Sticking with the U.S. market, do you have -- is there an update that you can provide on the Bakersfield project, which -- it’s if the folks -- this was now a couple of years ago, it was an announcement of a partnership with Electus Energy to develop a, I believe it’s a 500 megawatt project, 300 project in Bakersfield, California.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

It’s a -- for the moment’s sake, a 70-megawatt or so project…

Ben Schwarz

Okay.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

… in California. But as noted and as we’ve seen everywhere, all of the large scale projects are getting significantly delayed. Of course, the fact that the clarity on the U.S., the guidelines for the IRA are not yet out, doesn’t yet encourage people to put substantial money at risk. So, for our side, we are partners on that project, but we are not in the lead. So we, I think, as expected, and as with the project has significant delays, our priority right now, especially with the U.S. market, is in trying to focus on the projects of 10 megawatts and under for the next few years.

Ben Schwarz

Thank you. Last question here from the audience is for Gavin and it concerns the runway for the current cash position.

Gavin Jones

Yeah. Sure. So, as I mentioned earlier on, we are satisfied with the current operational inflows, such as client payments, grant inflows or VAT receipts, and coupled with the drawdowns from the Macquarie facility. I think this provides us with a runway to execute the capital raise efforts that Frederico and I have mentioned on this call. I think, if we look at the key events, recently was the operationalized -- operation -- operating the Macquarie facility and now that we have that up and running, it should provide us with greater flexibility in accessing the facility as needed. For those who remember, we announced that back in November. So it has taken a bit longer for us to draw down, due to multiple reasons, but we’ve done it, and I think, as I said, that will provide us with the flexibility going forward.

Ben Schwarz

Excellent. One more question here that I missed. With respect to production capacity at Benavente, can you touch on current and anticipated production capacity from that facility?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Yeah. Certainly. Very happy to. Since we are at the -- as I mentioned, the production team have done a phenomenal job as increasing the efficiency of actually producing the HEVOs. So, now one production line we have going on can make 40 megawatts of electrolyzers per year. The great thing about the way that our production facility is actually structured and it goes to the -- also the point that Gavin mentioned before on some of the CapEx that we’ve already invested and we will also need to continue to pay throughout the rest of 2024, is that with less than or somewhere between investment of €1 million to €1.5 million, we’re able to more than double the production capacity. So, we’re really, really, from a production side, really well placed to grow and grow in a very cost-efficient manner. We can go from 30 to 80 all the way to 120 with effectively minimal spent, most likely every sort of doubling of the production capacity with an investment of between €1 million to €1.5 million, given the robots and the machines we have today. So it’s a good question.

Ben Schwarz

Okay. Thank you, Frederico. One last question in, again, touching on the NASDAQ issue, asking how many shares Fusion Fuel has at the moment. I believe that’s 17.4 million shares outstanding with respect to the $10 million equity issue. So I think the answer to this question is two-fold. Again, one, we have -- again, we have the option to transfer to the capital markets, which has a less stringent listing criteria and a $2.5 million equity requirement, shareholder equity requirement. Additionally, that we are only required to submit our plan to regain compliance with that $10 million stockholder requirement at the end of that 45-day period. So I think we have been clear about our intention to capitalize the company. Doing so would certainly address that concern and multiple concerns, frankly. And we only need to, I believe we have 180 days in which to regain compliance once presenting that plan. So, again, we don’t need to regain compliance at the end of that 45-day period just to provide NASDAQ with a credible plan to do so. So hopefully that answers that question. And in the absence of any additional questions, I guess we will call it a little bit early for our first quarter webcast. So thank you to everyone who joined and asked questions. If there are additional questions or if you’d like to schedule a call with either myself or members of management, please feel free to reach out to me and the IR team at, again, [email protected]. And we look forward to seeing you all again at our next update.

TranscriptFY2023 Q42024-03-06

FY2023 Q4 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 30 paragraphs
Ben Schwarz

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Fusion Fuel Green's Fourth Quarter 2023 Investor Update. My name is Ben Schwarz, and I'm Head of Investor Relations at Fusion Fuel. I'd first like to remind everyone that some of the information provided during the conference call may contain statements of future expectations and other forward-looking statements. These expectations are based on management's current views and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. It's possible that our actual results and financial condition may differ from the anticipated results and financial condition indicated in these forward-looking statements. For a discussion of some of these risks and important factors that could affect Fusion Fuel's future results see the risk factors in the company's latest Annual Report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC. Fusion Fuel assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information provided during the conference call and should not be liable for any action taken in reliance upon such information. Okay. With that out of the way, thank you all for joining us today. In terms of our agenda for the next hour, kick things off with an overview of Fusion Fuel with some thoughts on the hydrogen market and industry dynamics. Frederico and Gavin will then review highlights from 2023, fourth quarter results on the commercial updates, including the exciting announcement of our recent IPCEI designation earlier this year before wrapping up with a discussion of our 2024 priorities. We'll then open up the floor for facilitated Q&A. As in our previous quarterly calls, questions could be entered in the chat box in the webcast platform at any point during the next hour. You can also submit your questions directly to the Investor Relations mailbox at [email protected]. So let's begin with a refresher on Fusion Fuel, our value proposition and positioning in the green hydrogen market. So our mission is to unlock the transition through the design and development of innovative green hydrogen solutions. At the heart of everything we do is our proprietary HEVO micro-electrolyzer technology, which employs a simplified and modularized architecture that creates multiple sources of advantage for us, including high throughput and industrialized production and a scalable building block approach, enabling us to play competitively in small to mid-scale projects, a segment of the market where we're seeing considerable demand today. We've built a robust European pipeline of actionable near-term green hydrogen projects with diverse avenues for monetizing value creation along the development cycle highlighted by the recent designation of our HEVO-Portugal Project as an Important Projects of Common European Interest. More on that later. We have a differentiated and complementary business model that positions us as one of the few green hydrogen players that can credibly deliver truly end-to-end solutions, supporting clients throughout their green hydrogen journey. And finally, we're well positioned to take advantage of a significant growth plan as the market develops with an extensive long-term project pipeline and a world-class production facility located in Portugal as we mentioned for 500 megawatts of annualized production. On the next slide; so a couple of observations on the green hydrogen market to help ground today's discussion. It should come as you know a great surprise that 2023 was a difficult year in the green hydrogen space. What was expected to be an inflection point turned out to be, in many ways, a step back as we saw a deceleration of commercial activity. There are multi factors that drove this dynamic, some of which we've touched on previously, including technological immaturity, regulatory uncertainty, persistent cost premium for green molecules and a lack of access to project financing among others. One of the downstream impacts of the delay in market development is that it has extended the timeline to profitability for many market participants, prompting greater attention from investors on capital discipline and triggering a shift in strategy towards more sustainable balanced growth. We did see -- start to see some signs of life in the fourth quarter, which we'll discuss a little bit later, capped by the announcement of the Hy2Infra IPCEI program last month, which has the potential to catalyze the European green hydrogen market and address a longstanding infrastructure bottleneck. It's not unreasonable to expect some of these more structural headwinds to persist into 2024, but these challenges also present an opportunity for differentiation. As Frederico and Gavin will explain over the course of the next half hour, we believe Fusion Fuel is well positioned to overcome these challenges and capitalize on the emerging opportunities we see in front of us. So with that, I'll now introduce Gavin Jones, CFO of Fusion Fuel, to share some highlights from the fourth quarter of 2023.

Gavin Jones

Thank you, Ben. Good afternoon or morning to all of you who have joined our fourth quarter investor update call. I'm joining today from our offices at Ireland. During the fourth quarter, we received two separate purchase orders for a combined €4.2 million of revenue. These projects will serve as customers in Portugal, and will include the supply of our HEVO-Chain products along with bonds of plant equipment and EPC services and will each represent a 1.25-megawatt system. In addition, we entered into a securities purchase agreement with Belike Nominees, a Macquarie Group Company. After the end of the fourth quarter, we received notification of the European Commission's acceptance of our HEVO-Portugal Project as an Important Project of Common European Interest. Frederico will cover what this IPCEI stamp means for Fusion Fuel later in his presentation. We raised net proceeds of €5.9 million through our ATM facility during February, with the lion's share of this being raised on February 16 when we witnessed unprecedented trading volume following the IPCEI award. And finally, last week, we were awarded a separate grant from the European Commission as part of the H2tALENT consortium. The total value of this award is just above €1 million. We will now move on to the financial results for the fourth quarter. Please note that all values discussed are in euros unless stated otherwise. We recognized €1.6 million in revenue during the fourth quarter. This represents the revenue related with our manufacturing and supply of a hydrogen production system to CSIC. As a reminder, CSIC is the largest public research institution in Spain and this project is based in Zaragoza. This contract has three phases. And during 2023, we completed Phase I and Phase II with Phase III scheduled for completion during the first half of 2024. In addition to the revenues recorded, we had €0.6 million of inflows that did not meet the revenue recognition requirements and instead these amounts will be recognized as revenue during 2024. As you may remember from our second quarter investor presentation, we booked our provision against components within our inventory that were manufactured to legacy design. During the fourth quarter, we recorded a net increase of €6.4 million to this impairment provision and recorded a separate impairment charge of €3.3 million relating to one of our development projects. These significant impairments are for specific components included in the legacy HEVO solar bracket. When we carried out the reviews of the inventory components during the second half of 2023, we fully expect to utilize these components for sales to a third party. As recently as last week, it became apparent that selling these components will not be a short-term solution as negotiations with prospective buyers have stalled. When coupled with the changes in regulation and licensing that saw us give up on the HEVO solar project and that make installing HEVO solar units significantly more complicated -- management has decided to impair the full value until such a time that we have further certainty on our ability to sell or scrap these materials. Some of these components were capitalized within noncurrent assets with the remainder recorded within inventory. We have several of our people dedicated to recovering as much as possible from the legacy inventory that has been impaired during 2023. Since we first started to scrap these legacy components, we've been able to recognize inflows of €0.6 million, which have been received between August 2023 and February 2024. We fully expect these recent impairments to close the chapter on the write-downs related to HEVO solar, and we look forward to fully turning the page to HEVO Chain. In our investor letter, we alluded to a feeling of before and after. The impairment of legacy materials is another step forward and towards the next stage of our life cycle as a company. Our operating costs decreased for the fourth consecutive quarter. We saw a reduction to our personnel-related costs when compared to the third quarter. This was mainly due to the allocation of a grant inflow against qualifying personnel costs. In addition, we recorded further adoptions to legal, travel and consulting fees. The pretax loss for the quarter amounted to €12.3 million, which was mostly driven by noncash items relating to impairment charges of €9.7 million; share-based compensation expense of €0.6 million and a fair value loss associated with our warrants of €0.4 million. Both the noncurrent assets and inventory balances on the balance sheet are shown net of impairment charges. The further decrease to inventory is down to the revenue recognized. Until we recognize this revenue, the equipment used related to these contracts were recognized as part of inventory. Other notable movements during the quarter include a reduction of €1.5 million in onerous provisions as we utilize some of the provision that was recorded in 2022 for the above-mentioned inventory impairments and grant inflows of €2.6 million, which were received during the fourth quarter. Our bank balance was just over €1 million on December 31. Since then, we have received €5.9 million through our ATM facility. Both our capital position and use of the ATM facility have been common themes during our investor update over the last 12 months. Most recently, in our December meeting, I commented that it was our intention to cease activity with the ATM as soon as possible. This was and continued to be our position until the IPCEI award. Around that time, management were considering various short-term financing options that would provide us with a longer runway to a more strategic capital raise. On foot of the IPCEI announcement and the consequent trading volumes and share price spike we acted fast and utilized the ATM. Based on the options that we had in front of us, the ATM has achieved its way of raising capital in the short term. We also didn't have to consider some of the bells and whistles such as warrant coverage, market discounts, interest coupons and lockup periods that would have caused greater dilution to our shareholders and also could have impacted our ability to do a more strategic raise. This was an important milestone for the company given the challenges faced in raising capital. We have significant grant amends expected for 2024, which will mostly be to reimburse for spend related to R&D, our production facility and engineering services for our projects. Due to the strengthening of our balance sheet in February and as we are now receiving customer inflows regularly, we are satisfied that the operational inflows, coupled with the drawdowns from an acquired facility will provide sufficient runway to enable us to execute a more strategic capital raise. On the €20 million Macquarie facility, we are working closely with Macquarie to ensure that all remaining conditions that were set at the time of entering the securities purchase agreement have been met so that we were able to draw down the first tranche of $1.15 million before the end of the first quarter of 2024. This is in line with the expectations communicated back in our December update. We filed a notice for an Extraordinary General Meeting of the company's shareholders, which will take place on March 20. Under Irish law, the company must have authority from its shareholders to issue any securities. The company's shareholders previously authorized the company to issue securities of up to 20% of the ordinary shares of the company during any calendar year, which is equivalent to 2.9 million shares. The company has determined that it will be in its best interest to seek approval from shareholders to provide the company with authority to issue securities above and beyond this 5% cap. The reason we are making this request now is that while February's ATM sales have meaningfully expanded our runway, we no longer have ample room to maneuver what's remaining under the 20% threshold. We do believe that uncertainty around our capital position is the greatest concern of the market and that resolving the capital constraints will remedy our long-standing valuation disconnect relative to our peers. As we have noted in previous updates, we have been exploring multiple options to further solidify our capital position, which may entail selling securities more than this cap. A priority of ours is to exit cash burn by the end of 2025, and to lead this, we will need to reinforce our balance sheet. A strengthened balance sheet should not only provide comfort to our teams, investors and shareholders that the company is sufficiently equipped to achieve its goals and targets, but also provides our customers with further assurances that the warranties that are being offered as part of our technology contracts can be fulfilled. It is imperative that the company can move quickly and decisively in the event of a prospective capital raise for strategic partnership. To be fully clear, we are not looking to issue 100 million shares as has been inferred both through direct and indirect communications with some stakeholders. We didn't want to mislead anyone by putting a specific number in the notice when we currently have no basis to support. As noted in our investor letter, management and the Board are amongst the largest holders of Fusion Fuel's securities, and we are sensitive to this dilutive impact any significant financing would have on existing shareholders and are therefore fully motivated and aligned to ensure that any equity offering we consider creates meaningful long-term value for the company and its shareholders. We are maintaining our revenue guidance for 2024. Of the €34 million forecasted, €7.3 million of this has been contracted to-date. The remainder will be made up from the sales that are currently in negotiation. Some of these negotiations are linked to our Sines portfolio and the IPCEI progress has significantly broadened the client discussions around those projects. This means that the negotiations are taking longer but are also more significant for the company. We have not included further equipment sales from our pipeline, which significantly exceeds the amount left to execute for 2024. Given our experience with delivering projects, delays will happen, so we are allowing some room so that further conversion of our pipeline will offset some possible delays. As a reminder, the timing of revenue recognition for each contract could be different. In some cases, revenue was recognized over the delivery phase of the project and in other cases it's at a point in time, usually when the full project has been delivered and client acceptance has been received. For that reason, our €34 million target will not be recognized on a linear basis or spread evenly over each quarter. From an outflow perspective, we are forecasting SG&A cost of between €14 million and €16 million and CapEx of between €8 million and €10 million for 2024. Right now, we have a lower cost base when compared to our competitors and we are working to reduce this further without diluting the quality of our product and ancillary services. As can be shown on this slide, our costs reduced in 2023 and with a lower cost base, we fully expect to see further benefits during 2024. Our goal continues to be reaching cash flow self-sufficiency and as noted earlier, we expect this to happen during 2025 if we can execute our business plan. Before I pass you over to Frederico, I would just like to reiterate our commitment to our shareholders that we will continue to manage the company in a cost effective manner and migrate from the legacy products and projects that will not create value in the near term. Frederico, the floor is yours.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thank you, Gavin, and good afternoon or good morning to you all. I'm pleased to share with you today the latest news from the numerous activities we have going on. Firstly, and I'd be remiss if I didn't start with such an important piece of news. We were informed that our Sines project portfolio, which we submitted in 2020 for IPCEI consideration, finally received its approval. This is a major milestone for us, having worked in the background on this project for nearly four years now. For many courses, we've been quiet on the IPCEI and the Sines front, given the uncertainty and also its potential to significantly distort any figures we would publish. We made that mistake in our early years and decided to be substantially more cautious on how we communicate around this project going forward. At the same time, we put substantial effort into building a business that was not solely dependent on this large project and the IPCEI decision, something that, given the long lead times on these megaprojects, was a very prudent thing to do. And I'm very pleased to note that today we have a business that counts the IPCEI project as a boost to our plans rather than the foundation to them. Today, we want to clarify what the project is and what it means for the company. Firstly, the IPCEI includes three phases, the first two of which have already been awarded grants totaling €32 million from Portugal's Resilience and Recovery Plan. We have announced these awards in recent years and we have already received inflows from these €32 million. The third and last phase is substantially larger for a total of 530 megawatts and is expected to take nearly to the end of the decade to execute. With its three phases we expect this portfolio to be a driver of long-term value for Fusion Fuel. Being designated an important project of common European interest means that the company can now enter into bilateral agreements on funding plans with local governments beyond the existing grant programs, and we can also enter into discussions with the European Investment Bank for possible financing solutions and support. Financing large green hydrogen projects today is not possible without this type of support, given the early stage of the industry. Therefore, having these options is of immense value for any project investor. It quite simply makes a project of this dimension viable, which makes it incredibly valuable. The project foresees the production of green hydrogen to make green ammonia in Portugal with the eventual shipping of a significant part of this production to northern Europe. It is a truly ambitious project, enabling the avoidance of around 650,000 tonnes of CO2 in the process and producing more than 300,000 tonnes of green ammonia. This project is led by Fusion Fuel, but will be executed with several partners. It's simply not possible to execute a project of this size by ourselves, and a key consideration of the IPCEI conditions is the engagement of several partners across multiple countries and it has substantial spillover benefits to the local economies. As noted, we expect this to be a significant contributor to our business over its long lifetime. However, we will only provide guidance on the expected amounts or parts to be implemented by Fusion Fuel once we have gone through the various negotiations with partners, governments and financing players. This will still take many months to see through and we will look to update you as we have more information. In the meantime, we continue to relentlessly execute on our 2024 and 2025 activities. Last quarter I provided some information regarding our engineering capabilities and the benefits it brings to our business and relationships. Today, I would like to drive this point further. As outlined in the slide, we offer engineering advisory services for one, two and three studies, procurement services for balance of plant equipment. This is everything a plant needs beyond the electrolyzer and in Iberia we do construction planning and supervision and plant legalization. This full suite offering positions Fusion Fuel as a true partner and advisor for clients, many of which are not CASP operators or developers, and require the close support to bring a project to reality. Already in 2024, in the €34 million revenue guidance Gavin mentioned, we expect €2 million to be from pure engineering services alone and around €10 million to come from the procurement and supply of balance of plant equipment for plants that we are designing for and with clients. This allows us to capture a significantly larger share of the wallet of the total spend on each hydrogen plant. The electrolyzer can at times be less than 50% of the overall plant cost, so being able to deliver the remaining equipment and services can be a large contributor to our top line although we recognize that the equipment provision has lower margin, but also lower warranty and product related risks. With each plant we deliver and design, our expertise grows and further pulls us ahead in the early stage industry. It allows us to be a trusted partner and allows us to capture repeat business with clients. It's important to note that to-date, every client we have has the potential for repeat business and for nearly all of the clients we're dealing with we are already designing and submitting proposals for follow-on plants. To share some of the latest information regarding the HEVO Chain offering, one note that this is a truly customizable and modular solution where we are producing cubes of various sizes as well as containerized solutions for larger projects. I will pause here and just interact with the question that I've seen coming up. We haven't in the past provided the data sheet openly on our website as we effectively design the projects to the customized scope for the client. So this is something that we do and we engage within the client because given that it's such a modular solution, we truly tailor each project delivery to the client's needs. The HEVO Chain, which began its commercialization in mid-2023, has already started full production at our Benavente facility and we continue to see strong interest in the solution and we are delivering proposals and project designs on nearly a weekly basis at this point. We will be delivering the remaining cubes during this month to our first HEVO Chain installation at our client site. This project includes full plant delivery and allows us to see client bookings to the tune of 3x the electrolyzer value with the provision of other equipment and services. This is a very interesting project where we are delivering a system that permits the use of hydrogen into their industrial furnace and allows them to change the fuel mix they currently use and significantly reduce their carbon footprint. The savings generated from the carbon reductions and the changing of the fuel mix are enough to offset the cost of the plant without needing grant support. This shows us that the HEVO Chain solution is for certain cases, economically viable, even without grants at this early stage in the industry. To finish, I'll briefly cover on the strategic priorities we have laid out for the year. In 2024 we plan to deliver and install six to seven full HEVO Chain systems to southern European clients. Of these, five are expected to be full plant deliveries. In addition, we will already be working on the engineering and preparatory work for certain projects to be delivered in 2025. These projects range from 300 kilowatt as the one I just mentioned before, all the way to 5 megawatt in size and we expect to also start work on the 10 megawatt seen as one project this year. One of our priorities for this year and already mentioned by Gavin but infer most of what was last year as well continues to be the strengthening of our balance sheet. We are laser-focused on reaching cash flow breakeven and we need to be properly capitalized to reach this milestone. A stronger capital position allows the company to have confidence in front of clients to close midsize project sales and to be able to provide credible warranty backup. In addition, now that we are booking revenues, we believe this is the last step to addressing the significant valuation disconnect to our peers. The Macquarie facility provides the company with a strategic line to be able to tap into as it needs capital and as opportunities arise where we see significant value but would be additional to our base plan. We have been in longstanding discussions with several capital and strategic partners that can bring additional value to the company. The Macquarie facility is a great complement to these potential capital sources and we believe the combined effect will generate substantial shareholder value. With the facilities at hand and the recent ATM raise, we continue to be able to pursue the value add capital strengthening activities that we launched quite some time ago. We have been cautious to do the right deal for the company, as Gavin mentioned before, and we will continue to do so. As we've noted, broadening the targets addressable market for us is important. With a HEVO Chain, we have a great solution to do just that. We not only want to sell to northern European markets, but in 2024 we also plan to certify the solution for use in North America and in Australia. We are already delivering multiple proposals and plant designs for both these regions and so ensuring that the solution is duly certified for local regulations will be part of our 2024 activities. As part of our focus to reach cash flow breakeven, we will continue to push cost reduction efforts to add to the significant savings already achieved. In addition, we will continue to make adjustments to our resource allocation and investments to ensure they are aligned with our strategy. In such a fast moving industry, we are bound to make adjustments and we see the reassessment of our spend and investment as an ongoing priority task for our Executive Committee. In the past, we made the costly mistake of building inventory for projects that were in advanced stages but could be cancelled or impacted by regulatory changes. This is an example of a resource allocation mistake that we will not be making again. We will not be providing working capital advances to projects or clients, and we will ensure that the capital deployed is aligned with our short and mid-term revenue targets. Lastly, on strategic partnerships; partnerships are a key part of our value creation, and they range from commercial partnerships with developers and system integrators such as the ones we've already mentioned in the past for Spain, Italy and North America, all the way to partnerships with a technology angle such as the ones we've mentioned before with Fraunhofer and with Toshiba. But adding to these, we are building close relationships with suppliers of balance of plant equipment such as power components and compressor solutions. Our IPCEI project really brings a completely new scope to the partnerships that are possible. Given its size, the type of counterparts that we are dealing with are of a very large dimension and have the capacity to have a broad and long lasting impact on the company. Therefore, we're also taking our time on these relationships to ensure that we're able to find the right partner and right fit for Fusion Fuel. These discussions started several months ago and we expect them to continue throughout 2024, and so we look forward to providing you with more news during the year on the partnership front. I want to close by noting that it has been a very eventful few months of the company. It would not be an understatement to note that it very much feels that we have reached a before and after moment with the closing of the HEVO Solar legacy, the ATM raise, Macquarie facility, combined with the IPCEI approval. We are now fully focused on delivering on what we have mentioned here today and what has been in work for quite some time, including many client projects that have begun to move forward once again. We're excited by the opportunities that lie ahead and the move forward that we see in the overall hydrogen market in the last year. Now with that, we'll open up to some Q&A.

A - Ben Schwarz

Great thanks, Frederico. So, speaking with a couple questions from analysts, beginning with Erwan Kerouredan from Royal Bank of Canada, who asks whether the company has reviewed and adjusted its U.S. ambitions as a result of the 45V guidance update of the Inflation Reduction Act? As I sit here in the U.S., I'll take that one, but we'll invite Frederico or Gavin to chime in if they'd like. I think that guidance is certainly more stringent than the market expected. Important to note that it remains kind of still in the definition phase and we have to see certainly what will happen following the current U.S. election cycle. The proposed additionality and time correlation rules mirror those laid out in the European Renewable Energy Directive Delegated Acts, which I think were implemented and adopted last year at some point early last year. So we're very familiar with operating within those constraints. The U.S. and North America more broadly remain a near-term priority for us, and we continue to engage in commercial discussions with counterparts in that all important geography. Questions from Jeff Grampp at Alliance Global Partners. This one's for Gavin. Gavin, can you discuss gross margin expectations for 2024?

Gavin Jones

Sure. Thanks, Ben, and thanks, Jeff, for the question. So, for 2024, we expect our gross margins to be in the region of 15% for projects that will include our HEVO Chain product, along with balance of plant equipment and EPC services. The three core elements of these projects all have different margins, but in combination, a margin of approximately 15% is forecasted. As we look ahead to 2025, we expect this average to increase closer to the 20% mark, particularly as we increase the production volumes within our Benavente facility.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Gavin. Stick with you but Frederico can join in. What are the main risks you see to hitting our 2024 guidance, and what potential mitigants are there do you have in place to address those?

Gavin Jones

Sure. So again, as we said on many times over the last 12 months, and even on this call, the biggest risk is time and how long it takes from tender stage to sign contracts and then execution. So that's probably our biggest risk at the minute. As both I and Frederico mentioned earlier, with the IPCEI process, there's a lot more interest in our projects. We have a larger potential client base for those now. So that brings with us more negotiations, more discussions, and that just ekes out the timeline a bit more. But I think in that scenario, we need to be patient because the conversations are probably a bit more positive now on the foot of the IPCEI announcement. What are we doing to kind of navigate those potential delays? We have a strong project pipeline. I think we've been quite prudent in our guidance in terms of not including a proportion of the potential contracts that we could, or discussions that we could convert into contracts. So like optimistically looking at it as we convert the pipeline to contracts that will look to realign if there's any delays on the project side of the revenue guidance.

Ben Schwarz

Great, thanks. You mentioned the IPCEI project. This was also asked by one of the audience members, what are the next steps or milestones to keep an eye out for with respect to the IPCEI project?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So happy to take that. Again, apologies for technical difficulties with the camera here. I think I just did everyone a favor for having to avoid seeing me while we were talking about slides. So it's a great question to note with the IPCEI, there's many fronts that need to work in parallel now. So we have to move forward with the negotiations with our partners. As you can imagine, for a project that kicked off nearly four years ago, there's been substantial amount of changes there and evolution of the relationship we have with the partners as well as we now need to begin the discussions with the Portuguese government on the financial sort of support as well as with the EIB. This is going to take several months to clarify, and we will be working on those in parallel. But I don't expect us to be able to give concrete guidance on what the IPCEI will mean for us in detail for at least one or two courses. Again, I want to note that this is a project, especially the large parts of the project, the bit that's still in the definition process, the Sines Green, that will be only sort of kickoff, really in 2026. So for us, the next steps will really be firming up the partnerships. And that includes the partnerships on a technology front, includes partners on the ammonia front, the offtake side, as well as the financing side. So all of those discussions will be very intense and we'll start now. I would just note and to manage expectations, all IPCEI projects, including the ones that were announced a few years ago, take quite a while to take shape. So I want to highlight that this will be a significant driver of long-term value for us. We already see it with the interactions we're having with clients. It has a large amount of positive spillover effect onto our other projects and the credibility our other projects have. But it will not be the driver of our 2024 and 2025 success.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks Frederico. You're jumping around a bit. You mentioned the green ammonia partner for that project. There was a question on the estimated production cost for green ammonia to be sold in Northern European markets. Perhaps you can provide some clarification on how that figures into the broader ecosystem of the HEVO Portugal project.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So as part of the IPCEI, we have two sort of main roles. One is the overall project developer or project lead, but also the hydrogen component of the project. We always had right from the beginning, a partner for the ammonia front. So this is a longstanding partnership with a partner who has a long standing ammonia project already, green ammonia project. So to note, this is not a Fusion Fuel endeavor. This is with our partner. And we hope to be able to disclose that in one of our future quarterly updates. But the green ammonia being produced there is competitive also backed by the fact that the green hydrogen production in the Sines region with very cheap renewable energy is a very competitive raw material for that production.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks. Let's cover off on Jeff Grampp's final question. In the past, we've discussed efficiency and cost improvements to subsequent generations of the HEVO technology. Does that remain an ongoing program or are efforts more focused now on commercialization of the existing generation?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

It's both, Ben, and good question. To note we do have what we believe is a pathway to reduce the stack cost by a further third. So a substantial cost reduction. However, we do plan to be fully committed to the commercialization of the current version of the HEVO Chain, as in order to achieve those cost savings, there's still some R&D work to do. So we have a competitive product today that we think is relevant for the markets of today and for the coming years. And we have a path to substantially sort of reduce those costs. So we are actively working on both fronts.

Ben Schwarz

Great, thanks. There's a question here about the fees paid to the banks for selling shares in the market. I'll just quickly cover off on this. If I recall correctly, I think the placement agent fee for the ATM facility is 3% or so, which is considerably cheaper than fees that would be paid to investment bankers in a conventional equity offering. So I think that's just perhaps a misunderstanding. Question about the cost of production of green hydrogen at the Evora project. Frederico, perhaps you can comment on that.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So as you note, we have two Evora projects. The Evora project that we have that is live is a small one. That project there for us, it is an extension of our R&D facility. So for example, we currently have installed there our sort of HEVO Chain units because in order to test several of the cubes in a sort of connected series, that is the site that we do it at. So the cost of hydrogen there is always a bit of a moving target because we are constantly sort of updating the technology there. It is an extension of our R&D facility to note. This is the only plant that we currently have plans to own and operate and we have changed the purpose rather from being a pure commercial purpose to actually being sort of an R&D facility for sort of large scale testing. So it's a non-answer because the question keeps changing because it is directly related to our R&D CapEx as we continue to deploy sort of new technology to the site.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks Frederico. A couple questions in the chat box around the status of the Bakersfield project in California.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. So the Bakersfield project, like any large project, has a very extended time period. Again, similar to the IPCEI we've made a deliberate decision to not be updating on these large projects. For those of you who've followed us for some time, you will have heard of other large projects in other locations that we are still sort of working on in the background. If and when there is meaningful news, we will bring it up. There's always a big risk that these projects have a sort of binary outcome. They could die at any moment. What we will note and we've noted before that in 2024 and 2025, we are really focused on delivering for small and medium sized projects. To that end, we are actively engaged in offers both in Australia and in the North American market. So both the U.S. and Canada offering projects in the 10 megawatt and under space where we believe the execution of those will be much earlier than something for the size of Bakersfield or the IPCEIs or these sort of mega projects.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks Frederico. Sticking with you, what is the company most excited about with respect to the strategic partnership process we've alluded to at length and what are the timeline expectations, if any, that shareholders should have on meaningful progress on that front?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

I think the most exciting part of it has really been the IPCEI effect or the halo effect from the IPCEI, where in all sort of partnership discussions there has been a sort of sense of urgency from the part of the counterpart in order to accelerate the discussions. So in the past we had the most urgency in looking to move the discussions forward. Now there is a new sense of competition in order to lock down the opportunity. And so for us, the most exciting thing has sort of seen that shift where our partners' engagement levels has gone through the roof in these discussions. Now, more concretely, this is number of different partnership possibilities. These are partnerships to do general sort of project development and project financing on project portfolios as a whole, not specifically to Sines, as a sort of strategic direction where it could be a potential investment in the company and as well as in projects which is of course would be the ideal solution for the company, but also of course partnerships specifically for something as big as the IPCEI portfolio.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks Frederico. What's the demand and I guess feedback that we're seeing from the market for the HEVO Chain solution? And do you see any commercial momentum that could help the company grow out of its current cash constraint?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure, the interest is very large. It's significant. As I mentioned during my update, it feels like we are doing proposals and designs for new plants and projects nearly on a weekly basis. So there is a lot of demand in addition to the very exciting sort of development where people we're delivering projects to have multiple projects in the pipeline. So as we noted, we have sold two projects to the same client, but just as recently as this week, we were asked proposal for a third project for that same client. The client where we are delivering the 300 kilowatt system has tens of plants where such a system could also be employed. So the momentum that we're seeing probably in the last six months or so has been a completely sort of new thing for us, I'd say not only for our technology and this was really with the launch of the commercialization of HEVO Chain mid of last year, but we believe that this is a general increase in the market momentum for hydrogen. A lot of projects have been relatively dormant and we are now seeing some of those dormant projects sort of re-emerge and start to have life again to move into the implementation phase. So substantial demand for projects for engineering support for HEVO Chain itself and its keeping both our commercial team and our engineering team very busy.

Ben Schwarz

I think we should get Gavin involved a little bit here. A question on the current runway in light of the proceeds of the February's ATM activity.

Gavin Jones

Sure. Thanks, Ben. I was feeling a bit left out there. So in terms of the runway following the February activity, our priority now very much is to operationalize Macquarie, get that facility up and running, draw down Tranche 1. Once we can operationalize that, we should have greater flexibility in accessing the facility as needed going forward. As I noted in my update earlier on, we anticipate cash inflows from client contracts and grant agreements throughout 2024, most of which will be received monthly. In terms of runway, I think given the stage of discussions with various counterparts regarding financing solutions, strategic partnerships, it's probably not appropriate for me to discuss specifics right now, but hopefully we'll have some updates between now and our next quarterly update.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Gavin. Back to Frederico. This is our final question, so if anybody else has additional questions, please do get them in. The refueling station in Madrid for Exolum, is that currently operational and what, if any, feedback has the company received from that client?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So, yes, it is operational to-note. I don't have the exact numbers or the number of buses is refueling. As noted, this is a plant that we have delivered to Exolum. So although we do know that it is producing hydrogen and it is refueling, buses believe on a daily basis. So the plant is operational as sort of contracted with the client for the first two years of that plant, we will be in very much a sort of handholding approach with them. So we have a team that is in constant contact and spends quite a bit of time in the field with the client. As with any sort of, I'd say, electrolyzer deployment today, it had its teething issues. This is where actually we noted the advantage of our modular solution. So to note, a lot of the electrolyzer systems, when they have any sort of issue, it's a sort of binary outcome. The plant shuts down or it is live. In our case, with a modular solution it allows us to actually switch off parts of the plant, address any problems that emerge and the plant can keep operating. So from the client side, for whatever teething issues that there have been, the production of hydrogen has been able to continue and produce. And again, it is currently one of our most attractive sort of selling points is this sort of modularity of the solution and the availability that this solution gives. As I say, every project has had its teething issues. We're sort of happy to say that our solution is able to minimize the pain that was caused and the plant has continued to operate and continue to deliver hydrogen and to allow the hydrogen refueling station to operate. So we are happy with that and with how that is going on with our partner Exolum.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. One more question here, which is a very good and important one, with the proposed increase in the number of issuable securities which we voted on by shareholders at the EGM later this month, is management's expectation that those additional shares will be, I guess, drawn down in one transaction or over a period of time to maximize value, as the share price hopefully appreciates.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So, Gavin, I'll take part of that and then if you feel need, just jump in. I'll note the request we're making here from management and from the Board's perspective is to give us the flexibility to make the right deal with the capital partner and strategic partners that emerge as probably can be understandable for a small company of our size. People are reluctant to put significant effort and legal costs and so on into a process if there is doubt that management or the board can get it through. So in order to ensure that we're able to continue and execute on discussions without them reaching a sort of critical element or critical bottleneck point, we need to have the flexibility to be able to make the right deal for the company. We noted that in the letter and I'll speak for the full Board in this pack, we are very, very conscious of the dilution impact that any sort of transactional capital raise can have on shareholders. However, we want to make sure that we are able to do the best for the company and for shareholders. Now, we believe that the sort of capital concerns in the past of which have been substantially alleviated with the ATM and the Macquarie facility. But those concerns kept the company from being valued in our eyes fairly to our competitors. So we believe that any addressing of that issue will actually unlock significantly shareholder value. So that's the first problem. Now it depends on the counterpart concretely to the question. So there are counterparts, as with the Macquarie piece, and this is one of the reasons why we do like the Macquarie facility. The dilution varies tranche by tranche. So it allows us to address some of that valuation gap or in our eyes, mispricing and doesn't have a one off hit on dilution for broad shareholders. That said, for example, if we have a strategic partner which is bringing long-term value to the clients, brings long-term value to projects and additional sort of revenue to projects and to the company, but wants to do a one off transaction that might be in the best interest for us all because project revenue, sales revenues combined with a capital influx would have substantial shareholder value. So the type of transaction will depend on the partners. And we're having discussions with several types of partners, of potential partners here, and the reason why we are being vague in our request is we need the flexibility to pursue the right deal for the company and for the shareholders. I would lastly note that we have been in the capital raise efforts for what feels like nearly a year and a half now. We have been offered several term sheets which I would say would be value destructive for the company, and we have done our best to avoid those managing very tight budget, managing our cash flow as best we can to make sure that we are not pushed into that. I would say that the management board has been very, very focused on making sure that we pursue a deal that creates substantial value to the shareholders and to the company. We are pursuing those discussions, and we have been in those discussions and negotiations, and now we need the ability to execute those as they mature.

Ben Schwarz

Terrific. Okay, thank you, Frederico. So, in the absence of any additional questions, I think we'll call it for our fourth quarter investor update. Thanks to everyone who joined and asked questions. If you have additional questions or you'd like to speak with myself or with management, feel free to reach out to me and the IR team at [email protected], and we look forward to seeing you all again at our next update.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thank you all.

Gavin Jones

Thank you all.

TranscriptFY2023 Q32023-12-04

FY2023 Q3 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 31 paragraphs
Ben Schwarz

Hello everyone and welcome to Fusion Fuel Green's Third Quarter 2023 Investor Update. My name is Ben Schwarz and I'm Head of Investor Relations at Fusion Fuel. I would first like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements, including but not limited to, the company's expectations or predictions, the financial and business performance which are based on numerous assumptions such as sales, margins, competitive factors, energy performance, and other factors which cannot be predicted. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and they are not guarantees of performance. I encourage you to read the disclaimer slide in the investor presentation for a discussion of the risks that may affect our business or may cause our assumptions to prove incorrect. The company is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation to update, alter, or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Okay. So, greetings. Thank you all for joining us today. In terms of our agenda for the next hour, I'll kick things off with an overview of Fusion Fuel along with some perspectives on what we're seeing in the market currently. Gavin and Frederico, Fusion’s CFO and CEO respectively, will then share their quarter highlights, financial results and commercial updates before wrapping up with a recap of our 2023 priorities and our progress against them. We will then open up the floor for a facilitated Q&A. As in our previous quarterly calls, questions can be entered in the chat box in webcast platform at any point during the next hour. Alternatively, you can also submit your questions to the Investor Relations team at the IR mailbox, [email protected]. So as always, let's begin with a brief refresher on Fusion Fuel, our value prop positioning in the green hydrogen sector. So our mission is to make the energy transition more accessible through the development and delivery of cost-effective clean hydrogen solutions. Our patented miniaturized PEM electrolyzer, the HEVO, is at the heart of everything we do. Its simplified and modular architecture is a unique differentiator in a crowded electrolyzer market, one that unlocks multiple sources of advantage for us, including high-throughput industrialized production and a scalable building block approach that positions us to create customized fit-for-purpose hydrogen solutions. We built a robust pipeline of actionable near-term green hydrogen projects in our core market of Southern Europe, enabling us to create our own demand for our technology. Many of these foundational projects have significant grant funding tied to them, strengthening and de-risking the business case for third-party investors. We have a differentiated and synergistic business model that positions us across the value chain. In addition to selling our proprietary technology to third-party customers, we also originate and develop green hydrogen projects from start to finish with diverse avenues for monetizing value creation along the development cycle. And finally, we're positioned for a significant growth ramp as the market continues to mature with an extensive long-term project pipeline and a world-class production facility located in Portugal, where we're targeting 500 megawatts of electrolysis production per annum by the end of 2025. Despite the promising long-term tailwinds behind the green hydrogen opportunity, the industry is grappling with a number of fundamental challenges that threaten its trajectory. Rampant project delays, an electrolyzer on performance, scarcely affirmed projects and off-take agreements are but a handful of roadblocks the industry has had to navigate as early movers work to deliver on the lofty expectations they've set. Nevertheless, with the development, with the velocity rather, of our project pipeline and our unique technology, amongst other things, we believe we are uniquely positioned to overcome these obstacles. In many cases, we have a meaningful head start in doing so compared to our peers. So with that, I'll now introduce Gavin Jones, CFO of Fusion Fuel, to share some highlights from the third quarter of 2023.

Gavin Jones

Thank you, Ben. Good afternoon or morning to all of you who have joined our third quarter investor update call. I'm joining today from our offices in Ireland. During the third quarter, we were awarded a technology sale contract to supply a 300 kilowatt electrolyzer and balance of plant system from a leading global building solution supplier. We also entered into a partnership with Elemental Clean Fuels, a company focused on originating and developing clean fuel projects in North America. This partnership will provide Fusion Fuel with exposure to the emerging North American green hydrogen market and adds to our existing partnership with Duferco in Italy, whilst enabling the company to focus its near-term commercial efforts on the Iberian peninsula and northern Europe. After the end of the third quarter, we received two separate purchase orders for a combined EUR4.2 million of revenue. These projects will service customers in Portugal and will include the supply of our HEVO chain products along with balance of plant equipment and EPC services, and will each represent a 1.25 megawatt system. When I spoke with you back in early September, I commented that we were in discussions with both existing and prospective capital providers about financing solutions. We are pleased to share that we have entered into an agreement with Macquarie on a financing facility of up to $20 million which we announced last week. This agreement represents the culmination of a due diligence process that span multiple months. We are very pleased with the terms of this facility and perhaps equally as importantly the stature and quality of the counterpart in Macquarie. This is a convertible debt facility with a two-year term. The drawdowns will be done on a phase basis with the size of each tranche to be mutually agreed by both parties, depending on our cash flow needs at the time. Macquarie will receive warrants equal to 30% of the aggregate amount funded. The warrants will have an exercise price equal to 130% of the volume weighted average price for the five trading days immediately [proceeding] (ph) any tranche issuance. There are certain conditions that must be met before we operationalize this facility, such as completing the required SEC filings. We are working on these and expect to close them during the first quarter of 2024. This facility will provide us with the capital needed to execute our 2024 objectives. We will now move on to the financial results for the third quarter. Please note that all values discussed are in euros unless stated otherwise. We recognized EUR2.5 million in revenue during the third quarter. This represents the revenue related with our green hydrogen project in Madrid. Provisional acceptance of this project was achieved in September of this year. Of the EUR2.5 million recognized, EUR0.7 million is accrued and this cash is expected to be received within the next 60 days. Back in the first quarter of 2023, we recognized revenue relating to a technology sale contract. Our customer's intention was to complete this project as part of Portugal's POSEUR program. During the third quarter, it became apparent that this project would not proceed, as it wouldn't be completed within the timeframe set out in their grant agreement with the Portuguese government. We reversed the revenue and associated cost of goods sold for this contract during the third quarter and this reversal is shown as part of the second quarter column for comparative purposes. The revenue reverse amounted to EUR0.5 million. Please note that we still expect to complete this sale with this client for further project they have planned. As you may remember from our second quarter investor presentation, we booked a provision for impairment of EUR7.2 million against our legacy HEVO-Solar inventory. During the third quarter and into the fourth quarter, we have continued to sell or scrap this legacy equipment. We expect this process to continue for the foreseeable future. The inflows received as part of this process have been offset by an increase to the provision of EUR0.5 million during the third quarter. Our operating cost base decreased for the third consecutive quarter. We saw a reduction to our personnel related costs of EUR0.26 million when compared to the second quarter. This was due to the continued reduction in our headcount, coupled with the fact that the second and fourth quarter typically have higher costs due to vacation subsidies being paid to our Portuguese-based employees. This was coupled with further reductions to travel, administrative, legal and consulting fees but was somewhat offset by an increase in R&D expenses. Our quarterly charge relating to our equity incentive plan increased by EUR0.28 million during the third quarter. The second quarter amount was lower due to a one-off reduction for the forfeiture of a significant number of instruments. There were no new rewards during the third quarter and none expected for the fourth quarter. We expect a non-cash quarterly expense of EUR0.6 million for legacy share-based compensation until the end of 2024. The pre-tax loss for the quarter amounted to EUR4 million. In terms of the balance sheet, the increase to property, plant and equipment is driven by the booking of new equipment that was invoiced during the quarter for our Benavente production facility. This increased the value of this asset by EUR2.8 million. The inventory balance shown is net of the impairment charge which was discussed earlier. The significant decrease since the second quarter is down to the revenue recognized. Until we recognize this revenue, the equipment used related to this revenue was recognized as part of inventory. Our bank balance was just over EUR1 million on September 30th. Since then, we have received EUR2.1 million in grant funding with a further amount of EUR0.4 million due in addition to client inflows before the year is out. We have significant grant demands expected for 2024 which will mostly be to reimburse us for spend relating to R&D and our Benavente production facility. Given that we are now receiving customer inflows monthly, we are satisfied that the operational inflows coupled with the drawdowns from the Macquarie facility will enable us to have a strong 2024. The other notable movements include a reduction of EUR2 million in the fair value of warrants, an increase to trade payables as we booked the equipment for Benavente as mentioned above, and grant income of EUR2.3 million received during the third quarter. Over 16 trading days in the third quarter, we raised EUR0.6 million cumulatively by selling 376,000 ordinary shares through our ATM facility. No sales have been made since September 20th. Next slide, please. We revised our 2023 guidance in the second quarter, and we expect this guidance to hold true. We have significant equipment to deliver during December for two active technology sale contracts. For 2024, we expect to recognize revenues of EUR34 million. As this slide shows, this total can be attributed to two different categories, technology and balance of plant equipment sales, and the sale of projects from our own portfolio. The technology and balance of plant demands are already backed by committed orders. We have not included any estimate of further equipment sales from our pipeline as if we were awarded contracts the timing of revenue recognition is too uncertain right now. For those familiar with our development project pipeline we have two projects in Sines, Portugal that have been awarded a combined EUR32.5 million in grant funding from the Portuguese government. The revenue guidance for 2024 assumes that we will sell our Sines 1 project to an infrastructure fund and convert the project into a technology sale that will include balance of plant and EPC services. Frederico will touch upon the status of our technology and development project pipelines a little later. From a cost perspective, we continue to work through our budget for 2024. It's imperative that we keep our costs as slim as possible, given the general uncertainties in the global hydrogen economy. Right now, we have a lower cost base when compared to our competitors, and we are working to reduce this further, without diluting the quality of our products and ancillary services. As noted earlier, our cost base has reduced for three consecutive quarters and we will look to continue this trend into 2024. Our goal continues to be reaching cash flow self-sufficiency as quickly as possible and keeping costs low is critical to achieving this. I will now pass you over to our CEO, Frederico, who will guide you through the rest of the presentation.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thank you, Gavin. And good afternoon, good morning to you all. I'm pleased to share with you today the latest news from the numerous activities we have going on. I want to note that many people speak about green hydrogen and announce large future plants. In reality, very few companies have plants that are live and producing green hydrogen today, and few have the expertise to install a green hydrogen plant safely. Through the process of having the Madrid plant live, we have seen firsthand the benefits of our modular solution, with the occasional teething problems of the plant only causing the loss of a few days of production rather than full plant shutdowns as others have suffered. We have the pleasure of having hydrogen plants in Portugal and Spain, as well as a laboratory that is not only testing the next generations of materials for future HEVO releases, but is also ensuring we run thousands of hours on our existing versions to ensure degradation rates and material behavior. During 2024, we expect to put at least another six green hydrogen plants into operation and the experience from these first projects from our lab and our own production facility has been critical to close these contracts. I would like to highlight today our engineering capabilities as they are not only a differentiating factor but have also been a crucial one in closing the various equipment sales we have signed. Few clients have the experience and knowledge required to design, implement and go live with a fully-fledged green hydrogen plant. In addition to submitting electrolyzer proposals for over 40 projects, our engineering team has fully designed more than 10 green hydrogen plants in Portugal and Spain to date. This includes ATEX and HAZOP studies, licensing processes and fully defining the specifications for all equipment in the plant. Given the challenges that some hydrogen projects have experienced recently, using an experienced and proven player is of increasing value to clients. This allows us to create a partnership with clients that goes beyond simply delivering equipment. We have already received requests for engineering auditing services where a client wants us to review their plant design, in addition to requests to fully develop the engineering solutions for even alkaline electrolyzer systems. This confidence and trust in our engineering capabilities will not only be a major selling point for Fusion Fuel, but we expect to generate independent revenues from these services as early as next year. More and more, the proposals requests we are receiving are for full plant designs, and these tailor to the specific client requirements. We have designed plants with hydrogen usage at a pressure of 2 bars, as well as one reaching even 1000 bars, and also of various sizes, from 300 kilowatt plants all the way up to 10 megawatts so far. The use cases include plants for hydrogen mobility, gas blending, tube trailer filling, and for use in industrial furnaces. What you see here are renders from three of the 10 projects that the team has designed and provided full specifications for. In an initial step, we provide preliminary engineering for the equipment in offer, and then we charge for engineering services for detailing and designs beyond stage 1. There are companies that can deliver this type of expertise. For markets, there are a few companies that can deliver this type of expertise. For markets where we do not have full engineering capabilities, we look to establish partnerships with players that have a know-how for their specific market. The partnership we entered into in Italy and also in the Middle East with TCC is a good example of such cases. As we announced at the end of September, we will be delivering a 300 kilowatt green hydrogen plant for a global leader in the cement sector. This includes the HEVO-Chain electrolyzer along with full plant design and implementation along with a local partner. This plant uses our already announced HEVO-Chain technology, in particular the Cube solution which is modular at 20 kilowatts per unit. In the image you can see the first HEVO-Chain demonstrator that has already been installed in our Evora plant, which uses multiple HEVO-Chain cubes in synchronized production. In addition, it is the first part where we will be using our new oxygen capture system as the client has used for the green oxygen as well. So we'll be using our new oxygen capture system, sorry, as the client has used for the green oxygen as well. This project is currently in development and is expected to be fully installed and operational in the first half of 2024. More recently we announced the order of two 1.25 megawatt green hydrogen plants that will also use the HEVO-Chain system for installation in 2024 in Portugal. As you can see, we will not only provide the electrolyzer unit, but also do the full plant design, POP equipment selection and purchasing, and oversee the installation. We expect to book approximately EUR4 million in combined revenues from these two projects in 2024. These projects consist of multiple HEVO-Chain cabinets as shown in the render where each contains around 50 kilowatts of electrolyzer capacity, still providing significant modularity for the client and reducing costs by reducing the number of connections, valves and pipings used in the solution. As we've said before, we made a significant push on our technology sales efforts at the start of the third quarter of this year. In addition, we continue to receive requests for engineering services that we will evaluate on a case-by-case basis, but which we expect to generate revenues from this activity during 2024. We have submitted around 50 proposals to third-party projects, all with a HEVO-Chain modular system. We do not see the industry executing more than a few very large projects in the next two years. Simply put, and as has been demonstrated in several cases, the industry is not prepared for such projects and companies cannot provide the performance guarantees that would allow a client to take such risk on a project. We believe the next years we'll primarily see several, if not many, projects below the 10 megawatt size being implemented. This is where we have focused our commercial efforts and where we believe not only our technology shines but it avoids us taking outsized balance sheet risks when providing warranties for these systems. As Gavin mentioned, our revenue target for 2024 is EUR34 million, although our inflows may differ given how some proceeds can only be recognized towards the end of the delivery to the client. These EUR34 million are based on the projects and activities listed on the right. We already have five project signed and confirmed for 2024 and we are in the negotiation phase of selling our Sines 1 project. These six projects alone would allow us to meet our targets, leaving still some room for further revenues from proposals that we are waiting to hear back from, and also from new engineering services. As we have seen these previous years, the exact go live date of a project is hard to predict. And therefore, in our revenue guidance, we've only included those that have already been confirmed for 2024, have already started and are seen as one project. So there is still potential for upside from new sales as the pipeline matures. We're in a position where we believe we have significantly de-risked the revenue guidance for 2024, as well as allowing us to expect cash inflows and revenue bookings from clients quarterly going forward, as opposed to the one-off bookings we have seen previously. The hydrogen market has been slow to take off, but we are seeing significant movements now, particularly in the project size where we excel, so we are very excited to capture part of this growth as the industry really comes into its own. To finish off, I will briefly cover the strategic priorities we had laid out for the year and where we stand against those. As I've just highlighted, we have made substantial progress on the technology sales activities, with several of the proposals in the table in the slide before being for projects beyond southern Europe. With the announced tranche financing facility that was signed with Macquarie, we believe we have significantly addressed one of the largest concerns that has hampered our company in the last year or so. This facility, a result of several months of due diligence and discussions, is not only with a first rate partner, but also of a size that allows us to focus on business execution for the future. In addition, the conditions for this facility, in particular with its pricing, related only to each tranche executed, are fair and attractive for shareholders. They avoid the brutal dilution that we have seen in office throughout the year and are -- is designed with enabling the company to reach its goal, rather than simply benefiting only the partner providing the capital, as many of the deals in this capital constrained environment can end up [being] (ph). As mentioned, we've been designing projects for 5 and 10 megawatts, and in theory we can deliver larger projects using such building blocks. However, for the midterm, our focus will be on the 10 megawatts and under projects to avoid overextending ourselves and hoping to avoid the need for large warranty provisions as we have seen from others in the market. As Gavin mentioned, we are actively reducing costs, but also throughout this process ensuring that the resource allocation in the business matches where we see the upcoming need and development of the markets. This is a process that is well underway but still in progress. Therefore, we won't comment much more on this except to say that our focus is to have an organization that is sized and driven to help us be one of the first companies to reach cash flow break-even in the industry. Growth beyond Europe and in some European markets is only possible with strong partnerships both from a commercial and production aspect. We've already established partnerships in the North American market and for Italy and also for the Middle East, as mentioned, and we will continue to expand these where we believe it makes strategic sense for the company. We're making substantial progress on all these key elements, and we're excited to be approaching 2024, as we can truly highlight how much of a pivotal role Fusion Fuel can play in this industry. We will already be reaching some peers that have much higher valuations in terms of revenue booked and we have much lower cost-run rates. We have a modular technology that provides lower risk in terms of future warranty provisions and expenses. So we look forward to executing with drive and excellence on our plans for 2024. With that, I'll close today and open up for Q&A.

A - Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. Just a quick reminder, for those of you who have questions for management, you can submit them in the chat box, in the webcast platform, or you can also submit them via email to [email protected]. So for now, let's begin with some questions from Jeffrey Graham from Alliance Global Partners. First question is, are you seeing any particular use cases having stronger business models in this tightened hydrogen market?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So I'll take that Ben. So from that side, right now we see a bit of everything. So of course the use cases that have the highest IRR at this point in time is mobility, where there is enough of a fleet to justify the CapEx related. The hydrogen per kilo basis is one of the more expensive in terms of uses in the hydrogen industry. So this is one of the use cases that's most attractive today. That said, we do see a lot of projects starting where people really want to learn more about hydrogen, how it impacts their business, and then preparing for the future. The project that we mentioned before with one of the world-leading cement companies is exactly that, a project where they expect that hydrogen will be a core element of their business going forward, and they want to learn how their furnace and so on reacts when mixed with hydrogen. So from an IRR perspective, simply at this stage, I would answer that it's mobility, but we're seeing more and more industrials taking the plunge and betting on hydrogen for their decarbonization purposes and their longer-term views of their needs.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. On the priority slide, you alluded to progress made on submitting offers to projects or opportunities in Northern Europe. Can you provide an update on that?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. So we continue to provide offers to Northern Europe and these at this time have been all around the mobility sector. So we have just now submitted offers to other countries with UK, France, and beyond as well. We expect this to continue. What we are seeing is that it takes quite a bit of time between getting offers submitted and the clients taking their FID on the projects, mainly as they go through the process of negotiating offtake. So we do expect to continue to see more offers going to Northern Europe, although it might take us some time to hear back on positive or negative decisions on FID.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, one more for you. Can you provide any examples of the type of projects where you might monetize your engineering services and what that revenue opportunity might be on a per megawatt basis?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. So this is hard to map out on a megawatt basis. Very often the project is mainly due to the project complexity in the end case of a client. So a project that requires hydrogen and /or oxygen without purification at 2 bars is very different than one that needs them pure at 500 bars. So it's really on a project by project basis. We have seen several cases as all of the projects that we have today, where people do want us to not only do the full design of the projects, but also the specifications of what the balance of plant is, so what compressor to use, what power system to use, what purifiers to use, and so on. And then we put them in touch with the right buyers, we design, we do the full engineering mapping of the projects. Currently we've targeted hoping to reach EUR500,000 of revenues next year in terms of engineering services and hoping to in 2025 get that to reach a million euros. This is still early numbers as we are going through some engineering offers even as recently as today, just having some offers being sent on that. So we're still building the business case on our engineering services. But given the strong demand for such services, we do expect to be booking revenues for it already next year.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. Pivoting to Gavin now, question here. What's the magnitude of cost reduction potential you are reviewing? Is there an internal target or anything that you can communicate at this time?

Gavin Jones

Thanks, Ben. So again, to reiterate our position from our Q2 investor presentation back in September, that cost review that we embarked is still ongoing. It has been very, very detailed. And as I mentioned previously, we're still working on finalizing our budget. But in terms of looking at that number or percentage internally, we're trying to get as close to a 20% reduction on our full year 2023 SG&A. And I suppose that's probably why the review is taking so long and we'll continue for some time as well because as I mentioned in my remarks, it's very important for us to have a slim cost base, and we see that as being a key driver to us being successful. So it's so important that we take the time and leave no stone unturned when it comes to cost. So yeah, hopefully that answers the question.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Gavin. A question from Erwan Kerouredan from World Bank of Canada. On the third quarter pipeline slide, we show 45 proposals for EUR172 million in prospective revenues, these are the [outbounded] (ph) offers, versus 41 proposals for EUR222 million in the previous iteration of the slide from the second quarter that applies a decline in the average value per project or per order from EUR5.5 million to a little under EUR4 million per order. Can you provide any commentary on that distinction or difference?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Absolutely. And whilst possible, we have simply done is we have stripped out the balance of plant revenues from that sales pipeline so that it's focused around the electrolyzer sales rather than balance of plant equipment. In the end, the balance of plant equipment sales for a project will be determined by the client to what extent we will be involved in providing those and the gross margin that we will be able to provide on that balance of plant can [differ] (ph) substantially project to project. So for -- in order to ensure the more like to like purposes for the active proposals, and we've really kept it to the electrolyzer portion of the proposals.

Ben Schwarz

Great, thanks. Moving to capital strategy now, perhaps for you Gavin, how are you thinking about the ATM facility in light of the recent financing with Macquarie? Will you look to utilize the ATM going forward?

Gavin Jones

Sure. So, as I mentioned, we haven't used the ATM since September 20th, I think it was the last trading day. We have no immediate plans to reengage activity on the ATM. And just to be very clear, it is one of the conditions for operationalizing the Macquarie deal is that the ATM facility is cancelled. So no, that is the answer, both in terms of current or expected future use of the ATM.

Ben Schwarz

Great, thanks. And I want to follow up there. With the solutions currently in place between the Macquarie convertible project inflows and grant funding, does that get you to the cash position needed or will you consider additional fundraising efforts?

Gavin Jones

I'll start with the annoying phrase of it really depends. So it depends on whether we witness further delays in both project financing and execution of those projects. So if they're delayed, the amount of capital required could and can and probably will change substantially. We move with caution here, given the recent delays witnessed throughout the industry. And probably most importantly, as we noted in our investor letter, The structure of the Macquarie facility allows us to pursue complementary forms of financing and other strategic sources of capital that would further strengthen our balance sheet if needed.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Gavin. A question here about the timeline to profitability or cash flow breakeven?

Gavin Jones

Sure. So, we expect this at some time during 2025. This is a good follow-up point to the previous question, Ben, as again, it comes back to the point of it depends. So if everything plays out as we forecast and as we expect and we finalize the cost review and get our costs as slim as possible, we hope it will be or we plan it to be during 2025, but don't expect it to be during next year.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Ben, I will simply add that we will still be one of the first, if not the first, electrolyzer producers who reach that milestone given our low cost base.

Ben Schwarz

Okay, so no pressure Frederico. Frederico, for you, do you see the recent political issues in Portugal having an effect on the business, for example, in the form of delays in permitting or receipt of grant funds?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So naturally this was one of our big concerns, especially on the day that the news came out and the recent political turmoil a few weeks ago that kicked off in Portugal. Since then, we have actually seen the monetizing of various grants. We've seen a number of items that we had with the government moving forward. So we have actually seen relatively normal operations within the government. So, at this point in time, our projects have not been affected by the turmoil in Portugal. I will just note that what we have seen or what we expect delays is around programs the government was about to launch. So for example, there was the green hydrogen auction in Portugal that was expected to launch towards the end of this year. That naturally will be put on hold until the new elections happen in early 2024. But the projects themselves have not been delayed, although some of the government programs have. None of the projects we had, we’re expecting -- we’re awaiting for that auction, so it doesn't impact the revenue sort of guidance that we've given for 2024. In addition, the launch of the European Hydrogen Bank, which has recently been put out all of the rules and regulations around it and have opened up calls for this has also meant that clients who have considered going for 1 auction can now go for the European Hydrogen Bank auction instead. So the impact from the Portuguese government has been minimal.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. Very helpful. There was a question as well on the hydrogen auction in November. So that was helpful clarity there. A question here on mobility, so clearly a priority market for the company. Does management have a perspective on the future of hydrogen in mobility versus EVs? And then anything else of note to touch on regarding strategic partnerships in this space?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So I would note, [far be it] (ph) from us to get tried into the debate of which is better between the Hydro and EV sort of discussion to note, I personally and I think most of the executive committee of Fusion Fuel believe that there is a market for both. In particular, places which need fast charging, it avoids the need for having multiple batteries or whether you need to carry sort of large loads. There's a big case to be made for hydrogen or even hydrogen derivatives, be it ammonia as fuel as well. So we think in our view is that there will be a market for both EVs and hydrogen mobility in all their elements. So we've seen this across the board. All the discussions with our clients also seem to point to that fact that it is not an either-or, but actually a combination of both in their aim to decarbonize mobility.

Ben Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. A question here on performance guarantees. Can you touch on the ability of or need for players in this space to provide those guarantees, particularly on larger projects?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thank you, Ben. I think this is a really important topic that in the industry is not discussed enough. Effectively, we have to keep in mind that when someone wants to do a 100 megawatt project, they're spending like the EUR150 million or more on the full hydrogen plant, which is a substantial CapEx risk for any infrastructure player or client. Now with that traditionally you would expect to get performance guarantees and warranties for several years to back up a CapEx investment of that size. To date, the industry does not provide or as far as we have seen, does not really provide performance guarantees, especially for the very large projects. Therefore, whoever is doing a large investment, needs to determine how much capital they can truly put at full risk. So we have seen one, let's call it a large US competitor, has gone through the approach of putting substantial cash deposits and cash collateral with banks in order to finance some of the larger equipment sales. This is a substantial risk to anyone's balance sheet, especially with technology that has not yet had years and years of proven track record. So this is why we believe that there will be a few projects, large projects being done in the next two to three years. The majority of projects will be in the small to mid-scale where the risk for both parties, both the project buyer or investor as well as the companies providing the equipment is manageable. So I think this is really important because it will limit the amount of large projects in the next two to three years until the industry is more mature. For us, it's an advantage because our technology really plays in that small to mid-cap sort of area.

Ben Schwarz

Perfect, thanks, Frederico. Last question here pending any more that come through. Can you perhaps, Gavin, comment on current headcounts in the context of the cost structure and their need based on current and expected sales?

Gavin Jones

Yeah, sure. So I think we've gone on a journey in terms of headcounts over the past 12 months. We're probably roughly around the 130, 135 mark at the minute, probably close to the 130. I think the important thing to point out is that the salary costs within Portugal are a lot lower than a lot of other countries within the EU and also, compared to the likes of North America and even Australia. So that is included within our cost review process, but we think, and I think I touched upon this in the quarter two presentation, was that it might not be a case of reducing the headcount, but more rationalizing the headcount and moving people from one department to a different department. I think as Frederico pointed out in his slides, this engineering stream that has come to the fore in recent months, do we have the team fit for purpose for that? And do we have resources in other areas of the organization that could assist and even promote that stream even further? So that is something, it's a very good question and it's something that we actively look at and right now we think we've got a positive mix. But as I said, that's something that we look at on an ongoing basis.

Ben Schwarz

Perfect. Thank you, Gavin. So in the absence of any additional questions, I think that will do it for our third quarter webcast. So thank you for everyone who's joined. If you have additional questions or if you'd like to speak with myself or with management, please feel free to reach out to me and the IR team at [email protected] and we look forward to seeing you all again at our next update.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thank you.

Gavin Jones

Thank you all.

TranscriptFY2023 Q22023-08-31

FY2023 Q2 earnings call transcript

Earnings source - 49 paragraphs
Benjamin Schwarz

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fusion Fuel Green's Second Quarter 2023 Investor Update. My name is Benjamin Schwarz, and I'm Head of Investor Relations at Fusion Fuel. So, we'll begin with the safe harbor statement. I'd like to remind everyone that this call may contain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the company's expectations or predictions of financial and business performance, which are based on numerous assumptions about sales, margins, competitive factors, industry performance, or other factors, which cannot be predicted. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, and they are not guarantees of performance. I encourage you to read the disclaimer slide in the investor presentation for a discussion of those risks that may affect our business or may cause our assumptions to prove incorrect. The company is under no obligation and expressly disclaims any obligation to update, alter, or otherwise revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Thank you for joining us today. So, I'll quickly run through our agenda once again. So, I'll kick things off with an overview of Fusion Fuel at a glance. The management team will then present second quarter highlights, financials results, project, commercial updates, before wrapping up with a discussion of our milestones and priorities for the remainder of 2023. We will then open up the floor for facilitated Q&A with the remaining time. As in our previous quarterly calls, questions can either be entered in the chat box in the webcast platform at any point during the next hour, or you can submit your questions to me directly at the Investor Relations mailbox at [email protected]. Okay. So, as always, let's begin with a brief refresher on Fusion Fuel, our value proposition, and our positioning in the green hydrogen sector. So, our mission is to make the energy transition more accessible through the development and delivery of cost-effective clean hydrogen solutions. Our patented miniaturized PEM electrolyzer, the HEVO, is at the heart of everything we do in all of our products. Its simplified modular architecture is a true differentiator that unlocks multiple sources of advantage, including high throughput production, a scalable building block approach that positions us to create customized fit-for-purpose hydrogen solutions and cost competitive distributed production of hydrogen, mitigating the need for hydrogen distribution infrastructure, a critical and costly bottleneck in the market today. We've built a robust pipeline of actionable near-term projects in our core market, Southern Europe, with significant grant funding tied to many of those foundational projects that strengthen the economics and derisk the investment case. We're also making promising inroads in new priority markets in Northern Europe and North America, geographies that have been unlocked as a result -- unlocked too as a result of the introduction of our HEVO-Chain solution. We have a differentiated and synergistic business model that positions us across the value chain. In addition to selling our proprietary electrolyzer solution to third-party customers, we also originate and develop green hydrogen projects with diverse avenues for monetizing that value creation. And finally, we are poised for a significant growth ramp as the market matures with an extensive long-term project pipeline and a world-class production facility in Portugal, where we're targeting 0.5 gigawatt of electrolysis production by the end -- per annum by the end of 2025. So, with that, I'll now pass it over to Gavin Jones, CFO of Fusion Fuel, to share some highlights from the second quarter of 2023.

Gavin Jones

Thank you, Ben. Good afternoon or morning to all of you who have joined our second quarter investor update call. During the second quarter, we were awarded a €2.5 million contract to supply a 550-kilowatt solar to green hydrogen plant by a Spanish government agency called CSIC. CSIC, also known as the Spanish National Research Council, is a public research institution dedicated to promoting innovation, scientific research and technological development. This project will be based in Zaragoza, Spain. We also published our inaugural ESG report in addition to issuing further invoices to our technology cell customers. After the end of the second quarter, we finalized the acceptance tests at our Exolum hydrogen plant; signed a long-term green hydrogen offtake contract with a Spanish industrial group; continue to work on a strategic partnership with Duferco to cover the Italian market, starting with a 1-megawatt HEVO-Chain, non-containerized version in Southern Italy; and signed an agreement with Hydrogen Ventures to reach final investment decision on a €20 million project in Portugal by the end of 2023. Frederico will cover these strategic partnerships with Duferco and Hydrogen Ventures in more detail later in the presentation. We will now move on to the financial results for the second quarter. Please note that all values discussed for in euros, unless stated otherwise. We recognized no revenue during the second quarter. We invoiced customers a total of €1 million during the quarter, but client invoices or inflows do not always equate to revenue recognition as the related accounting standard sets out a number of criteria that must be met before identified performance obligations within these customer contracts have been satisfied. The items that we have invoiced have been deferred until such time that the performance obligations will be satisfied. For our Exolum project, the key milestone pertaining to revenue recognition is provisional acceptance. As this was achieved during the third quarter, the associated revenues will be booked. As we continue to transition from HEVO-Solar to HEVO-Chain, we identified a significant portion of our inventory that we do not expect to use on projects utilizing both the non-containerized and containerized version. The monetary value of these components was €7.2 million and we recorded an impairment charge for the full amount during the second quarter. Any inflows received as we dispose and/or recycle these components are expected to be credited against the impairment charge in future periods. We continue to source buyers for these components, but until we have agreements in place, we consider it prudent to write off the full value of such materials. This impairment has been recorded as part of cost of sales. Our operating cost base decreased for the second consecutive quarter. Excluding the non-recurring €1.4 million expense that was recorded in Q1, we saw a reduction to our personnel-related costs due to a lower headcount when compared to the first quarter. This was coupled with further reductions to travel, administrative and consulting fees, but somewhat offset by increased legal and depreciation charges. Our quarterly charge relating to our equity incentive plan reduced by €500,000 during the second quarter. This reduction related to the forfeiture of a significant number of instruments, which was offset by new grants during the period. The forfeiture of options resulted in a credit of €1.3 million, which is split between equity for those expenses booked in 2022 and profit and loss for those booked during 2023. The pre-tax loss for the quarter amounted to €12.4 million, of which approximately €8.1 million related to non-cash items. Moving to the balance sheet. The increase to property, plant and equipment is driven by two items. The first relates to the booking of new equipment that was invoiced during the quarter for our Benavente production facility. This increased the value of this asset by €4.5 million. The second relates to the recognition of a new land lease for our continued development of our own project pipeline. The inventory balance shown is net of impairment charge of €7.2 million that was recorded during the quarter. Other notable movements include a reduction in VAT as €3.2 million was settled during the quarter; an increase to trade as we book the equipment for Benavente, as mentioned above; and an increase to deferred income as we issued further invoices to customers and received more inflows from our C-5 grant award. Next slide, please. No ordinary shares were sold through the ATM during the second quarter. Over nine trading days in July and on August 1, we raised $492,000 cumulatively by selling 222,000 ordinary shares at an average price of $2.35 per share. These sales were made on an opportunistic basis when the price of our ordinary shares and related volumes were at a level that we considered appropriate for us to be active in the market. The last sale that we made was at $2.28 per share. Our stock has since fallen to as low as $1.69 without us being active with the ATM. I think this is the most appropriate moment to discuss our capital position. As we have discussed previously, it's a paramount importance that we raise capital to strengthen our balance sheet and to meaningfully extend our runway, which will enable us to generate revenues as we work towards cash flow self-sufficiency. Our main objective is to ensure we select the financing option that best protects shareholder interests while still meeting the needs of the company. As a small cap company, the ATM has proven to be the most efficient method of strengthening our capital position as capital market transactions of late have tended to focus on larger cap or privately owned companies. We are in discussions with both existing and prospective capital providers regarding financing solutions to meet the above objective. While we have no firm details to relate to you regarding these financing solutions, we expect to update the market further as our discussions progress. As part of our Q4 2022 investor update, we issued guidance for 2023 through 2025 for expected operating results. Our 2023 revenue guidance reflected amounts forecasted to be recognized on two of our own projects, both of which were expected to be completed during 2023. For the two projects in question, significant grant funding was awarded to each with the key criteria being that both projects were completed before the end of 2023. Given the licensing and permitting delays experienced to date, it will not be possible for these projects to be completed within the allocated timeframe. As a result of the foregoing, we are providing revised guidance. In our revised guidance for 2023, we have excluded the related revenues and cost of goods sold for these two projects. It's important to note that we consider this to be a delay rather than a reduction. For the two projects in question, we had identified investors for both and have now shifted these investors to other projects in our portfolio that are in advanced stages. The shift from HEVO-Solar to HEVO-Chain will allow for a more streamlined licensing and permitting process. HEVO-Solar requires larger land plots in addition to requiring a more complex licensing process. Moving some of our own projects to HEVO-Chain should reduce some of the difficulties encountered during 2023 to date. We expect our technology sale revenues of €5 million to remain unchanged and are not revising this initial guidance. We expect our invoicing to customers to be ahead of plan, but our revenues will lag behind due to the nature of our technology sale agreements, where revenue recognition will be back-ended as opposed to over time, which is consistent throughout the industry. Slide 12 of this presentation aims to set out some of the key milestones in a typical technology contract. Our cost of goods sold has been updated to reflect lower revenues for 2023 and the impairment charges recorded during the second quarter. We have estimated a lower production capacity for 2023, a reduction of 10 megawatts on the initial guidance. The investment in the second production line has been pushed to 2024 due to slower-than-expected client deliveries. We expect to issue a revised guidance for 2024 as part of our Q3 investor update. I will now pass you over to our CEO, Frederico, who will guide you through the rest of the presentation.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thank you, Gavin, and thank you all for joining us today. I would like to start by sharing with you the latest developments from the work that's been ongoing throughout this year from Exolum. The project, the first of its kind in Iberia, going from solar energy to green hydrogen straight to a refueling station, all co-located, has completed its acceptance testing phase, and the project has been delivered to the client. In addition, we're proud to know that the HEVO-Solar and the HEVOs within them are producing at a higher rate than their [data sheet] (ph). In this early stage market, Fusion Fuel has proved itself as having a leading engineering team, able to not only design, but also deliver a full solution to the client, having taken on the oversight of the design, construction, installation and commissioning of the plant. Currently, Fusion Fuel has the only green hydrogen plants currently live in Iberia, and we're working to deliver the third to CSIC. This is an experience level that has proven to have substantial value as we enter the negotiation of future sales contracts. We now have a brief slide show of the Exolum project, which, as I mentioned, we oversaw every step, bringing together several partners throughout. The project included civil construction, installation of the HEVO-Solar, the installation of the balance of plants, the development of control software and processes, the commissioning of the entire plant. The team worked incredibly hard these months to bring a truly pioneering plant to life. This experience and knowledge are a strong competitive advantage the Fusion Fuel has in the Southern European market. As we've mentioned several times, we've secured substantial strategic sites and started the development of key green hydrogen projects primarily in Portugal and Spain, but also in the U.S. and Morocco. Focusing on Portugal and the five key owned projects underway. We continue to move forward with these projects, adding significant value to them as we continue to secure the elements required for their go-live, be it power [payments] (ph), connection lines, local permits or even offtake agreements. These, in addition to the €44 million of grants we have secured already for this portfolio and the €15 million already requested for the Aveiro project, create an enormous portfolio value for the company. This is in addition to the [IPCEI] (ph) project submission, where we are still awaiting to hear a decision on whether it's approved or not. We continue to receive questions and clarification points, which we are answering, but we do not know yet what the timeline for a final decision is. We are currently negotiating the sale of three of the projects listed here to infrastructure investors. With the successful negotiation of these projects and the transfers of those SPVs, we will be able to secure significant revenue orders for '24 and 2025, as well as recognize some of the value of the stock already with those SPVs. The Sines I and Azambuja projects alone represent €20 million each of potential revenues for Fusion Fuel given that we're looking to not only deliver the electrolyzer, but similar to CSIC and Exolum, we are looking to develop the entire hydrogen plant, including balance of plant, something that we are able to do as one of the only players to have done so in the last years in this market. Our expectation is to be able to close the negotiations on these projects by year-end. Projects take a long time to take shape, unfortunately, a lot longer than we expected, but also longer than was ever considered in the various national hydrogen strategies. However, the recent negotiations with several large counterparts on the various projects in our existing portfolio, highlight the value these have for the company. Firstly, to create the backbone for technology sales in future years, and secondly, they enable us to engage with hydrogen offtakers and potential investors in a way that simply supplying the solutions with technology integrator wouldn't allow us to do. With this in mind, our team was busy during June and July in preparing three new solutions for our own projects for the latest rounds in Spanish and Portuguese programs as well as being highly engaged in the submissions for four client projects. If successful, these projects represent nearly 70 megawatts of electrolyzer capacity and around €65 million of potential revenues for Fusion Fuel. The importance of creating these potential projects is only growing since the announcement of the European Hydrogen Bank earlier this year. As a recap, any project that seeks to benefit from the European Hydrogen Bank cannot receive other forms of support or grants. Therefore, if the project listed here are not successful in securing the grants we are seeking, the work to create these opportunities will not be in vain. We will still be looking to make them a reality by assuming the European Hydrogen Bank auction. In June of this year, coinciding with the progression of our HEVO-Chain offering, the team began pursuing a more focused effort to secure third-party sales for electrolyzer deliveries. The HEVO-Solar proved to be a difficult product for clients as it required substantial land and a unique and ever-changing licensing landscape. To give an example, just in Portugal, the regulatory requirements for a hydrogen project have substantially changed and have had a lot of different introductions of new processes in the permitting process. This meant that things like our Aveiro projects, we would no longer be able to build them as they are today. This is how fast the pace is changing. We will still implement the HEVO-Solar in certain projects, Exolum and CSIC are examples of those, but it increasingly becomes harder as these things will be on industrial sites and the permitting process is much longer. The HEVO-Chain solution was [relatively] (ph) our core offering today with its industry-leading efficiency for PEM system is receiving significant traction from projects developed by third parties MRO. We've been transferring the technology used in our own projects to the HEVO-Chain solution gradually. And this is proving substantially easier to advance with the licensing and permitting processes. Since this transition to the HEVO-Chain, our sales team has already submitted around 40 offers for this new solution. These submissions are often complex, requiring full design specifications for hydrogen projects that go well beyond the supply of the electrolyzer alone. This is where our unique ability to design full project scope with our experience in getting these projects implemented is proving to be a competitive advantage. We have seen recent industry news of troubles inside a hydrogen project, and we believe that experience in executing, designing projects and we're being responsible for projects that are live is a significant differentiator in the years to come. The sales to third parties have several stages, and we expect to be hearing final technology decisions on several of the offers in the coming months now that the European summer break is coming to a close. A highlight for us in this process has been the offering of our technology for the first project in Northern Europe, which was not possible before the HEVO-Chain solution, and something which we noted in the last update as a strategic priority for us. The reality is that although Southern Europe has enormous potential for green hydrogen, the northern countries in the continent are moving faster in establishing a series of projects in this space. And therefore, it's something we certainly want to participate in. As noted in the previous slide, the sale of our own projects to infrastructure investors is something that we are actively engaged in and look to conclude before year-end, which will generate significant [confirmed] (ph) revenues for the firm as well as release substantial cash flows given that they will consume significant amount of product currently in our inventory. We've received several questions on our business model as it differs to some of our competitors. Here, we've laid out the value chain of a green hydrogen plant, starting with the power supply and the electrolyzer system, the engineering, the balance of plant procurement, the construction process, finally leading to green hydrogen being produced and delivered. For Aveiro and Exolum, as well as for CSIC, Fusion Fuel is responsible for the entire value chain, developing a full and rare experience within our team to be able to deliver this. Going forward, our primary focus on the delivery of the electrolyzer system and, in many cases, their installation and commission. We will also look to provide engineering services and balance of plant dimensioning and procurement for selected projects and mostly limited to projects in Iberia. These are services that require a thorough understanding of the local regulatory requirements, something we have here, but instead of developing for other markets, we will look to partner -- we'll look for partners with the relative expertise. Partnerships are a key enabler in our strategy and have a multiplier effect on a limited team and size. In Italy, we are working together with Duferco Energia, a company we have partnered on -- partnered with on two project proposals for Italians plants before to create a commercial partnership to promote the Fusion Fuel technology suites to the Italian market. This is an example of the strategic relationship with -- relationships we are looking to form. While we bring our leading technology to a partner with substantial local operations and knowledge and thereby accelerate our presence in the market beyond what would be possible alone. The partnership with Duferco kicks-off with a 1-megawatt HEVO-Chain Series C electrolyzer system during 2024 to decarbonize local refinery. This is the first project that we'll be taking a containerized version of HEVO-Chain solution, something we're very excited to deliver. There are further partnership discussions ongoing, covering new markets such as North America and India, with demonstrated project for Fusion Fuel included. We can't go into them now, but we'll share developments on these exciting discussions as soon as we can. We're working -- we're also working with a large renewable specialist entity for potential funding on some of Fusion Fuel's projects in Europe beyond Portugal. These are projects that have already begun to take shape, but they still require investments for their completion. The green hydrogen world is still in its early stage, and these partnerships are important to help us accelerate our growth while ensuring we keep our cost as low as possible. We have been able to secure some of the first green hydrogen purchase agreements in Southern Europe. Green hydrogen offtake is still in its early stage and is a critical part of making any green hydrogen project viable. Our experience in negotiating contracts for industrial use, [gas spending and mobility] (ph) cases puts us ahead of the curve when establishing ourselves in these markets. In addition to these three hydrogen purchase agreements, we've also secured several MoUs for the supply of green hydrogen for projects in our portfolio. The experience we established in the negotiation and framing the first agreement form a critical foundation to finalize these larger contracts, ensuring that the projects in our portfolio have an attractive unlevered IRR for their investors. Before reaching the last slide of the presentation, I'd like to spend a few moments to dig into what is truly special about the HEVO-Chain offering and the HEVO itself. It is a really important evolution in the PEM market, so bear with me for a moment. Firstly, we have a market-leading PEM stack efficiency of 47.8 kilowatt hour per kilo and an efficiency at the system level of 51.8 kilowatt hours per kilo. This compares to most peers in around 57-kilowatt hours per kilo, roughly a 10% efficiency advantage. Our system is one of the most modular and scalable of any electrolyzer solution in the market, able to be handled [when] (ph) components and dimensions as small as 20 kilowatts. This allows for a high-scale modularity in building hydrogen plants, but also minimizes the disruption during maintenance processes and during any system issues, reducing the risk of requiring an entire plant to shut down as has been seen in other systems. One point to highlight, where we've gone through into this detail in the past, we have an industry-leading precious metal utilization. This is the chart you see here on the right. We are currently well below the targeted platinum group metals usage in both the EU Clean Hydrogen Roadmap and the U.S. Department of Energy Roadmap. Critically, we've completed more than 2,000 hours of new HEVOs using a lot of platinum group metals only targeted to reached around 2030 and about one-quarter of the value used by some of our more established PEM competitors. This highlights how truly differentiating the HEVO technology is and the advantages it has in the market. I'll touch upon this slide briefly, but wanted to keep it in as we always look to highlight where we stand versus what we set out to do at the start of the year. Most of the points have been covered in previous slides, however, I'd like to note that HEVO-Chain is now in full commercial mode. And that for the first time, we've included the capture of oxygen for the electrolysis process for a client for a system delivery at the end of the year. The process of producing 1 kilo of green hydrogen releases 8 time that amount of oxygen, better yet, green oxygen, as no carbon emission were released through its creation. In this first case, the client has used oxygen in their industrial process, and therefore, we're able to add on to the system oxygen capture capabilities. We expect this to be included in more and more client proposals going forward. Last quarter, we highlighted our strategic priorities, and we want to provide an update now on how we are executing against this. As noted, we have started all-effort push on tech sales with our HEVO-Chain offering. This has resulted in more sales offers going out in the last few months than the previous two years. Importantly, this includes the first proposals of projects in North Europe and in the U.S., both key markets for the green hydrogen industry. And it's clear to us and to everyone that strengthening our capital position and balance sheet is a priority for the executive team. The very limited detail as Gavin noted that we can provide at this time, we're in advanced discussions with capital providers to strengthen our capital position. We do expect to make significant progress in the business in the coming months, given what I've mentioned before and where we are in project sales and tech sales, which should also put us in a position to take further steps to strengthen our capital without having such a distressed valuation. As noted, the HEVO-Chain offering is well advanced and commercially ready, and we've been delivering offers for projects up to 5 and 10 megawatts already. It's important to note that the largest PEM electrolyzer in operation today is 20 megawatts only. So the path to going large in this industry is still something that everyone is pursuing. For us, delivering on smaller projects and scaling up gradually is how we intend to reach the delivery of larger projects in the future. As the company grows and the industry evolves, we've also identified the need to review the structure and size of certain areas and, importantly, that we ensure that our resources are allocated in the most appropriate manner for our strategic goals. This is the process that won't stop, and in the coming months, will lead us to have some refocusing of our efforts and cost reductions where possible. The plan is that we can self-fund pursuing some of the new opportunities that we have identified. Lastly, regarding strategic partnerships, as highlighted earlier, we're thrilled to be working with Duferco Energia, bringing not only our first 1-megawatt containerized order, but also importantly a plan for commercial coverage of the Italian market. We're pursuing other partnerships to help us grow and bring a multiplier effect to our business and are in very advanced discussions in both Europe and beyond. We can't say more now, but hope to be able to announce some of the items we're working on over the coming weeks. I'll now ask Gavin and Ben to join me as we open the session for some Q&A. Thank you.

A - Benjamin Schwarz

Great. Thanks, Frederico. I've gotten some questions in the e-mail as well as in the chat box. A quick reminder, if you do have additional questions, you can send them to the Investor Relations mailbox at [email protected] or enter them into the chat box in the webcast platform. Okay. So, we'll begin some questions from Chris Tsung at Webber Research. There's a handful of questions on the H2 Pioneers project announcing that confirms €3.3 million in grant funding. How do you plan to fund the remaining €2.5 million of capital investment for that project?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Great. Thank you, Ben. So to note, this project is one similar to our Portugal projects. These are own projects that we are looking for infrastructure investors for -- to actually, the owners and the funding partners for these projects. We're already in advanced discussions with a renewable investor for that project. To note, that project is we call Toledo I in the slide of Perte and C-14 project front overview. We're in discussions with that same investor for Toledo I and Toledo II, right? The project has also been changed to HEVO-Chain. So, it is a HEVO-Chain offering as well. Most critically, together, these projects hold critical item was the hydrogen purchase agreement, something we have announced and secured already for that project. So, now we are in the next stage discussions with the investor. I hope that answer the question.

Benjamin Schwarz

Yes, that's right. I think it does. As a follow-up to that, we announced that there are four projects preselected for grant funding as part of the first H2 Pioneers call. Are the remaining three projects still in contention? And if not, how should we think about the viability of those projects?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. Thanks, Ben. So of the four, one was awarded, and two we let go, and one has been resubmitted to the new purchase. So that is Toledo II is the actual one that we have resubmitted at present.

Benjamin Schwarz

Great. Thanks. What is the pathway to monetize the approved grants or the secured grants, given that only €6.8 million or so has been invoiced to date? Also, the approved grants decreased quarter-on-quarter from €70 million to roughly €60 million. What -- can you provide some clarity as to what happened there?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. I'll tackle this in reverse order. The grants, that reduction of the €10 million are related to, as Gavin mentioned, the two projects that we could not complete due to licensing delays, right? So, even though we have been -- we were not the only ones to suffer this problem. In these government programs, there were 40 hydrogen projects approved. Not a single one was implemented given the delays on the government side. So, we were not unique. But effectively, that matches exactly the decrease in grant value was us formally acknowledging that we will not be pursuing the project. In reality, the grant will only expire at the end of the year, but we already reflecting in the numbers. So, those -- sorry, yes, the recognizing of the revenues. So, effectively, the grants to support the CapEx expense of the project. So, as we try to sell the projects to investors, they will be the ones who will benefit most of the grant. So there are -- there is a certain amount of the grant funding that we are taking receipt as the current holders of the SPV. This allows us to sell some of our products to that SPV. But for the time, the grant, we do hope to see a decrease in that grant number in our own books as we transfer these SPVs to third-party investors. And so with the moving of the grants to third parties, we'll truly benefit from them, we will also see the contract sales related.

Benjamin Schwarz

Great. Thanks, Frederico. Final question for Chris. On the revised guidance, can you provide some clarity as to how revenue decreases -- expected revenue decreases by €20 million, but net income only decreases by €9 million?

Gavin Jones

Sure. I can take that one, Ben. So, in terms of that revised guidance, again, important just to note the split between technology sales and our own project development sales. So, the cost of sales related to the two projects that I mentioned has fully fallen away. And for those who have been following us, you might remember that as reported in our most recently filed 20-F and our Q1 investor update, we recorded significant onerous contract provisions for our technology sales in December 2022, which effectively under accounting standards requires you to book your best estimate of the loss for those contracts when you first realize that those contracts will be loss making. So, we recorded provision in December and how that kind of works its way out as you record revenue, you will record the corresponding cost of sales. But as those losses have already been recorded in the income statement, the amount that will be recorded once revenue has been recognized, will actually be significantly lower and if a contract loss provision hadn't been booked in the first instance. So sorry, a bit of a worthy response to that, but hopefully, I've got the message across.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks, Gavin. A couple of questions from Erwan Kerouredan at RBC. What are the next steps regarding your product simplification strategy and the perceived phaseout of HEVO-Solar? Should we expect further impairments as part of that transition?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So I'll answer the next steps and Gavin, you take the impairment piece. So for us, we have -- we are already moving well along on the HEVO-Chain solution. We've been moving our projects towards the HEVO-Chain offering. So, took the advantage of simplified licensing process that offers us. At this stage, there's no real sort of further requirement for us to do a product simplification strategy. It's more just focusing our efforts on getting the projects transferred, which [then mostly] (ph) to the HEVO-Chain solution. Gavin, I'll pass to you on the impairment.

Gavin Jones

Yes. Perfect. So, we don't expect any further impairments. But again, we can't be 100% definitive on that. What we have done is taking a pretty rigorous review of everything that we have in inventory. And we feel the number that we booked in this quarter correctly reflects the items that we won't -- we know for sure that we won't use going forward. As I mentioned, we're looking to sell those or recycle or scrap them. So hopefully, there will be inflows in the future. But in terms of other items in our inventory that we have, as Frederico mentioned, HEVO-Solar is not dead. We still have projects ongoing. So, we will utilize the materials that we have. And our production and R&D team have also done a pretty good job at reviewing the materials to be used for HEVO-Chain, both containerized and non-containerized, and we've been able to utilize many, many components within the inventory. If that process wasn't done, then they would have had to be impaired. And we will continue -- we will be on this journey for the next couple of months until HEVO-Chain becomes a bit more recognized in the market, and then we're actually installing the product. So hopefully, not is the answer based on the review that we've done so far.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks, Gavin. Very good. Can you touch on the U.S. strategy? Has the U.S. market been deprioritized in the near term in favor of Northern and Southern Europe?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thanks, Ben. No, absolutely not. So the U.S. market -- the North American markets, to throw in Canada in there as well, is certainly a priority for us. As I noted during my speech, we've been making offers for both Northern European markets as well as North American markets. The IRA is a phenomenal opportunity for everyone in the -- in hydrogen space. Any project that includes our technology can benefit from the $3 tax credit a kilo of hydrogen produced. So, it's certainly a focus. In fact, this is one of the partnership discussions that we are engaged in. So, we look forward to being able to sharing more with you all related to our efforts in North America. But just to know that it is certainly a priority for us. How we plan to cover that market going forward beyond just the sort of answering for inbound technology requests and ongoing live home projects that were already in flight, I believe it will become clearer as we're able to announce details around our partnerships. So, I will be [vague] (ph), but hope to be able to communicate more in the coming weeks.

Benjamin Schwarz

Great. We'll pivot now to some questions from [Jeffrey Grant with AGP] (ph). What are the remaining steps required to reach FID on the projects with Hydrogen Ventures?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. So, the project with Hydrogen Ventures, the one that we are discussing with them. This is a project that we've been -- already we have the licensing of the power grid, we have the power, and we have the hydrogen production land. So, at the moment, this is more around the contractual discussions with Hydrogen Ventures, then doing their review and due diligence on the project, all the project materials, the grant contracts and so. So in terms of FID, these are now the coming months. It's really on investor review of the project more than any particular milestone.

Benjamin Schwarz

Great. Second question concerns the reference made in the second quarter materials for more standardization and rigor in sales efforts. Can you expand on what you mean by that? And what benefit that standardization will have?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. Of course. So effectively, when you do HEVO -- this is one of the advantages of HEVO-Chain. When you do a HEVO-Solar project, every single project needs to be completely tailored. The amount of hydrogen produced by HEVO-Solar depends on the local radiation of that site. The topography of the land can change the requirements and so on. So every single proposal needed substantial custom [indiscernible] and custom offering, nearly doing a full project review just to put out an offer. With the HEVO-Chain, we're able to have standard offers. So, we have effectively much more standard building blocks that can be applied anywhere, given that it requires certain amount of land to place the units. This has allowed us to have pretty much from standard designs to standard offer letters, layouts 3D -- 3D layouts, sorry, and so on. This -- the ability to be able to deliver heavy 40-plus offers in a couple of months would certainly not have been possible with HEVO-Solar offering. So that standardization is what we're referring to.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks. Moving now to some questions from the audience. What's the status of the HEVO-Solar given the permitting challenges referenced during the quarter? And can you provide some additional commentary on those permitting issues in Portugal and Spain?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. So again, on permitting issues in Portugal and Spain related to the type of land and the rules and requirements that each hydrogen project has to go through. So for example, last year, Portugal passed the regulation that was called Simplex that allowed hydro projects to be spread through a number of regulatory and licensing requirements and sort of a licensing-light approach. As of this year, that position was reversed, and that accelerated the process is impossible to actually projects that were pursuing that Simplex system, they've been informed that they need to revert back to the old lengthier regulatory process. So that sort of change of goalposts from the regulators make it very hard for the various projects. It particularly hits the HEVO-Solar because the type and the -- I should say the original regulatory requirements that they now reverted back to the amount of licensing required -- I should say the required licensing hurdles significantly increases the footprint size of the project. So when you're doing a one-hectare project, it's very different when you're doing a 10-hectare project and so on. So effectively the required licensing process for HEVO-Solar project with any sort of relatively decent size meant that it would immediately hit all the highest hurdles. Again, this is also a development in the regulatory process that caught us by surprise, given that the previous one was only implemented last year effectively changed the -- changed game for HEVO-Solar in these markets. It's not to say that, that applies to Morocco or other markets, but certainly for Portugal and Spain, these were one of the changes. So effectively what we have done is we have separated the hydrogen production from the power production in terms of physical separation, and we transfer the electronics to the electrolyzer. This proves still to be a very cost-effective manner because the HEVO-Chain is actually performing very well, exceptionally well with a very low or I should say very high efficiency, low kilowatt hour requirement per kilo.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. Can you provide an update on the Gedisol project which was announced last year?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Sure. The Gedisol project and the HEVO-Solar project to be specific, those are the two projects that were impacted by the delays of licensing, as Gavin mentioned. These were the projects that we were expecting to deliver this year, they have been -- we had to change the investors for those projects to other projects in our portfolio.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks. When should investors expect some clarity on the company's capital position?

Gavin Jones

So, I think as Frederico mentioned, we are in discussions with various counterparts regarding various different financing solutions. So, it's not appropriate for me to go through in detail right now, but hopefully soon. But again, what I will build on my previous comments is that our goal has always been for us to bridge our finances to cash flow breakeven. We continue to look at all the solutions available to us to protect shareholder value. We don't want to fully fund the business plan on day one, especially given our depressed share price because any significant financing ends up being a dilutive recapitalization of the company, so we must move a caution on these items. So hopefully, I'll provide an update relatively soon. Frederico, anything to add to that?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

No, that's right.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks, Gavin. Are you in a position to disclose Fusion Fuel's levelized cost of hydrogen from the HEVO-Chain solution? And then from a commercial standpoint, are you seeing customer willingness to pay a premium for green hydrogen?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thanks, Ben. So, on the first point, I'd refer people back to slides we have shared previously where we noted our levelized cost of hydrogen for our HEVO solution. We already at that point in time recognize that levelized cost of hydrogen apply both the HEVO-Solar and the HEVO-Chain. And therefore, even in the slide at that point in time it simply said, HEVO solution. So we have made that public before. We believe it is industry-leading. And on the final levelized cost of hydrogen for any project very much depends on the cost of energy for a project and the load factor. So, it's solar-only or solar and wind. And again, we are seeing phenomenal results for projects we're modeling with solar and wind with the HEVO-Chain. So I would refer back to that. Ben, sorry, there was a second part to the question.

Benjamin Schwarz

Yes. Just touching on customer willingness to pay a premium for green hydrogen?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So absolutely, as we noted, we've been able to close three hydrogen purchase agreement. This is something that is rare in the market and we are effectively seeing that happen more and more. We'll note that the guarantee of origin market is starting to truly take shape in Europe. And we see the first sort of -- I should say, demand and prices of that come out into the market. Those make green hydrogen projects extremely attractive. So, we certainly are seeing that appetite for a certain amount of volume of green hydrogen at a premium.

Benjamin Schwarz

Great question here on how the proposed three pillars regulations being considered in the U.S. would impact Fusion Fuel and aspirations or desire to utilize the $3 PTC, if at all? I'll just chime in here as I sit here in the U.S. I invite Frederico and Gavin to add. So for those who aren't aware, the three proposed pillars are: temporal matching, so matching energy consumption with clean energy production on an hourly basis; additionality, it's only using installed -- recently installed, I should say, renewable production; and then deliverability, which is using renewables production that is co-located with the hydrogen facility. Interestingly, those first two pillars are consistent with the delegated acts that were adopted earlier this year by the EU. So we don't -- it doesn't represent a meaningful hurdle for us as we're already ensuring compliance with our project design and definition in our European portfolio. And then with respect to deliverability, our modular technology is designed for co-location, both with end users as well as with renewables production. So we don't anticipate meaningful changes to our approach to projects in the U.S. going forward. Anything to add? Otherwise, I'll move on to the next one.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Please, Ben.

Benjamin Schwarz

Great. A question here on the status of the IPCEI submission. Has feedback been received? And how does the transition from the HEVO-Solar to HEVO-Chain impact that project, if at all?

Benjamin Schwarz

I'll say, we've been working in forming the -- I'm now speaking generally, not specifically for the IPCEI, but all programs, we've doing the transition from HEVO-Solar to HEVO-Chain in a coordinated manner to ensure that this doesn't cause problems to the different fundings and awards that have been granted. The IPCEI project, as I mentioned in my notes, we continue to await to final decision. We have been receiving questions pretty much continuously on projects throughout the last months. And we eagerly await the decision. No expectation on timing, sorry. We do not have nor received indication as to when the timing would be.

Benjamin Schwarz

Great. Thanks. Perhaps a question for Gavin. How are you thinking about reducing fixed costs, given the commercial challenges and revised revenue guidance discussed during the call?

Gavin Jones

Yes. So, we have embarked on a rigorous review of our cost base like from cost of materials to general operating costs. All costs are being considered. And I think it's a paramount importance for us to ensure that our cost base matches as much the reduction in the inflows, so that we can continue to be an efficient entity and meet our milestones as quickly as possible.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks, Gavin. What is the status of -- Frederico, you alluded to this earlier, but what is the status of the U.S. strategy given the departures of the previous co-Presidents of Fusion Fuel USA? And do you plan to hire new leadership at any point?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

As mentioned, the U.S. recognizes definitely a core market for us. We've mentioned in the past that we've had several projects that we are pursuing there. We are actively engaged in partnership discussions for the U.S. market, which I hope will bring some clarity to that question. I will just leave everyone with a note that, yes, the U.S. market is a priority for us. And yes, we do intend to have coverage and work together with local partners to make most of the opportunity set there in the America. We have already also have been looking at the starting the process of licensing our HEVO-Chain solution to also be -- have all the required licenses for sale in the U.S. So, it's certainly very much in the -- in our strategic priority list.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks. With respect to the new information on BGR in India, what are the drivers of that project or Indian aspirations given the notable difference in the subsidy and grant environment between India and Europe and North America?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

So, to note, India does have substantial hydrogen project support and also hydrogen technology support, making it an attractive market for future. This is why we already talked about the partnership with BGR Energy. It goes beyond just the demonstrated plant. It needs to be seen in context of a broader effort for the Indian market. Given those discussions and what the activities being done there are on BGR side and not on our side. I'm not going to go into the specifics of those projects, but just to note that it is in the context of a broader effort and attractiveness that we see in the Indian market.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks. Gavin, a question here from Torkjel Jordbakke at Fearnley Securities. Can you just help just contextualize a bit more of the €20 million reduction in revenue guidance for 2023? Is that due to grants not being recognized as revenue or due to delayed commissioning? Or perhaps just elaborate a little bit more on that?

Gavin Jones

Sure. Thanks, Ben. So the €20 million reduction is purely because of the two projects, so the HEVO-Solar and the Gedisol projects that will no longer go ahead in 2023. And so the revenue that would have been recognized on those contracts would have related to the electrolyzers, the HEVOs that we would have sold to those projects once investors have basically taken control of the special purpose vehicles who will develop the project, okay? So, not related to grants other than the fact that because the grants required the projects to be completed in 2023. I think [indiscernible] because the project couldn't be completed in 2023, the grants were no longer relevant. They couldn't be drawn down. So, it was more a timing issue that the project couldn't be completed for us to recognize the revenue as opposed to grants not being recognized.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Gavin, I'll just also note that the -- one of the projects that was impacted was the HEVO-Solar project and the investor counterpart for that was Hydrogen Ventures. It is by coincidence that we have simply now moved Hydrogen Ventures to the Azambuja project. So effectively, the concept, the use case, everything remains the same. It is simply a change of site in the discussions. So, this is why we are well advanced and we believe that those contracts can be closed by year-end. This is an evolution of the efforts that we're already making with them with a change of location rather than a whole new discussion.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. Last question before we close here. It relates to strategic partnerships more broadly, but there was a question around whether the company is considering a partnership or collaboration with companies like J.C. Bamford given their stated desire to be a leader in hydrogen-powered heavy-duty equipment?

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Just for us, we're looking at a broad spectrum of partnerships. As we noted before, we have the partnership with Toshiba in the R&D development and maintaining our leading position in that platinum group metals. We discussed with the Duferco Energia today a partnership on commercial coverage for the Italian market. I mentioned before a European partnership to fund and develop some of projects in our portfolio. So, we are looking at a number of them and specific users like industrial users or heavy users of hydrogen are included in that. I'm not going to speak about specific names and so on as you -- it's understandable. But yes, we have various types of partnership being engaged in.

Benjamin Schwarz

Thanks, Frederico. So that will do it for our second quarter webcast. Thanks to everyone who joined. If you have additional questions or if you'd like to speak with myself or with management, please feel free to reach out to me and the IR team at [email protected], and we look forward to seeing you all again at our next update.

Gavin Jones

Thank you, all.

Frederico Figueira de Chaves

Thank you.

As of 2026-05-30 • Updated weeklySource: Earnings sourceIngestion runbook