Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining H.C. Wainwright's twenty-sixth Annual Global Investment Conference. My name is Maxx Marm. I'm an analyst on our corporate access team here. H.C. Wainwright is a full-service investment bank dedicated to providing corporate finance, strategic advisory, and related services to both public and private companies across multiple sectors and regions. We have a total of twenty-four publishing senior analysts and over six hundred companies covered across all sectors. Please visit hcwco.com for more information. And now, I'd like to welcome Bryon McGregor, who is CEO of Alto Ingredients. Thank you, Maxx. Thank you everyone for joining us today, and big appreciation to H.C. Wainwright for hosting us. We won't dwell on this. You can look it up on your own with Safe Harbor. Really, our company is all about, you know, taking what- You know, we've been in business for over a hundred and fifty years in some form or another, making alcohols, making product from corn, and it started in our Illinois facilities. We still own them. There's three facilities. We've combined them. They used to compete against each other, and now they're integrated, and it's made a world of difference, opportunities to continue to grow organically, you know, unique investment opportunities, and in addition to that, you know, in our found... In the public sector, for our public company, started in about 2003, in the name of Pacific Ethanol, and from that, we were able to consolidate these, if you will, kind of disparate opportunities and assets and bring them together and to optimize those facilities and that portfolio of assets to be able to bring more products to bear, better products to bear, and as well as be able to take advantage of certain unique opportunities, as I've said before. So really, our focus at this point. So I've been with Alto now for 16 years, and it's been a really interesting evolution, and really pleased with the changes and the improvements that we've been able to make at the company. Really, as we look out into the future and the opportunities that are available to us over the next, you know, three to five years, are really exciting. I'd say focusing on those things that are particularly unique. It's everything from targeting higher-margin markets with premium products. That would go to, and I'll talk a little bit more about that. But talking about the advances we've made around specialty alcohols, where we have a distillery that's been in business again for a long time, but the opportunity to be able to take some of the costs associated with that or some of the lower-margin products and move them to other, more efficient locations or other parts of the facilities, to be able to build a better margin in that business and provide a more sustainable and higher quality product is significant, and it makes a big difference. If you think about, while a lot of the fuel space is clearly commoditized, to be able to add anywhere from, you know, $0.15, even $0.30, $1, depending on what product you're selling on top of that, and have that as a fixed margin on top of that is significantly beneficial, right? Especially in a commoditized space. Looking at pursuing carbon capture, we have as an example at our Illinois plant, we produce over six hundred thousand tons a year of biogenic CO2, that's available for. That's currently being used. Some of it is being used currently for industrial processes by companies like Messer and Linde. But the opportunity now to be able to take that and turn it from what it was otherwise largely a waste product, and be able to now take that waste product and be able to capture, you know, 45Q credits for that and be able to bring that to the P&L and drop a lot of that to the bottom line, is a significant opportunity that we're continuing to pursue. Optimizing our asset bases, as I mentioned before, and then part of that is this real push around CO2 reduction in our footprints, both as a company but also on a global basis. So pursuing things around traceability. So if you think about in Illinois, at our three facilities that are there, we have somewhere around three hundred trucks of corn that come through on a daily basis. So we're drawing from the region there, and so a lot of support been there for, you know, as mentioned, many, many years, to be able to have those relationships with the elevators and with the farmers and be able to work with them to be able to also drive value for them in new ways, to be able to farm and be able to trace, you know, effectively from the seed all the way to the fuel ethanol or to the beverage grade is important. And we're getting a lot more customers. Every customer that comes in the door wants to talk about lower carbon products. And so while maybe at the moment you may not see significant people willing to pay a significant premium for some of that, you're certainly seeing the trend going in that direction, as we, as retail customers, demand more from our producers. And then again, you know, having expanded what was at one point we were producing about 40 million gallons of specialty alcohol, so everything from industrial grade, which is going into things like vinegars and other things, now into beverage grade, and be able to upscale into that beverage grade market has been a significant benefit for us, especially as you've seen additional other producers come into that space, to be able to differentiate, and that's a very sticky customer base. So as I mentioned, if you look at the market in which we operate, we have two facilities in the Western United States still, one in Columbia, so it's along the Columbia River, up in the eastern Oregon area, and it supports. So the fuel that's being produced there is going down into the Portland market by barge, also into Washington. It's being trucked up into the Washington area, where there's an ability to capture premium around that for your low carbon intensity values. They have very low carbon scores in both the Columbia and the Idaho facility. That's a 40 million gallon plant. The Idaho facility sits in Burley, Idaho, and it supports largely Boise and Salt Lake markets. So these are unique assets. There's no other producers in these regions, and so while there's large production that can come or ethanol that can come for fuel markets from the Dakotas, there is a value to our customers from a customer perspective, to have something locally produced, locally grown. We have our three facilities, I mentioned, in the Pekin area, so central Illinois. It sits on the Illinois River. We have barge capabilities for that, for those, that facility, and it's, you know, the Illinois River is a tributary to the Mississippi River, so we are effectively an extension of the Gulf. Because of the volumes that we produce, we're able to have access not only to and have quick access and probably the lowest netb ack in the country with regards to moving product into the Gulf and into the larger global markets. We also have a small distributor and warehousing facility in St. Louis, and that allows us to be able to break bulk, particularly, which is important for beverage-grade customers. If you think about an industrial tote of alcohol, 200-proof alcohol, will produce 2,400 bottles of vodka. So there are a number of producers out there who, or manufacturers of spirits and the like, who really can't take a rail car full of alcohol. They're looking for something smaller in totes and drums and gallons. We provide that service, and St. Louis is really a nice hub to be able to service most of those customers. That includes, you know, everything out to distribution out into the West Coast. We make products that we're all familiar with, or support that, or we make products that support all of these different areas. Clearly, the benefit is the more you can move, migrate away from the renewable fuel space, which is kind of your lowest margin products, up into your food and beverage grade and health, home, and beauty. It's a significant benefit. So it's not just about being able to, you know, to be able to move amongst or up, upscale within your vertical, but it's also as well as what are the unique opportunities, and you think about the company as a whole. We see that there are some things that are particularly, you know, I guess if I were to quote one of our former chairmen was, "You know, has a lot of sizzle to it, looks really sexy," if you want to talk about carbon sequestration or something else. But if you also think about things like even just corn storage, at the Pekin facility, when you looked at the facility as a whole, it had about four days corn storage. And we all know what the Midwest looks like in the winter, right? To be able to on 3-day weekends or whatever, to be able to just add corn storage to that facility has, you know, effectively a 1-year payback. So the ability to be able to capture more corn, be able to purchase corn on a discounted basis, or in a market where you have take advantage of prices and be able to store that corn and be able to service it. When you don't have as much corn, you have to pay more for corn basis material. It also, you no longer have to pay the premiums that you pay over long weekends to get farmers, or during harvest, where they're out, you know, in the fields trying to harvest soybean. We now have corn storage. We've effectively doubled that storage to almost 10 days. The ability to then, you know, if you wanted to invest again in another corn storage facility, again, not sexy, but it you know, paybacks are significant. If you think about the age of these facilities, the opportunity to reinvest in these assets and not only drive more efficiency, but also the lower cost associated with, as an example, energy consumption. You know, we've got turbines that are Navy, you know, World War II Navy turbines, that as you replace those facilities, you get more efficiencies. If you're able to bring in power and, you know, produce your own power rather than relying on the outside utilities, significant savings and benefits associated with that. Also, you're driving down your carbon intensity scores. Again, that's valuable because you now are able to monetize that value of that carbon. Indeed, you know, again, natural gas. There's lots of other infrastructure projects that, again, don't look overly sexy, but they have fantastic returns for us. So that's really where a lot of our future and people think about organic opportunities are. And then as you think about further down the road, as we think about three to five years or beyond that, you start thinking about yeast. You know, we produce yeast. We're the largest producer of pet food source product for that market. It's not something you can make at a I guess you could at a dry mill, but you really need that clean yeast or that clean sugar that you get from a wet mill process, because if you think about the wet mill process, you're now stripping out all of your other corn products out of that before you steep the corn, and then you separate it, and you pull out the germ and all of the other products, and there's a higher value for that product, and what's left over is a clean starch, and you take that clean starch, you add enzymes in, and you turn that into alcohol, but now what you've got left over is your spent yeast, and that is actually a product that you, as you dry it and clean it, it's now available. You get a premium over distiller's grains, so your kind of lowest margin product. It's ten times the value and the intensity, and there's a lot of value and demand for that. If you think about it, being able to expand that product as well, there's significant demand for that. A little bit more about, again, carbon capture and storage. There's a great opportunity. We also have incumbents that are at the facility, you know, today, and opportunities in around utilization and being able to really monetize that value of that carbon for the future. And that, that's significant, right? Taking what is otherwise a waste product and now turning into a revenue stream is indeed very compelling for us. Those are things that we're pursuing and opportunities for growth. Our focus, again, is around as much as that is part of it, our customers really demand high-quality products. So we go through a significant and rigorous processes around our sustainability. We have a large lab which supports and, you know, and it allows us to be able to to make, you know, to achieve these qualifications. We have a rigorous processes, and it doesn't. It's not just about the lab, it's all the way up through the management team. We have a, you know, central processes, as where to require everything. You know, the things that they audit are things like, you know, process changes and things like that. And if you're not keeping all of that, all of those records and retaining that, and making sure that you have a process in place, it's difficult to be able to get these kind of certifications. They're important to our customers, and it's showing in the values that we get for our products. Maybe a little bit more, again, it's around we work diligently and have been very thoughtful about where we go and how we do this to be able to, when we show up to customers and or when we get phone calls from customers, that we can achieve and sign off and be able to support them in their needs. These are the kind of customers that we support. So it runs everything from clearly the large major oil companies, all the way over and again, in health, home, and beauty. These are the, you know, the customers, but as well as if you think there's. It's interesting, if you look and talk to customers, there are a number of customers who don't wanna, you know, don't wanna put their name up there because they wanna be known for the products that they produce. But they're familiar products that you would, you know, you can go to a liquor store and find names that you're familiar with. Again, you've got vinegars and other types of products. And again, it's not just local, but as well as global. From a financial highlights, we've really been committed over the last year in effectively reinvesting in the plants. And so a lot of that stuff goes to expense rather than into and repair and maintenance, versus going into capitalized projects. And so it's had somewhat of an impact on our P&L. That said, we think that those investments are important to be able to generate greater profitability and greater return in the future. That said, we've been able to, you know, maintain good cash, good balance sheet, and really, at this point, we've been very disciplined about the kinds of debt that we've laid on. We have approximately $60 million in term debt that's outstanding. Again, that's committed to specific projects with the committed kinds of returns on investment, and really not getting over-leveraged, if you will, to make sure that we're living within our means, and at the same time, taking advantage of these opportunities. So a lot of the focus that we had, particularly if you think about those growth opportunities, is being disciplined in a way that you're not, in essence, betting the farm. But at the same time, being able to bring those to bear and bring that value to the company. Again, it's really the focus. We think these are great opportunities, we think they're good growth opportunities for the future, and I think that a lot of this is not particularly manifest in the stock price today. I'm not gonna do a lot of talking about that, but the point is, we think that there's great opportunity within the company and that are organic, unique, that we intend to bring to bear, and that will hopefully benefit all of our shareholders. With that, questions? Yeah. ... For your carbon accounting for the CI scores in terms of tracking the supply chain and everything else? So we clearly know historically, right, because a lot of the services that we provided when we used to have our two California plants especially, but it continues on in Oregon and in our Idaho plants as well, is we built this, you know, infrastructure and support around being able to capture that carbon intensity values. Now, as the market continues to increase, you know, reportability and transparency, there's a lot of focus around getting all the way back to, if you will, the seed or to the farm and the field. And we're working with partners, and really the question is: how quickly do you need to bring that to bear? And how can you? If you do that, how can you monetize that value? Not only for us, but for the farmers. That's really a focus for us this year, and we'll have, you know, more information on that as we get into, because you actually have to, for that, particularly for that reportability, you don't get credit for... You know, there's a delay factor. It's not just you do it, and you get immediate credit for it. You've got a, you know, two, sometimes a two or three-year process before you can actually really realize that value. And so that's some of the focus that we have, particularly as you start thinking about lining that out with carbon sequestration and the like, to be able to bring all those resources to bear and be able to, if you will, maximize that value. Does that answer your question? Yes, so it's an internal system that you created- Internally, we're also working with partners, right? There's a number of parties out there. We don't need to reinvent the wheel on this stuff. There's a lot of, you know, large companies that are out on the farm, in the field, that are willing to do that and help the farmers and monetize that value for them. Yeah. I was hoping you'd be able to update us on Magic Valley and I know the restart was in July. Mm-hmm. You commented that you were pleased with the ramp so far. Can you update what happened to it? So I'd rather not do a public statement here at the moment. I think what we'd like to say is that, you know, consistent with what we said is that we're ramping up. We're pleased with the progress that we've made. We'll provide a public statement as soon as we can on the results on that. As we said, we're trying to ramp up. Part of that is as well, maybe for the larger group, is that we've installed technology to be able to capture more of the protein, so to differentiate the protein from just a distiller's grain to get up into, you know, 50% plus on the protein side of the. But as well, be able to extract more corn oil. We installed that system, had it first initially installed in April or completed installation in April of last year. As we tried to work through the process, we found that it wasn't sized effectively to be able to allow for, you know, allowances in change of quality of corn and other things. If anything ever you know, was off a bit in the ethanol production space, it ended up wreaking havoc through the. And just kind of a bit of a tailspin through your processes. You achieve your capacity, but only for short periods of time. We came back in, resized that equipment, you know, bought additional support and structure around that, and now have been rolling that out. We've been running at about 70%, as I think we announced in August, and the idea was to be able to ramp that up. And we also, in the meantime, are providing our customer support through third-party gallons that we buy and sell. So we need to clean out some of that volume before we get up to full capacity, so we'll have more information on that in the coming weeks. Yeah? Downstream, on the alcohol side, is the flow through to more of the premium side, or is it more of the mid-tier brands? I guess the way I would say this is, if you get to the tier brands, and you get to the large parties, they're they have built into their systems some redundancies and things, so you actually don't always get the premium that you would otherwise get if you're servicing the, the smaller, more obscure brands. So it's good to have a mixture of both, right? One is you've got a surety of of demand for, as you mix in the larger companies. The good news is as you move into that beverage grade, that I'll pick something that we don't particularly support but is a good example. You know, if you look at a Tito's brand as an example, they don't want to change the alcohol blend. They've got a chemical... You know, they've got it designed down to a T. You get the same flavor every time you open up a bottle. So they're loath to make a change. That said, they have run into supply constraints at times, so the idea is to be able to have some redundancy, and so we provide both. We're either first tier or second tier to be able to provide that kind of support. Did I answer your question? Okay, good. Awesome. Unfortunately, we have to wrap up the Q&A for now, but I just want to say thank you again from the entire team here at H.C. Wainwright. We appreciate the time and effort that goes into putting together this presentation, and if you obviously want to continue the Q&A session, please just proceed outside. Very good. Thank you. Yep.