Hydrogenpro ASA

OSE:HYPRO

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

Good morning. I'm Jarle Dragvik, and I'm the new CEO in HydrogenPro. As was announced last week, I'm a new face to all of you, but I'm not new to HydrogenPro. I've been engaged with the company for more than 2 years.

It has been a very hectic week, but a very exciting week where I have had the opportunity to meet most of my Norwegian colleagues. And what a great team we have.

Today, we are here to present the second quarter result. And I have Richard Espeseth with me to also take part in the presentation.

And it's a good story we have, where we are delivering on strong results in technology development, revenue growth, manufacturing, creating a solid foundation for our future global expansion. This picture you have seen before. But I want to emphasize that our business platform, providing a market-leading large-scale green hydrogen technology systems, stays firm. We have the world's largest electrolyzer and we have our game-changing electrode technology, which puts us in a position with a market-leading levelized cost of hydrogen.

Last week, the Board presented a revised priority list -- priority points for a strategy going forward. And it was announced or communicated 6 strategic priorities to accelerate expansion and to grow shareholder value. I will elaborate more on these points in a bit, and will first now address the main financial highlights.

Looking at our main achievements during the quarter, we generated revenues of NOK 137 million, which is up 64% from the previous quarter. We maintained a gross margin of 21.6%. And it was completed, a private placement of NOK 120 million.

Of the nonfinancial events, we have conducted our third-generation technology, which is all in line with our expectations. Richard will come back to this later in this presentation. And we also entered into the strategic partnership with ANDRITZ, which has been announced.

Some subsequent achievements after the quarter, where we have completed the expansion of our production capacity in China with 200 megawatts, so we are now at 500 megawatt capacity per year.

We have engaged in the FEED study contract with ANDRITZ for a 200-megawatt plant, which is expected to be completed or to be -- have a FID in the first quarter next year.

DG Fuels, which you've heard a lot about, have completed the finances for the full FEL 3 study.

And there was the change of CEO, as mentioned.

As we already introduced, the revenue are up 64% from NOK 83 million to NOK 137 million. The gross profit increased with NOK 7 million, which is up 130% from last quarter. And net profit shows a positive result of NOK 6 million due to financial income.

As also communicated previously, 90% of ACES contract with a contract value of USD 50 million will be recognized in 2023.

The quarter ended with a cash balance of NOK 183 million. This also includes the net proceeds of the private placement of NOK 115 million.

Net investments are in line with the previous quarter and is related to our China operation.

The change in net working capital constitutes of a positive effect of the private placement of the NOK 115 million, as I mentioned, but also a negative effect of NOK 130 million, which is related to the working capital. We expect, obviously, the return of the working capital as we proceed with our deliveries. We have, with this, covered the main upfront cost for raw material and work in progress.

HydrogenPro is now in a good progress with deliveries of accumulated capacity of 240 megawatts production. We see also now an increase in FEED studies with an ongoing engagement of 1.3-gigawatt projects. In addition to the FEED studies we have already engaged in, we have contract negotiations for further FEED of up to 2 -- more than 2 gigawatts.

The contract period or contract negotiation can take a long time. But being in a FEED study puts us in an extremely good position. We get all the insights of the projects, and it gives us a basis for the right pricing of our deliveries. And we get also paid for the study work we are doing. This puts us in the forefront when it comes to the selection of the supplier. We do not have a guarantee, but we definitely have an advantage being engaged in these FEED studies. Furthermore, the company is in a comfortable liquidity position.

In our operation in China, we have flexibility to adjust the capacity and adjust the cost basis and adapt thereby the production cost. This gives us now room to focus on the main healthy margin projects, and we will not engage in projects yielding a negative or low margin results.

Coming back to the six priority that I mentioned initially. And as announced, we have substantial growth ambitions, especially in the U.S. We do not need to own all the production capacity ourselves. We are now looking at partnerships and cooperations in addition to own expansion. We also see an increased interest and attention from the U.S. green renewable space, and therefore, we will explore U.S. listing possibility. Our first priority now is to get a U.S. team in place. Already tomorrow, Richard and myself are jumping on the first plane to the U.S. to initiate these processes and projects.

We have now conducted our third-generation test I already mentioned and are encouraged by the results. This confirms our advantage in efficiency of 14%. And again, Richard will also enlighten us more on this.

We have, as you know, in record speed built a 500-megawatt annual capacity in Tianjin in China. Based on our own estimate, we are probably among the lowest, if not the lowest CapEx per annual megawatt capacity. It's a lean, it's an efficient and it's a high-quality production.

Here, we have created a good basis for going forward asset-light. As explained, we are now moving forward in our cooperation with ANDRITZ in Europe. There, we will use their facility. It will be adapted to our assembly process, which we basically are copying from China. So it will be -- our electrolysis will be produced in ANDRITZ plant but with a HydrogenPro name on the electrolysis coming out of the factory. This model is also a model we are now going to look into, copying or replicating in North America.

Our main competitive advantage is our technology, which is a world -- technology of our world largest electrolyzers and with the game-changing electrodes. To maintain this position, we keep focusing and investing in R&D. In fact, we have now an R&D portfolio of total [ NOK 170 million ] already funded.

We focus on one product in one segment. We are not all over the place. All efforts is concentrated in the high-pressure alkaline electrolysis for large applications. This is an excellent position for market-leading levelized cost of hydrogen.

In order to deliver on our strategy, it's all about people. We have good quality organization with highly motivated colleagues, which we are now building on when we are expanding into new regions.

In summary, all this we are doing to sustain and develop shareholder value.

And with this, I conclude and I will now hand over to Richard who will then take us through the technology update.

[Richard Espeseth, executive]

Thank you, Jarle. Good to see you all again. My name is Richard, working on the technology and have been doing that for a lot of years. And I'd also like to say to Jarle, even though you are new standing here today, you have been working with us for quite a good time sitting as the head of the Board in our organization in China and really have the deep know-how about what we are doing about our product and about our organization. So I'm really, really looking forward to the ride.

So about technology. As you know, we have been working with this electrolyzer improvements for years, together with our Danish colleagues. And today, I can say, yes, we made it. We have been testing and testing and testing and we had many kind of tests. It's just not one. So the last test we were running was estimated to 1,000 hours. Well, it was a practical thing outside our electrolyzer that made a stop after 850 hours, but still all the values we have seen have been totally stable. So we feel very, very confident that now we can launch this R&D project, which has been ongoing for years.

And what we see, it is in practical life, you have an electrolyzer you need to run a DC current through it to produce the gases. And the power consumption will be a factor of the voltage and the amperage over the electrolyzer. And what we see, it is the voltage will now, after the first measurement and the final test, be reduced with exactly 14.1%. And since the DC current is the same, it means that the total power needed, it's 14.1% less.

And this is so exciting. And when we know that all the losses inside an electrolyzer is generating heat, which is again carried away by the means of the cooling water system, we see that we are producing so much less heat that the need for cooling water drastically it's reduced. And this is maybe not so very important here in Norway when you look on the weather out or we have enough of water. But in other regions, this is really important. So we are now commercializing the gen 3 electrolyzer by the end of 2023.

I'd like to say something about not only the technology inside the electrolyzer, but also the whole electrolyzer unit, the production of it because it's not only to work about the details inside the electrolyzer with a microscope. We also need to have a factory, which is really running optimal. And we are at the moment when we talk here, we are producing 2 of the big, big electrolyzers each week.

So that is the throughput in our Tianjin plant. We have developed our own production managing system, which is exactly suited for our kind of business, where we take all parameters into consideration for an electrolysis producer like heat treatment, like tightening procedure and also what kind of materials we are using, in which order things come, et cetera. And all this is our property. It's our design. And the whole electrolyzer facility, it is produced by us.

And we have an excellent person also in Tianjin, Jan Henrik Kuhlefelt, and he had been leading this job and we are now in the position to take this concept, copy it, move it over to Germany together with ANDRITZ, move it over to the U.S. together with someone, move it over to the Middle East, wherever we like in the world, it's our IP. It's our drawing, it's our technology, it's our layout of everything.

So I also like to say that the Mitsubishi job, which is in Utah, which is the 40 big electrolyzers, thank you, Mitsubishi. We are working so nicely together with you guys, and we are super happy to continue with that.

We are also working together, as Jarle mentioned, with ANDRITZ. We are now planning to produce in Germany in the ANDRITZ facility. And ANDRITZ is a large organization. Mitsubishi is a large organization. And with their global footprint, with all their ears and eyes, we have the opportunity to enter into so many business connections and it is a super good thing for HydrogenPro.

As Jarle also mentioned, we are moving over tomorrow morning to the U.S. So don't forget about DG FUEL. We have very good talk with them, FEED is on the way. We are working on it now.

So I'm very, very happy. I don't have any more thing to say, but I'd just like to conclude, yes, we made it on the electrolyzer technology. Thank you.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you for the presentation, and then we'll go to Q&A. So let's start with a DG Fuels-related question.

If DG Fuels get their FID for the Louisiana plant in early 2024, when will you start production of electrolyzers for them?

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

Well, I wonder, Richard, if you should elaborate on that. But I think in general, as Richard also has said, we have a good basis in China. It's a question of producing everything in the U.S. or doing the base production in China, which we can start with more or less right away. But Richard, could you please elaborate a little bit further on that?

[Richard Espeseth, executive]

Yes. The total package we have made over in China and the learning we have had, it is pretty easy to move over to the U.S. We need to find a physical location to do assembly, to do testing. And also in a little bit longer run, we need to move over some other part of the machining, the nickel coating, et cetera. So I don't see that as a challenge for our delivery.

[Unknown Executive]

We have a question regarding the announced New York Stock Exchange listing. When do you expect that to happen, the listing on Nasdaq?

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

There is not set a specific time or time line on that. And once that is coming to surface, we will announce that in due course. What we are doing now is that we are looking into the possibilities. We are talking to partners. We are talking to people in that field, so to speak, and we will come back to the timing.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. Which areas are HydrogenPro Denmark testing the surface plating technology on? Which areas? I assume, which areas of the electrolyzer.

[Richard Espeseth, executive]

Oh, yes. The body of the electrolyzer, it's old and well proven. So what they are doing in Denmark, it's what's inside this electrolyzer. And it's something called anode and something called a cathode. Those are the 2 specific things they are working on.

And I also like to highlight that even the people who have the today's generation of electrolyzer by opening them in the future for the service and maintenance, they will be able to put in this next-generation electrode technology with improvement on efficiency without changing anything else.

So this is really a good selling point. And I also like to add on that 5 years from now, 10 years from now, I mean, we are not stopping R&D. We are working on so many areas, but the basic should be that when we make an improvement in one area, it should be easy to implement that in all existing plants during the next overhaul.

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

I think that should be emphasized, what you said, that if you have already an electrolyzer, which we are delivering today with, let's say, our standard membranes. If you want to upgrade that to a higher efficiency, we can dissemble it. We can put in the new membranes and put it together. No retrofitting, no rebuilding or anything. So very quick and smooth operation.

[Richard Espeseth, executive]

That's correct.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. Will Jarle be the new permanent CEO? And if so, how does that fit with your build a U.S. management team comments in today's presentation.

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

Well, first, what is permanent. I think we are -- basically, if we look at the grand scheme of things, none of us are permanent here on -- walking on the earth.

Building a U.S. team, how that fits, as I said, we are going to U.S. now. We will build a U.S. team. I have personally lived and worked in U.S. for several years and have experience there. And I don't see any conflict in building a U.S. team, something that many companies are doing without necessarily residing or moving over. But if that's what it takes, we'll do it.

[Unknown Executive]

In the conference call a few months ago, you have been quite optimistic to get orders in. Now a few months later, there's nothing materialized yet. Can you elaborate a bit on the potential order intake?

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

I do not think I agree with the terms that nothing has happened yet. I presented now today where we have the increase in FEED study. We have an increase a number of projects where we are in final negotiations of the FEED study. And of course, what we are not mentioning and not guiding specifically on is that we see a growing pipeline.

Yes, the negotiation takes time. It's a very complex contract. It entails a lot of, well, obviously, technical specification in detail, which normally takes the longest. It's commercial details and its legal aspects.

So I don't want to give a specific time on it. But what I can say is that it's a situation I'm not losing my sleep over. It's a very high momentum on the sales side.

[Unknown Executive]

You were vocal that you wish to own the U.S. 500-megawatt plant 100% a few months ago. Why has this changed now?

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

Well, we have said that we want to look into other opportunities. We want to go asset-light. We see that we have a good cooperation with ANDRITZ in Europe, which is a model, which is working well.

It's not that we are excluding to own our own operation. But now we will see what will suit the company and the shareholders best.

[Unknown Executive]

How much revenue do you give up when you do not own the production factories? Will you establish a license model?

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

The license model is definitely an alternative, and I cannot go into specific in terms of giving up. But here, we have to think of 2 things. One is that, okay, you might give up some revenue on a license if that is the chosen model. But here, we also have to look at what speed it takes to expand the capacity. You get a much faster outreach, you get a bigger volume and you tie up less capital in CapEx.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. And further on the partnership model, the ANDRITZ partnership was originally said to be only about assembly. Has it now expanded to also include manufacturing of the whole electrolyzer? If yes, what kind of annual manufacturing capacity would that imply?

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

Well, here, I also think Richard can elaborate further. But initially, I would like to say that, first of all, it's -- we're talking about assembly. If it's developed into further and closer, I should call it, relationship where they also can produce certain parts, it's something we are looking into.

We also see that commercially that ANDRITZ has a huge network and a basically global outreach. They have a fantastic presence in Europe. And these are factors that we are discussing to where we can see further cooperation. What we should emphasize though is that there are certain things that we are, call it, not outsourcing and we should use that expression, our membrane technology, which is the heart of the technology, this is something that we will control ourselves.

[Richard Espeseth, executive]

That is correct. And we are working very, very good together with Mitsubishi and with ANDRITZ. And our eyes and our arms are open to do what benefit HydrogenPro most. And as Jarle says, the factory we have in Denmark, which is producing our core technology, this is definitely a technical area we will 100% control ourselves.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. More about manufacturing, how automated is the production line in China? And how automated will the U.S. facility be?

[Richard Espeseth, executive]

Well, in the beginning, it's mostly manual. And when you start to be really, really good at this and you learn all the small details, that make it more easy for us to look into how much of the production we should automize. And also, we are looking into what is the real cost of the electrolyzer.

And we know, for example, in America and Europe, in the Middle East, in China, labor cost value is different. And so it pays maybe better off to do an automated line in America compared to China, but this is something the managing team will work on together with our existing facility in China.

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

May I also add that automation is basically a relative expression for those who have been in production. Obviously, the most manual is that you have a person who sits and do everything. But in China, it's not that, it's not it's totally manual. We have advanced CNC machines, vertical lathes. All the processing is made by automated machines and systems.

We do not have, shall we say, a robotized system moving the parts between. Obviously, we have cranes especially purposely made, et cetera, to move 80 tonnes electrolyzer and so forth. But going into robotized production, I assume, over time, is something we also will do. But it also takes a lot of problems in terms of starting up, getting it to work, et cetera.

So in order to get a quick start, I think we have a model example of how you build up automation in production.

[Unknown Executive]

And then moving to financials. What is your expectation for future gross margin in 2023, 2024?

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

We do not guide on the margins. I think we are setting an ambition level and we said that we are not engaging in low-margin projects.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. You have had a lot of CEO changes in the last years. Why is that?

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

This is a topic, an area which is not up to neither Richard nor myself to comment on. I want to refer that question to the head of the Board.

[Unknown Executive]

Could you elaborate on the challenging market conditions referred to in the company statement last week that led to a change in the fundraising strategy.

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

Well, first of all, when it comes to the evaluation of the company, it's not up to us. It's the market that sets the evaluation. But as I mentioned, we do see an increase and attention in the North American market, which is increasing and which we are listening to. And therefore, we are looking into both the possibility of listing in New York.

And we are looking into, as we said, that we do not need to own all the production capacity ourselves. We see that there is a quicker speed here and more asset-light way of doing it.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. There are a few questions on the details of the third-gen test, so I'll try to get this right. So when you reduce power consumption with 14%, what is the new power consumption needed?

[Richard Espeseth, executive]

Then the -- okay, I will try to be short on that one. We know if you buy a BMW 3 Series, you have a certain fuel consumption. If you go up to the BMW 5 Series, which is a little bit bigger one, you may get a slightly different fuel consumption, et cetera, et cetera.

This is the same with electrolyzers. If you have a relatively small unit, the cost for each kilogram in number of kilowatt hours, it's slightly more than for a medium-sized. And the best efficiency is on a very, very big electrolyzer.

So that's why we're focusing on them. But when we do test, test and test and test, which we have been doing for years, we also need to consider to test the super large units, it require a lot of electricity, a lot of money. And with the bunch that we had in the beginning, we have been focused on the medium-sized electrolyzers and the numbers we have now completed for the medium-sized unit in [ Portugal ] is 4.0 kilowatt hours per normal cubic meter, which again is connected to a certain pressure, a certain current density and so on.

So there are many, many, many things in this game, but the most important is to compare apples-to-apples to really see what was the difference between the existing gen 2 technology and up to the gen 3 technology.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. I think we are soon ready to conclude. We have one question regarding the shipping of the electrolyzers and site assembly. How is this happening? When you're moving 80 tonnes, how do you do that in practice?

[Richard Espeseth, executive]

At least with my bad back, I cannot lift 80 tonnes so I need some help. And the same with the people working on the container ships, they cannot put this unit into a container, so it needs to go on a flat track on the top of the boat. So it's a little bit challenges and it's a little bit costly.

So that's why also what Jarle also say, when it comes to production in other countries in the years to come, we need to map out the supply chain. In the beginning, it's not difficult at all to transport the membranes, the electrodes and all the other components. They can go into a standard 20-feet or 40-feet container. We unpack it in Texas or in Germany or in another country and then we put these units together. That is the first and the easiest way forward.

And it also gives the owner of the large electrolyzer plant, which is nearby, a good feeling. I know I get help, I get service. When I, after 10 years, need to open a unit, maybe replace what's inside, there is no long transport way. We are also reducing the total CO2 footprint on our product. So this is a healthy way for us and it's a healthy way for environment and also it gives a very good comfort for the end user.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you, Richard. And then to conclude, given the focus on alternative funding sources, what is the new time line for when you expect to bring the U.S. factory online?

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

We have communicated before by end of 2024. Again, we are now looking at the model with the right partners, with the right setup. If we look at what we are doing in Europe with ANDRITZ, we can move quicker, but I do not want to commit to a specific time line at this time.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you, and thank you to all that was watching.

[Richard Espeseth, executive]

Thank you all. Have a nice day.

[Jarle Dragvik, executive]

Thank you.