Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Comstock's First Quarter 2024 Results and Business Update. This is Trevor Brucato with RB Milestone Group, Comstock's U.S.-based Investor Relations firm. I'd first like to thank everyone for joining at this earlier start time as we were trying to accommodate different time zones during this cycle. This presentation is being recorded today, April 30, 2024, and will be made available on the company's website at comstock.inc. shortly after today's event. Again, that's comstock.inc. Comstock trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol LODE, and joining us today is the company's Executive Chairman and CEO, Corrado De Gasperis; and its COO, William McCarthy. At the end of the prepared remarks, we will open up the call to questions that were submitted during the registration process and those that surface throughout this presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note that the investor surveying period for Comstock's Q2 stakeholder perception analysis report is now open. The survey can now be accessed on Comstock's website at the top of the Investors section. We recommend filling out the survey throughout this presentation, while the information is still fresh and completing it after receiving the full update provided by Corrado and Billy. The final report will ultimately provide trends on Comstock's perceived strengths, weaknesses and milestones and will be published shortly after the end of the quarter, like we've done previously. Your participation will be much appreciated as it will help strengthen Comstock's investor communications efforts and will help guide the focus of future events. Please note today's presentation may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that may be out of the control of the company, in this case, Comstock Inc., and it should not be construed as a recommendation or a solicitation to buy or sell any security. For Comstock's full disclaimer, please visit their website at comstock.inc. Lastly, RB Milestone is not a registered investment adviser or broker-dealer. For more information on us, please visit rbmilestone.com. And now it is my pleasure to introduce you to Comstock's Executive Chair and CEO, Corrado De Gasperis. Corrado, the stage is yours.

Thanks, Trevor, and hello, everyone, and welcome to our First Quarter update. I'm going to allocate a little more time this morning to our strategic investments and innovations, then cover fuels, metals and mining. And after my comments, Billy is going to provide a deeper insight into our now operating solar panel recycling business, including our view of the markets, operations, tactics and importantly, provide real guidance on the robust amount of net cash flow that we now expect metals to generate in just a few years. After that, we'll turn to questions. Let me start with the corporate update, again, focusing on our strategic investments and how their own progress positively impacts both us and their own valuations before I then turn to our businesses. From a corporate perspective, financially, our first quarter itself was very stable, with spending in line with plan and prior periods, although the mix reflects a higher allocation to investments in R&D and particularly investments in our technology partners. Our commitment to higher R&D investments like RenFuel, GenMat and now certain others are all based directly on specific opportunities that we have identified and now secured that further extend our leadership in this massive energy transition. The investments were also structured such that we could experience returns beyond just the direct impact that they may have on our businesses. RenFuel is a great example. We have now executed both an exclusive license for their technology in the Americas and just last week, completed the investment agreement with RenFuel effectively combining the power of our IP portfolio with theirs and bringing this world-class technology and team tightly into our innovation network. This investment is senior secured. It was safely and intelligently structured to ensure our efficient access to RenFuel's critical IP. We've already physically deployed…

Thanks, Corrado. It's very true. Our metals team has been quite busy this past quarter, and it's not going to slow down. So I want to share some slides and talk a bit today about where the business is going to go from here, and I'm going to provide some more precise forecasts for this business. Before we dive into that, though, I want to take a minute and go back and talk about how we got here in this space of electrification product recycling. In 2021, Comstock acquired LiNiCo, which was a development-stage lithium battery recycling company. And some pictures here on the screen, that's me at the 2022 Annual Meeting showing off our pilot system. And we showed a video of the system in operation, recycling batteries and producing black mass. Now in early 2022, battery metal commodity prices were at all-time highs. The market was really frothy. And we were doing what we like to do, which is to try to derisk our process by looking for partners that can enhance our capabilities and derisk our plans. As Corrado and I made the rounds with our competitors, we're sitting in the conference room in one of them in early 2022, and they were bragging about their market-leading economics in their battery recycling process. Corrado and I looked at each other, I had to bite my tongue because they showed us a model that was based on expectations of commodity prices at all-time highs, going up perpetually for decades to come. Now you probably know the story and how it actually played out. Our competitors race to build up capacity for battery -- primary battery recycling, hoping the market was going to keep going up, hoping the supply of batteries was going to grow extremely quickly. And instead,…

Excellent, Billy. Thank you. That picture is of the smaller facility, about 7,000 square feet sitting next to the industry scale facility, which is well over 100,000 square feet on that same campus. I just want to reemphasize, though, how strongly this achievement hits on our financial, natural, and social objectives, foundation of how we plan and what we're here to achieve. Financially, it's a huge local market way over 10x the capacity of one facility. We're looking at this thing going to 1 million tons in a relatively short period of time. And as Billy said, we can adeptly versatile quickly deploy capacity as we need it. But even a conservative plan against that 1 million tons throws off 9 figures of cash flow. I love businesses that have extremely low TVC that is totally variable cost, that have fast cycles measured in hours, not days. That's what we define as throughput. And that's over 80% cash margins. And remembering that that's all in a company that's sitting on $250 million of net operating loss carryforwards, which will shelter a tremendous amount of profit from federal taxes. So metals alone would make Comstock succeed with the numbers that we just looked at. And it's self-financing because where it's located in a rural area and the nature of the business. We have access to USDA loans for rural development. We have access to Nevada industrial bonds, which are typically limited to about $10 million of project except if they're for renewable or recycling activities, there isn't a limit. So from a natural perspective, we're literally the only zero-landfill solution that's keeping toxic materials, a literal tsunami of these materials coming from California, out of Nevada landfills -- and socially, we're creating a clean sustainable ecosystem in Silver Springs. We're bringing jobs in development an opportunity zone that desperately needs it. So, we don't just feel great about the achievements of the business. It's just remarkable what it's positioned to do. So, Trevor, I think with that, we can turn to questions.

Well, thank you, gentlemen. [Operator Instructions] Let's kick off with the first question here. So, Corrado, Comstock has said it would sell its noncore strategic investment assets, namely the Sierra Springs real estate and Green Li-ion shares. Would you say your confidence level in selling these assets in 2024 is higher now compared to previous quarters? And if so, why?

Thanks, Trevor. So let me start with Green Li-ion first. As I mentioned in the presentation, Green Li-ion was a seed investment for us. They had a remarkable idea that was complementary to our recycling process. That idea was to take black mass and go all the way to precursor cathode-active material. It's pulling themselves way up and above the commodity value chain. We love that. We still love that aspect where they really positioned themselves in the market. But they were an idea and then they were producing a prototype. But today, literally today, Green Li-ion just announced their first operational facility in Oklahoma, and they're producing precursor cathode-active materials. And we understand that, that was an important prerequisite for them to start the process of their next capital raise. And we understand that they're getting remarkable interest from infrastructure level and energy transition funds. And so we are more confident. We are highly confident because their value has literally increased in every one of their offerings almost in a textbook manner. -- and that the demand now is so large and so established, we're already getting secondary interest, interest from the secondary markets in our share. So, we look to synchronize our monetization with those plans that are near term this summer. So, I feel very confident and especially since we were successful in doing a piece last year. Sierra Springs a little bit different, right? Silver Springs itself was sort of the last bastion of development in Northern Nevada. Reno is exploding to this minute. The Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center was the marquee location for heavy industrial businesses. And then that got complemented by distribution and that got complemented by data centers. Well, that explosion has now fully spilled over into Silver Springs, not only with the announcement last year of Microsoft claiming their stake in the ground adjacent to our properties, but also this recent [indiscernible] which is another hyperscale data center coming in and establishing a more than double valuation. And so, the bad news is because Silver Springs was sort of the last bastion, the last sort of frontier of industrial development, it's taken longer. The good news is property values have only gone up in that time period and to have a direct comp that is adjacent to Comstock's properties there, right, gives us an active ability now to market, negotiate and monetize those properties. So, I think Green Li-ion is this summer and then Silver Springs is going to be right on its tails.

Thank you, Corrado. Could you please comment on Comstock's plans to address dilution during times of rapid operational growth?

Yes. I know that this is a point of angst. And let me first say that we are highly sensitive to the use of our capital and to the use of our current sake. We're also highly sensitive to the acceleration of the business opportunities that we face. We've positioned ourselves remarkably well, and this is why I emphasized our strategic investments. If you look at the use of our capital and how large of a percentage of that capital is going to direct developments, for direct expansions of our IP portfolios for immediate commercialization on all fronts. You see that it's just important for us in shape in no way to slow that down. So, we've generally had a capital-light mindset. We've been thinly capitalized, lightly capitalized. That's because of our sensitivity, right, to issuing shares. We also, by the way, issued almost 7 million shares in April that we're with strategic partners that were restricted, that we will retain the future value of while we add 2 large shareholders to our capital base. So, we're being thoughtful about it. Now let me tell you how we plan to manage it. And it really relates to what we just talked about. I have my eyes squarely on the price of monetizing these assets. This $40 million, $50 million, $60 million of cash, I have my eyes squarely on that price, okay? We have always chosen to advance the business. We have never intentioned we slowed the business down. And in fairness, depending on the timing of some of these transactions like RenFuel, like GenMat, etc., we've had to deploy more capital and use more of our currency than people might have preferred or expected. But we do that with high value. Like the markets that we're addressing, the values…

So let's dig a little deeper into that. Here's a multipart question. How much capital has been committed to each business segment and how much future investment is needed for each? Where will these funds come from? So Corrado, I think it might make sense to perhaps kick off with the monetization strategy around your metals business.

Yes. Well, I'll do that. So, in metals case, metals, it's just such a great business, right? The cash projections, which I concur wholeheartedly with Billy. I mean sometimes I feel like biting my tongue. We are being conservative. We're being practically conservative. We're looking at the real risks of commercializing 2, 3, 4 facilities that are new, right, that are pioneering. But we already understand the capital profile. We understand the locations that they're in. And as I mentioned, we've already tapped into the availability of USDA loans, the availability of Nevada industrial bonds. And we didn't model the point that Billy made, right? We didn't model that working capital here is a source of cash, not a use of cash, right? So, we're being very conservative in our approach. I think it's a self-funding business, right? I think it's a self-funding business where we can bring the capital without dilution to Comstock Metals. And before we know it, it will become a source of cash for the corporation. First, initially to continue to fund its growth. Remember, if you talk about 3 facilities, that's 300,000 tons. That's beautiful. Look at that cash profile. But there's 1 million ton market staring us in the phase. With mining, maybe it's a quickie and a simple one. We don't spend $2 million a year in our mining resources. We have excellent technical resources. We have an amazing land position mineral estate. And we right now have revenue that just about matches that number, right? So mining is sort of covered. We have not approved future funding and future development of the mineral assets. We've been developing the models and expanding the resources either through our existing fixed cost or through the GenMat effort. When we monetize the assets, we will then…

No, it does, Corrado. And perhaps just high level, what are generally the monetization strategies? I mean can we look at -- there's capital being brought in on the corporate level, there's capital being brought in on the project level from strategics. It's owning perhaps a smaller piece of something much bigger. These projects, there's many projects that we're all looking to roll out here over the next several years [indiscernible] picture again. So perhaps you can just elaborate on the different types of strategies [indiscernible]

I think a simple summary of it would be today, right, the readiness has been such that we've had to fund the businesses from the corporation. And as you see, that requires and has required the issuances of equity and some amount of debt to do that. Now we're seeing that they're getting to the point of maturity where they can self-finance. Billy summarized it very well for metals. It's right there for us. They've crossed the finish line. We now have empirical data. We can show revenue, we can show costs, we can show projections. That's all we need, right, to start bringing that capital in. Fuels and GenMat, all we need is the commercial validation, right? They're happening already with industry scale and sophisticated early adopting customers. And so that is all we need in addition to the business plans, which are fully now developed, right, internally, to start bringing that capital in at the subsidiary level. So that's what's going to happen. The beautiful complement will be if we could get some asset sales done a little more timely here, it releases all the pressure on everybody's minds, but it's coming.

Let me just add, we talked at last quarter when we did upload 24 about our commercialization process, right? It's a 4-stage process. We innovate, we develop, we engineer, we activate. Activate is where these things come into play, right? And as Corrado said there's a lot of different ways to do it, but it's all about bringing outside capital, bringing outside partners into this business. Developing and engineering is about getting things ready for that, making them attractive, filling in all the pieces. Especially in fuels today, a lot of these partnerships, these deals we're doing with other third parties, right, significantly accelerate our ability to get to that point. So every single one of them is like a leap forward in what we could do otherwise on our own. And it's really putting us into a tremendous position in the market with a lot of connectivity.

We're activating an activation often is synonymous with monetization.

And shareholders keep on hearing about the progress with metals, and it's great Billy that you showed a picture of the facility. There's a little bit more of a tangible look at what you guys are embarking on. So, I mean, do you anticipate maybe videos more pictures as the operations develop, at least at metals?

Yes, absolutely. Our marketing team was out at Metals last week filming a video. So could you expect that coming here in the -- I'm not exactly sure the date, but let's say in the next few months.

Coming soon.

Are you able to elaborate on the March 1 securities purchase agreement with an R&D company?

So look, this is -- and I want to give people a little bit of feel for how we work, okay? We're extremely focused. If people come into my office with an acquisition idea or a diversification idea, I'm grumpy. Like, I don't want to hear it, right? We're focused, right? We're commercializing fuels. We're commercializing metals. GenMat is rocking, okay? We're really, really focused. Now when a breakthrough occurs when something happens in the markets, when a white paper is published or a technology is surfaced that has direct and potentially immediate impact on what we're doing, can't ignore it. We just -- we can't ignore it, right? And so to give a little bit of color, our innovation team probably spent 5 or 6 months researching, analyzing, assessing what is the implication of this? It is bullshit. Is it something that is going to have a marginal or slightly incremental impact? Is it a game changer? Is it potentially a game changer that we cannot ignore. And even if, let's just say, even if all of those gates were answered positively in the sense of we should do this. Is it $20 million? Is it $50 million? Then it's a nonstarter for us. We don't have the capacity, right? So everything we think about, everything we do is correlated to our finite capacity. If for $1 million or $2 million, we can advance something to TRL 3 to TRL 5 to TRL 6 that will dramatically change the profile of what we're bringing forward, then we do it, right? And so, it's not something we could talk specifically about, and I want to just send a clear message is not something that's certain, okay? But it's something that we would be literally fools not to allocate $1 million or $2 if it truly brings us to the Holy Grail, right? If it brings us to this possibility of cost parity with petroleum, we need to be on the front line of it. And I'm proud -- I got to say, even if this didn't work out, I'm proud of the competency of our team. It's world-class. We're talking to world-class people. We're talking to world-class institutions. RenFuel is an example of that. People are going to know very, very soon that GenMat is an example of that, too. But in the fuels in the esterification, catalytic esterification process discussions, RenFuel's name is always at the top of the list. We couldn't be prouder to be partnered with them. So I hope that's helpful.

Let's just add procedurally, like we talked again last quarter and if you want more color, rewatch the video with Kevin Kreisler, our Chief Technology Officer, right? We really have an innovation network we're working with. Before we get to the point of making this kind of investment in something, -- there's a tremendous amount of work that our team is doing collaborating with these other groups, looking for solutions, looking for ideas, looking for things we can really bring to market someday soon, right? RenFuel is another good example of that. We were working with RenFuel for over a year before anybody here really heard of them before we started talking about them, right? There's a lot of deep work going into these things, probing, finding synergies. And in this case, as is disclosed in the filing, developing new technology. Our team contributing to some of the stuff this group was working on. We're really proving out the thesis early on before we commit any capital to it.

And I would also add to that our bias is not to be stealth, like certainly my buyers who want to be stealth, right? But it doesn't serve any purpose right, to discuss things that aren't going to be tangible and aren't going to being relevant to our shareholders. And even within our own organization, we compartmentalize it, right? We don't want David Winsness and the commercialization team distracted by things that aren't right in front of us right now, right? But when we can discuss it, we absolutely will, and we want to.

Coming up on the hour here. So, let's look at just one more question, and then I'll pass over to you for summary comments. Any thoughts on the stock split, I think it's a little premature to start talk about that, but I'll put the ball in your court to just address any sort of reverse stock split I should say.

No, we don't have any notions of that. We -- there's 5 listing requirements of the Direct Stock Exchange and we meet all 5 of them, right? The easiest one to meet is typically the price and the other 4 are really substantive. So, there's no issues with delisting and there's no concept of stock split, reverse stocks split in our mind at all as we sit here and speak. So no, we love our listing, and we love our liquidity, and we expect it just to get better.

So Corrado, could you please provide a summary of Comstock's near-term milestones that investors can look forward to?

No, thanks, Trevor, for all of that. We appreciate all those questions. And as you said earlier, if we didn't get to some of your questions, we'll follow up and look forward to answering them all. But just to wrap up, let me summarize what I would call our highest objectives, I guess in reverse order, starting with metals. We're going to run this facility up to 3 shifts by this summer, while initiating the expansion in Silver Springs at the existing manufacturing complex. We've already filed permits for the storage expansion, and we're preparing the permits for the facility scale expansion. So, it's just grow, grow, grow. From the fuels perspective, we're going to secure and announce the adoption of our technology with industry-leading partners and customers, possibly kind of every continent, starting with the Americas and including a highly valuable monetization of Comstock fuels. As I said, GenMat is going to do the same exact thing commercializing with industry-leading partners and customers and monetizing its value through third-party capital. For mining, we will monetize, transact, and generate cash in the north and develop and publish a highly economic and valuable mine plan for ultimate production in the South. We're going to continue innovating towards this Holy Grail cost parity with petroleum, while and by expanding our network of innovation partners. And they and the technology will be world-leading. Lastly, eye on the prize, monetize $60 million of assets, put this balance sheet discussion to bed. We appreciate everyone's interest, and we look forward to many updates in between now and our next call in July. Thanks, Trevs.

Thanks, Corrado and Billy, and thanks, everyone, for joining Comstock's first quarter business update and outlook. As a reminder, please keep an eye out for Comstock's brief Q2 investor survey, if you have not already filled it out. This will be generated and completed and announced and posted on the company's Investors section shortly after the end of the Q2 quarter. Again, a link on for that is at the top of the Investors section. Also, today's recording is going to be present on that page as well. If you have any additional questions that have not been addressed today, please feel free to e-mail us at ir@comstockinc.com and management and I will do our best effort to get back to you guys. Again, that's ir@comstockinc.com. Thanks again. That concludes today's presentation. We look forward to keeping you all posted on Comstock's developments throughout the rest of the year. Have a great day.

Thanks, everyone.