Welcome to the Gevo Second Quarter 2017 Earnings Call. My name is Eric and I'll be your operator for today’s call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Geoff Williams, Gevo's General Counsel and Secretary. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Gevo’s second quarter 2017 earnings conference call. I’d like to start by introducing today’s participants from the Company. With us today is Pat Gruber, Gevo’s Chief Executive Officer; and Mike Willis, Gevo’s Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, we issued a press release that outlines the topics that we plan to discuss. A copy of this press release is available on our website at www.gevo.com. I would like to remind our listeners that this conference call is open to the media and we are providing a simultaneous webcast of this call to the public. A replay of today’s call will be available on Gevo’s website. On the call today, you will hear discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is contained in the press release distributed today and which is posted on our website. We will also make certain forward-looking statements about events and circumstances that have not yet occurred, including, but not limited to, projections about Gevo’s operating activities for the remainder of 2017 and beyond. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current, beliefs, expectations, and assumptions, and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties including those disclosed in Gevo’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, and in subsequent reports and other filings made with the SEC by Gevo, including our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements speak only as of today’s date and Gevo disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. On today’s call, Pat will begin with the discussion of Gevo’s business developments; Mike will then review Gevo’s financial results for the second quarter of 2017. Following the presentation, we will open up the call for questions. I’ll now turn the call over to Pat.

Thank you, Geoff, and thank you to everyone for joining us today. On today's call I'm going to provide an update on; first, restructuring of our balance sheet; second, the operations of the Luverne facility; third, licensing and our latest news with our partner Praj; fourth, our progress on the market development front. So then starting with restructuring. You'll recall that we entered the year with the goal of restructuring our balance sheet in a manner that addresses the debt that was coming due in 2017 and that enables us to continue to execute on our long-term strategy and business development plans. With the conclusion of the debt exchange with Whitebox that we announced in June, we believe that we've accomplished this goal. To put this in perspective, at the end of the first quarter of 2016, we had less than $9 million of cash on our balance sheet and over $51 million of debt that was potentially coming due in 2017. With our strong balance sheet, this was causing issues for both our existing and potential partners, as well as customers, vendors, and the like. Fast-forward 15 months, and we now have over $16 million of cash and only about $17 million of debt, which is not set to mature until 2020 and beyond. There's a much stronger balance sheet with which we now have to work and you can imagine the positive impact this is having at customers and partners interested in doing business with Gevo. I can tell you that we've had feedback from customers that they needed to see us in a much better liquidity position. With a stronger balance sheet in place, I am hopeful this will help us get some of our potential partners that are interested in our ATJ, isooctane and isobutanol over…

Thank you, Pat. Gevo reported revenue in the second quarter of 2017 of $7.4 million as compared to a $8.1 million in the same period in 2016. The decrease in revenue during 2017 is primarily result of the production and sale of approximately $6.8 million of ethanol, isobutanol and distillers grains at the Luverne facility as compared to $7.2 million in the second quarter of 2016. This decrease in revenue was mainly due to lower ethanol and distiller grain prices in the second quarter of 2017 versus the same period in 2016. During the second quarter of 2017, hydrocarbon revenues were $0.7 million, down $0.1 million as compared to the same period in 2016. Gevo also generated grants and other revenue $43,000 during the second quarter of 2017, down $0.2 million as compared to the same period in 2016. The decline was primarily due to the completion of our project with the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance or NARA in the third quarter of 2016. Cost of goods sold was $9.7 million in the second quarter of 2017 versus $10 million in the same period in 2016. Cost of goods sold included approximately $8.2 million associated with the production of ethanol, isobutanol, and related products and approximately $1.5 million in depreciation expense. Gross loss was $2.2 million for the second quarter of 2017 versus $1.9 million for the second quarter of 2016. R&D expense for the second quarter of 2017 increased to $1.9 million compared to $1.5 million for the comparable quarter in 2016, due primarily to an increase in employee related expenses and costs associated with production of our hydrocarbons down in Silsbee, Texas. SG&A expense for the second quarter of 2017 was $2.1 million, which was essentially flat versus the comparable quarter in 2016. Within total operating expenses for…

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And we have a question on line from Amit Dayal from Rodman & Renshaw. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Good morning guys. In regards to the Luverne expansion, could you give us any color on where we are with [Indiscernible]

Amit, how are you doing? This is Pat. I couldn't quite hear you. Are you asking about an update on the Luverne expansion?

Yes. Sorry. Is this better?

Much, much, much better.

Yes, so I was just trying to get some color on where we are with the expansion efforts if construction has started or is still sort of in the design process?

We're working in engineering still. So, we're in pretty good shape on the isobutanol site because we already knew how to do that because of the fermenters that we built last year and installed and the process worked the way we expected. We had pretty good data on that, couple of tweaks that we're looking at, but that's in great shape. And the engineering is far along now on the hydrocarbon side. That's good, because it allows us to look at the build out as whatever looked like at Luverne, but it also allows us to have additional conversations as to how we do we do it more cost effectively and cheaply.

So, when do we expect to sort of finish the expansion? I mean is it by the end of 2017 or will that bleed into early 2018?

No, no, this expansion it would be requiring us to build a couple of new fermenters and then build a hydrocarbon plant. That whole thing would come online in a year 20 -- targeted in that timeframe of 2020 or so. That's what we've been talking about. That was in our previous stuff that we've --.

All right.

So, it's not something -- there's nothing we'd have to spend significant chunk of money to install the fermenters, to make our whole plant capable of making isobutanol at the right cost structure to be profitable. But really to do that, we should also be having the hydrocarbon side of the plant ready.

Got it. So, at this point, just to clarify, so we are producing some isobutanol at Silsbee, but nothing at Luverne right now, right?

No. Well, we produced isobutanol earlier this year and we did produce in the first quarter--

At Luverne.

-- At Luverne. We produced isobutanol at Luverne. We've been converting all along the isobutanol into jet fuel and isooctane down at Silsbee.

Okay.

It never stopped. Yes. And then isooctane, like I said in my comments, I wish we had more capacity for that because it seems people want that stuff. It's selling quite well and at a good price.

Understood. In regards to Praj, do these guys have -- do you have any minimum in terms of revenue obligations, et cetera from this, maybe once they start -- maybe in the -- not in the near future immediately, but in 2019 timeframe, are they obligated to sort of license out certain number of plants a year or any revenue type of obligations on their side?

What's interesting; the way they think about it is like this. The Praj did a great job adapting our technology to using molasses and sugarcane feedstock as well as using cellulosic sugars and they're building some cellulosic plants. We are working with them to license -- there's a target down in South India. That's what we'll start with as a first example. Hopefully, it'll be on line in 2019-2020 timeframe. That's what we would expect. We're working through the detail of exactly what that license would look like. We have previously negotiated with Praj, the general outline, but now we've got to get really specific. What's interesting about this is in this Praj model remember, it's someone else's capital, not ours. I like that a lot. That's a good thing. And the -- looks like the economics look reasonable that they could be practical and they could work. We're not done optimizing yet and so we're still working with Praj as to how to do that, but that's a shared load with them. So, I like it because it creates these other opportunities and the way Praj -- you should hear them talk about it, they're excited by it. And for them to take it out publicly like they did it by was a big deal. That's putting their stamp of approval on it, telling their customers, of which they've done -- like I said in my comments, 750 projects across 35 countries. They're the biggest ethanol technology supplier in the world. They're putting their stamp of approval on it. That's actually kind of a big deal that's underappreciated here in the States because no one knows Praj. So, we feel pretty good about it. The way it would work is that we would be licensing the technology directly; they'd be the EPC supplier and equipment supplier as well. And so -- and we would also be the off-taker and marketer for the products. So, we don't have a -- I can't give you the specifics. We'll announce them when it's ready, but we have, at least, a clear view as to the next steps of how we're going to go about doing it. We know the timeline generally.

Got it. That's all I have for now. I'll follow-up with you after the call. Thank you so much guys.

Sure.

Thanks Amit.

I'm showing no additional questions at this time.

Great. Thanks everybody for joining us. I appreciate it. I appreciate your support. That will end the call. Thank you.

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.