Greetings! Welcome to the Perma-Fix second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star 0 on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, David Waldman, Investor Relations at Perma-Fix. You may begin. Thank you, Paul. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Perma-Fix Environmental Services second quarter 2023 conference call. On the call with us this morning are Mark Duff, President and CEO, Dr. Lou Centofanti, Executive Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, and Ben Naccarato, Chief Financial Officer. The company issued a press release this morning containing second quarter 2023 financial results, which is also posted on the company's website. If you have any questions after the call or would like any additional information about the company, please contact Crescendo Communications at 212-671-1020. I'd also like to remind everyone that certain statements contained within this conference call may be deemed forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and include certain non-GAAP financial measures. All statements on this conference call, other than a statement of historical fact, are forward-looking statements that are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which could cause actual results and performance of the company to differ materially from such statements. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as this morning's press release. The company makes no commitment to disclose any revision to forward-looking statements or any facts, events, or circumstances after the date hereof that bear upon forward-looking statements. In addition, today's discussion will include references to non-GAAP measures. Perma-Fix believes that such information provides an additional measurement and consistent historical comparison of its performance. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in today's news release on our website. I'd now like to turn the call over to Mark Duff. Please go ahead, Mark. All right, thanks, David, good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report that we are back on a solid growth trajectory and have returned to profitability following the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We continue to realize improvements in our performance and are regaining the momentum we had prior to the pandemic. As evidence of our turnaround, we achieved a 28.7% increase in revenue to $25 million for the second quarter of 2023 versus $19.5 million for the same period last year. Importantly, we've also achieved sequential growth of revenue to 24.5% compared to the first quarter of 2023. Revenue increased both year-over-year and sequentially with our treatment services segment together. The growth in revenue reflects the initiation of several new projects, one in the early part of 2023, that support the backlog in both segments and provide growth opportunities into 2024. In addition to our revenue growth, gross profit increased by 56.6%, and gross margins increased from 14.8% to 18%. Within the services segment, we were recently awarded two new contracts that are expected to start in the third quarter of 2023, and we believe further will further expand our backlog. The combined value of these awards is estimated to be over $8 million for the next few years, but are front-loaded over the next 18 months, with opportunities for expansion along the way. These awards include a task order project from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in support of its Facilities Reduction Program, as well as an award as a team subcontractor in support of the Los Alamos National Lab for Department of Energy. Both of these awards leverage our core competencies, including characterization, remediation, and disposition of hazardous materials and waste management. We also commenced work on awards granted earlier this year that have now begun to generate revenue and have helped to offset the Princeton and McKee projects, which will begin to wind down in the fourth quarter. We also continue to develop new proposals and have realized significant increases in activity within both segments, including the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, as well as several activities at DOE sites and ongoing initiatives with our international and commercial clients. Within our treatment segment, we witnessed an increase in volume with strong waste receipts during the second quarter, which provides us a solid backlog for our plants and improved visibility for the balance of 2023. This was a result of increased waste shipments from DOE to our EWOC facility here in Oak Ridge throughout the second quarter, along with steady sales from our industrial waste programs as well. We expect to see a steady improvement in waste receipts and an increase in project work from existing contracts, new contracts, and bids submitted in both segments that are still waiting, waiting for award announcements. At the same time, we're rapidly advancing several initiatives that we believe have the potential to significantly enhance our revenues and our long-term backlog. Despite a few delays in award announcements, these growth initiatives have remained on track. The $3 billion DOE Operations and Site Mission Support contract, referred to simply as the OSMS, is tied to the recent Portsmouth D&D award, and is due to be announced any day. The ITDC tank closure contract has seen quite an unusual procurement cycle, including an award to our competitor with a later determination, ruling that the awardee was ineligible for the competition due to a non-compliance with the government's systems for award management requirements, commonly referred to as the SAM.gov system. As a result, DOE now has two primary options, which could include awarding the project to our team or re-bidding the contract for a third time through a new procurement. We anticipate learning more about the DOE decision for this initiative in the third quarter of this year. The JRC award in Ispra, Italy, is due to be announced in the third quarter of 2023, soon after the European folks complete their August holidays, and get back to work, which we're anticipating to hear something in the September timeframe. Receipt of this award will provide a foundation for long-term growth within the European markets and open several opportunities to support existing IDIQ contracts held by Perma-Fix in the U.K., and strengthen our relationships for waste treatment in both Germany and Croatia. These opportunities are expected to provide sustained receipts beginning in the next several quarters, providing a combined annual revenues estimated in the $10 million-$20 million range. The Test Bed Initiative, or TBI program, also known as the Low- Level Waste Off-site Disposition Project, in support of the DOE Hanford Tank Waste Disposition mission, continues to progress. The submittal of the RD&D permit from DOE to the State of Washington regulators was completed in the second quarter, and following their upcoming public comment period and approval by the state, will allow DOE to begin to extract the 2,000 gallons of waste from the tanks for the phase 2 grouting demonstration, anticipated to be later this year. The TBI program is recognized by DOE as a potential supplement to the vitrification mission, to provide a solution for the 59 million gallons of tank waste stored on the Hanford site. Perma-Fix maintains these grouting capabilities today in our Perma-Fix Northwest facility in Richland, which is permitted and outfitted to safely and compliantly grout up to 30,000 gallons a month, with the ability to expand that capacity to well over 1 million gallons annually, while dramatically reducing costs, risk, and schedule, as compared to the vitrification program alone. It's important to note that our Perma-Fix Northwest facility offers the local or regional option for grouting as the only one the only option for regional or local grouting for tank waste versus other options to ship untreated waste out of state for grouting and disposal, which is defined as the higher risk alternative in the recently approved environmental assessment and the recent WIR documents. In the meantime, we've progressed over the past 2 quarters in our strategy to maximize the value of our waste treatment offering in support of the Department of Energy's Hanford closure mission. Towards that end, we recently entered into an alliance with the Local 598 pipefitters union in the Tri-Cities to provide a labor support for our grouting offering for the tank program. We believe this partnership increases the value of our offering to the DOE through our labor availability and a labor stability for the grouting program when it reaches an operational level, while providing a treatment option that can accelerate the reduction of the environmental liability in the region. We consider this a big opportunity with the Local 598, as the waste receipts increase on all of our Hanford waste programs, including the DFLAW program, which appears to be on track for the late 2024 startup of the vitrification plant. It's worth noting that the DFLAW facility achieved a major milestone last week when it successfully heated to 2,100 degrees Fahrenheit in its testing phase. The waste that will be produced from this DFLAW facility is estimated by DOE to be over 8,000 cubic meters annually, and will begin to be received at Perma-Fix facilities upon hot startup of the plant. Like as I said, currently projected for late 2024. As I've mentioned in the past, the volume of this waste would more than double the production of all our plants combined on an annual basis. Overall, we continue to see slower than usual procurement cycles, and difficulties with government clients in getting projects awarded, despite funding levels that remain unspent. The return of workforces across the DOE and other government agencies, we see optimism that these procurements will continue to increase in activity that we saw at levels prior to COVID-19. Turning back to our finances for a moment, EBITDA in the second quarter of 2023 improved to an income of $1.5 million, compared to a loss of $0.4 million for the same period last year. We also returned to profitability after coming back from the pandemic, over the past three years, and we achieved a net income of $474,000 in the second quarter of 2023, compared to a net loss of $1.4 million in the second quarter of last year. At the same time, we continue to invest in our capabilities and facilities. We have built a solid foundation for growth and a highly scalable infrastructure. As we continue to increase revenues, we expect to benefit from this predictable cash flows, from our services segment, in the high incremental margins within our treatment segment. To wrap up, we remain optimistic that 2023 will realize continued growth in both segments as we expand our market base and develop strategic teams to optimize win probabilities, for upcoming procurements. While we continue to realize impacts due to labor shortages, we're heavily focused on increasing productivity and reducing costs to maximize our margins. Our growth strategy includes also expansion of our waste services in Europe, and with commercial power generations, generators as well. We believe that we will see a growth in receipts in both these groups, in the next few quarters. Overall, we remain confident in our ability to maintain the growth and stability we experienced prior to the pandemic, and we're encouraged by the market outlook, given our solid sales pipelines, with a number of important contracts expected to be awarded over the next few quarters. On that note, I'll now turn the call over to Ben, who will discuss the financial results in more detail. Ben? Thank you, Mark. I'll start with revenue. Our total revenue from continuing operations for the second quarter was $25 million, compared to last year's second quarter of $19.5 million, an increase of $5.5 million, or 28.7%. The increase in revenue was attributed with both our operating segments, as our treatment revenue was up $4.4 million, and the service segment was up $1.1 million. The increase in the treatment segment was primarily volume related, as all our facilities processed more waste, and the increase in the service segment was driven by both increased project work on our two large contracts. Year-to-date, through June 30th, our 2023 revenue increased over prior year by $9.8 million, or 27.6%. Again, revenue is up compared to prior year at both segments. As with the quarter, high volumes at the waste treatment contributed to the increase in revenue. In the service segment, the 2 large projects have been in full production for the entire 6 months of 2023, while they did not begin full production until close to the second quarter in 2022. Looking at gross profit, for the quarter, we had $4.5 million, compared to $2.9 million in 2022. As with revenue, both operating segments contributed to the improved total gross, gross profit of $1.6 million. In the treatment segment, higher revenue drove the improvement, although there was an offset from the mix of waste for lower-margin waste streams, as well as higher fixed costs at the plants. Service segment gross profit improved as a result of higher revenue, as well as better margins realized on our project work. Again, for six months ended June 30th, our gross profit was $7.5 million, compared to $4.5 million in the prior year. This $3 million improvement was from both segments, as the treatment segment revenue increased, increase was partially offset by the impact of the higher fixed costs and the lower margin waste mix. In the service segment, similar to the quarter, increased revenue and improved margin realized on the projects contributed to the higher gross profit. Turning to SG&A, our costs for the quarter were $3.6 million, representing 14.2% of revenue, compared to $3.7 million, or 18.9% of revenue. Our SG&A costs were lower due to low, due to lower audit fees and payroll-related expenses. They were offset by higher expenses related to stock options and higher outside service costs related to financing efforts. For the 6 months ended June 30th, our G&A sits at $7 million, or 15.6% of revenue, compared to $7.1 million, or 20.1% of revenue last year. Again, lower audit fees were the main contributor to this small reduction. They were slightly offset by higher outside fees related to financing. Our net income for the quarter was $474,000, compared to last year's net loss of $1.4 million. For 6 months ended June 30th, net income sits at $63,000, compared to a net loss last year of $2.8 million in 2022. The basic earnings per share for the quarter is $0.04, compared to loss per share of $0.11 in prior year. The year-to-date basic income per share is at zero, compared to losses last year of $0.21 per share. EBITDA from continuing operations, as we defined in this morning's press release, is at $1.5 million, compared to a loss of $403,000 last year. EBITDA year to date stands at $1.7 million, compared to a loss of $1.8 million in 2022. Turning to a few balance sheet items, our cash on the balance sheet was $4.8 million, compared to $1.9 million at year-end, which reflects our positive cash from improved operations. Our current receivables and liabilities were up approximately $3.6 million and $3.2 million, respectively, as a result of increased operations and the timing of collections and payments. Our waste backlog for the end of June was $8.9 million, which is close to the $9.2 million at year-end, and up from $7.2 million a year ago in June of 2022. Our total debt at the quarter end was $854,000, which excludes debt issuance costs, which is primarily due to our lender, PNC Bank. Finally, I'll summarize some cash flow activity for the year. Cash flow from continuing operations provided was $4.8 million. Cash used by discontinued operations was $336,000. Cash used in investing, continuing operations was $1 million, and it's primarily capital spending. Cash used in financing was $290,000, which represents our monthly payments on our term and capital loans of $273,000, payments to related finance, leases, and liabilities of $118,000, and proceeds from option exercises of $101,000. Finally, I'm pleased to report that on Monday, July 31st, this week, we amended our loan agreement, which among other things, extended the maturity date of our credit facility for an additional 3 years or to May 15th, 2027. As part of this amendment, our lender provided a new term loan of $2.5 million, which will further support the company's liquidity position and will be used for general working capital needs, facility capital, and maintenance. Perma-Fix is now banked with PNC for over 25 years, this extension underscores the strength of this relationship, which has endured, endured through many highs and lows. With that, I'll now turn the call over to the operator for questions. Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, please press star one if you have a question at this time. One moment while we pull for questions. The first question today is coming from Howard Brous from Wellington Shields. Howard, your line is live. Thank you. First of all, Mark, Ben, Lou, I hope you and your families are well, and things are good personally. Thank you, Howard. You're very welcome. Thanks, Howard. First of all, congratulations to all three of you on what is a very good quarter. As, as a shareholder, I'm rather pleased about that. I've got a few questions, and I want to focus on first, last quarter on the conference call, you mentioned, quote, near-term opportunities in Slovenia, Croatia, Mexico, Canada, U.K., and Germany. You mentioned a couple of them on the call just before. Have we lost any of those opportunities? That's the first question. Secondly, if not, when would you expect to see some of those awards, and could you talk about the total size of what we're looking at there? Sure, Howard. No, we have not lost any awards. They have, they've, they've moved, as with the U.S. government, they move quite slowly. We'll start with Croatia. We have two procurements that we're supporting right now, one for treatment of resins, which we're luckily going to move into an R&D phase with them on that, which will be quite small initially, but with an opportunity, if technology proves successful, to expand. The other one in Croatia is, is, is around a $20 million project that's due to be awarded in the September time frame. The second round of the RFP just came out here and is due, I think, next week. So that is still in play, and we have a very innovative offer for that project, and we remain optimistic about it. That would also impact Q4 if we were successful. The JRC contract I mentioned, obviously, has not been awarded yet, and but we did have discussions with the client, and they said as soon as they get back from vacation, there should be an announcement. That's again, early September. Several other ones are still brewing, particularly Germany. We're working with a broker agency to support the decommissioning of about 12 reactors over there right now. That's moving forward rapidly. We're hoping to be able to start supporting that waste treatment process in fourth quarter or Q1 time frame. We do continue to get waste from the German commercial firms that we've been working with for quite some time now on a quarterly basis. In the U.K., we're also working on several initiatives there. Again, we still have our agreement with Westinghouse that if we're successful in JRC, we will move forward with that new plant. We also... I'm not sure if we ever talked about it, but we do have a couple of other IDIQs, that we've won with the U.K. government, for waste treatment, and we continue to get task orders out from that, to treat the waste over here with a new plant, in Springfields with Westinghouse. We'll be able to treat over there, I mean, much, much more competitive, and that could, that, that IDIQ continues to be active. Lots going on over there. There's a couple other initiatives that are, that are going on as well in earlier stages, looking for real momentum, in the next 2 quarters over there and, and big impacts, for next year, particularly. To answer the last part of your question, we would anticipate, when all these things are clicking, with a couple of these awards that we should be able to assume a $10 million-$20 million a year revenue stream internationally, which will ramp up in the next one or two years. Thank you. Let me continue on. There's been a lot of discussion about the dismantling of the aircraft carrier. I hope I have the right one, Enterprise, which is docked in Washington State. In the process of dismantling the nuclear reactors, they plan on encapsulating them and transferring them to, of course, Hanford, that magical name. Can you discuss the opportunity there? Sure, Howard, that's, that's a big one for us. The Enterprise is the next ship slated for decommissioning. They just finished the final EIS. I believe it's been signed last quarter, and then, and the final EIS completion is the trigger to move into procurement. We're expecting the draft RFP to be out in the fourth quarter, early fourth quarter, like October timeframe. That, that aircraft carrier is actually sitting at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia. I believe it's at the Huntington Ingalls facility there. We are just completing our teaming dances for that that we go through, and signatures for those agreements are waiting on the draft RFP. It's estimated, Howard, to be, in the $800 million-$1 billion total revenue. I'm not sure what the final RFP is gonna look like and how much risk we have to take. That'll dictate really how close to $1 billion that project gets. The other exciting thing that we're anticipating, is that, the RFP will include a 20% small business set-aside. The last several that have come out have included that, small business set-aside. We're expecting this one, too, as well. That kind of gives you a sense of where we'll likely be, in total revenue, for a project like that. That's quite a large opportunity. Over the last several quarters, we've talked about uranium and the EPA settlement with the Navajo Nation. Where do we stand on that? Because I, I believe there was a contract won a year and a half ago of $220 million to a consortium that started with a Navajo Nation company, and you were involved, Perma-Fix was involved. Where do we stand on that, please? Yeah, I probably should have talked about that in the notes, Howard, 'cause that, that's a really important project for us. We did win a, a contract with the Abandoned Uranium Mine Program through the EPA, with our prime, as you said, is a local Navajo firm, and a few other teaming partners as well. We, we mobilized into the Navajo Nation, into Cove, Arizona, for the actual first Abandoned Uranium Mine remediation project through that very large program, which is funded well over $1 billion right now. We are in the process of finishing cleaning up that site. It's a, it's a quick turn, I want to say, a couple of months total. We've been out there a few weeks. I was out there last week with our executive vice president and, and our technical folks to tour. Met with EPA, and they're very excited about how our soil sorting technology is working. It's cleaning up to very, very Low-Levels of radioactivity, and meeting expectations. And we're anticipating, though it's not final, that that project will continue to expand, and the system we have in place out there in the middle of nowhere in Arizona, will continue to operate beyond that project and move right into the next one. And we're working with EPA to make that happen right now. That project's going very well. It generates about $1 million a month, our portion, and the project itself is very well operated and with our teaming partners, and very efficient. EPA was quite supportive and pleased with the project to date, and more to come on that as it continues to expand. Let me address the ITDC contract. There's currently an appeal that's existing. When does that period end? That's the first question. The second part of it is, assuming that, excuse me, assuming that BWXT has lost the contract, is it a fair comment there's a like, high likelihood that Atkins gets that award after the appeal period is over with? What are your thoughts? Yeah, the appeal period, as you said, we're, we're in an appeal period right now. I'm not sure the exact date, Howard. It was a 60-day period, and my recollection was that would take us to, like, end of next week kind of thing. In that range, DOE- Sounds about right. We'll have the-- we'll move forward with their decision process. As the, the judge said, in the ruling, there's only-- there's basically 2 options: to either award-- to make an award to the other team, again, there's only 2 teams, or move forward with a new procurement. I can't speculate on the probability of any direction they might go. It's really difficult to understand. It's been very, very quiet, while, while they're waiting for this appeal period to be over. It is the 3rd time, this-- it would be the 3rd time, if they go through a procurement process. There is some urgency associated with the what's happening at the site over the next 2 years with the FL coming online and the tank program really changing. We'd like to be optimistic about it, but we really have no intel and really no understanding of what DOE is gonna do at this point. Hopefully, we'll learn something in the September timeframe. Let me get to the last, probably most important question. The smelters worked for the vitrification plant up to 2,100 degrees, and that then leads to the likelihood of the vit plant starting in end of Q3 2024. Is that a correct comment based on what you're hearing from the Hanford people? Generally, yes, Howard. The melter, the first melter, there's two melters, I understand, and they're quite complex pieces of equipment. The first one did operate as planned from what we, we read, and that they're moving forward with the other testing of the other systems associated with that, which obviously is a very large, complicated facility. They're making good progress. DOE continues to report in their press releases as they click over milestones that they're on track for the second half of 2024, basically a year away, and that things are going well. There's an increasing optimism about their schedule, about the facility coming online. Getting that melter operational was a big deal and a big accomplishment by by Bechtel and the other contractors along with DOE. Obviously, we're really big fans of that vit plant, and hope to be able to provide support through our new, new arrangement or agreement with them that's reflected in the ROD. Right now, you know, we would expect to be hot testing with real waste in at the end of 2024. Based on a full operational, can you confirm again that, on that basis, that for 2025, we still could be looking at, just in this one area, roughly $3 in earnings? Yeah, I, I really- Is that a fair comment? I can't address the earnings at this point. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of variables in this calculation. You know, it, it seems like a reasonable estimate, but, it, you know, it depends on the mix of waste that we receive, the quantities of each type, and that type of thing. I would expect it, you know, their estimate is 8,300 cubic meters a year, and that would assume full capacity, both melters running full blast, for a 12-month period, which would likely take a year or two to get to that kind of level. I do expect this to ramp up to the point where we could, we could definitely tune those numbers and get an understanding of how much capital we have to invest in it, which we anticipate to be quite limited at this point. It seems like a reasonable estimate overall, Howard. Oh, all right. Thank you. I'll let other people ask questions. I'll, I'll come back if I have additional. Okay. Thank you, Howard. Congratulations, Mark, Ben, Lou. Great quarter. Thank you. Thank you. Once again, if you do have any questions, please press star one on your phone to enter the Q&A queue. That's star one if you wish to ask a question. The next question is coming from Brian Russo from Sidoti. Brian, your line is live. Yeah. Hi, good morning. Good morning. Just to follow up on the DFLAW facility. Outside of the second melter, you know, and, and, and the temperature testing, are there any other, you know, major milestones that we should be monitoring for the DOE to maintain, you know, that second half of 2024 hot start? Yeah, there's, there's a number, Brian. I don't have, have this in front of me, but sort of any facility like this, there's a lot of safety systems, there's readiness reviews, other, other milestones like that, that will occur as they, you know, get closer to next, next summer. You know, I would expect that other melters will be tested here in the near term, and then they'll start going through their operational readiness milestones and checklists and those types of things, and report on those, most likely, as they are successful. I can get some of those to you. They should be on their website, at least several of them. There's some, you know, there's agreements in place with the regulators and the DOE in regards to what these milestones are. We can track that along the way. They are available at the DOE. I, I just have to pull them off the website. Okay, great. Just, just remind me on the Washington State Department of Ecology permit for the 2,000 gallons, is that in the... Is there a public comment period that we're currently involved in? How soon after, when that permit is granted to the DOE, can the 2,000 gallons be shipped? Yeah, the, the permit, the RDD permit, is for, it gives DOE the ability or, or, approval to extract the waste from the tanks. They, they came out with questions for DOE, I want to say this past Tuesday, so two days ago. In this question, they had some, some technical questions in regards to how the waste is going to be extracted and what they're going to do with the equipment after it is extracted, and that kind of stuff. Said that when DOE provides the response to these questions, that they'll go out for public comment, and, and move towards approval. That public comment has not happened yet. I would speculate that it will be 30 days, and it would likely be, you know, probably a month from now before we'd see anything, because DOE's got to respond to those questions. They got to address them and everything else. Then DOE would be, once that approval is completed, DOE could start extracting, waste, in the early 4th quarter. Once it's extracted, it won't take long to, to, to treat it. Once they finish that demonstration, then DOE is in a position to move towards an operational phase, which we're hoping, will be sometime in 2024, period. Again, we're not-- there's not a date or, or a specific approach associated with the operational phase. It's really, DOE will tell you, they have a roadmap that includes going to operational phases with the grouting program. That's really what we're focused on is that. Obviously, 2,000 gallons is pretty, pretty small. It's a demonstration, and we're looking forward to the operational phase where we really begin to treat large volumes and make real progress on tank closure. Again, we're expecting that sometime in late 2024. Okay, great. And will the Richland facility need a mod to do the operational phase, which could be the 1 million gallons? We're, we're set to go with 30,000 gallons a month with our current permit and current facilities. We would have to do a minor mod, and to, to go from 300,000 gallons, or, yeah, 300,000 to, to 1 million, and would not expect a problem doing that. Again, minor capital improvements to get there as well. That would not be a significant delay in getting that in place to, to make that jump up if DOE got to those quantities. Okay, great. Then on, what's the services backlog? You, you mentioned the treatment backlog, but I think services was, you know, mark to mark, $30 million on your last call. Just wondering where that stands with the $8 million of new awards in the press release? Yeah. Hey, Brian. The, some of that $8 million's not in there. I don't have a current number. Our quarter-end number was $22.6 million, and that included about $4 million of the $8 million, so probably another probably about $26 million-$27 million with the new award. Okay, great. Then just on, on the margins, in, in each segment, obviously, significant improvements year-over-year. Are you close to what would be considered normalized? You know, the 22.7% of treatment is normalized, maybe a couple of 100 basis points higher to that based on, you know, the $100 million of annual run rate revenue and the services, which is, was 16.6%. Is that at or near kind of the, you know, the normalized- Yeah -margins? I think, I think the services is, treatment is, probably on the lower end for a reason. The new revenue that we're receiving at our new plant is gonna be a little bit lower margin than sort of our core 3 plants. That probably brought the number down a little bit. When we, when we get into that, you know, sweet spot of $100 million a year, in our regular mixed waste, I would have expected a little bit higher, the work we do at the new facility is a little less like the mixed waste treatment. I think it's, it's a good number, and you, you know, we could see it go up with a little better performance at our other plants. Okay, great. Lastly, just on the mix of that $100 million, it is kind of... Are, are you looking for maybe, you know, 60/40 services, treatment? Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of the general, 60/40, maybe even, you know, 55/45 because of the new facility, depending on how it does. All right, great. Thank you very much. Thanks, Brian. Thank you. The next question is coming from Ross Taylor, from ARS Investment Partners. Ross, your line is live. Thank you. Just a couple of quick things. One, the DFLAW situation opportunity is in no way really impacted by the unsettled nature of the, other contract? Yeah, that's a good question, Ross. The DFLAW operation is tied to a Tri-Party Agreement between DOE and the regulator and EPA. It is completely different or is not tied to that procurement. DOE has an obligation to be up and running. I want to say there's a couple of slips because of COVID. I want to say the milestone is August of 2025, I believe, where there's potential for fines and penalties after that point. DOE is trying not to get anywhere close to that. Again, it slipped from December of 2023 because of COVID, and is a very important milestone that DOE reports to Congress on and to the regulators on a regular basis. It's nowhere tied--. It's not tied to a procurement at all. Okay. So that might, and that's why you're confident that this is all about getting the melters up and operating, and once they're up and operating, they're gonna push this through. They've been working on this for decades, so that's why- Right ... you're confident that that income flow- Yeah - that's why, whether it's $3 or around $3, whatever, on a run rate basis, that's, that's where- Yeah - that comes from. Second- Yeah ... Italy and Europe. I noticed that some of the choice of words you used in Italy made me feel that you would be more surprised not to get the contract than if you got the contract. Is my read correct? You know, I hate to speculate on anything to do with procurements, Ross, because crazy things can happen. We've been optimistic for quite some time. You know, the reason we're optimistic, Ross, is the way that it works in Europe is they down select. This procurement has been going on for 10 years, and it started out with 6 or 7 bidders, maybe 9, and it gets down to 2. Your, your optimism goes up as you go down. We feel like we're in a good position, a really good position, with our team. I can't say that we've won or that we're more optimistic than we were before, but just that we remain optimistic, that, and that we should hear in, in early September. Okay. Well, we look forward to hearing that. Talking about Europe, it would appear you have a lot of opportunities there, a lot of things that come on. If you win the Italian job, for want of a better phrase, you have your relationship, you're going to build out a facility in the U.K. to treat. In the interim, you're going to treat in the U.S. any business that you get from Europe, whether it be Croatia, Germany, or elsewhere? Exactly, exactly. That's what we've been doing now, is we've been shipping over from, from Europe, to our Northwest facility, to the incinerator units we have in Northwest, which are very well suited for this kind of work. It's a little different with, with out of, out of country waste treatment, because you have to commit to giving all of the residual back to the host country. O ur incinerator units, we call BPUs, are designed to do just that. We can, you know, very high quality, take the residual, and package it and ship it back to them. They get the, the stabilization value out of that, as well as the significant size reduction value of about 90% overall, for long-term storage over there. It, it works well, and it obviously, higher transportation costs, and that's, that's what we'd cut out, if we had the same facility in the U.K. as planned. What, what happens with margins if you're able to move this business from treating it in the U.S. to treating it in the U.K.? How, how big a boost on margins would that be? That's, you know, margin percentage will likely be lower, because we're sharing those with Westinghouse and the JV that we put together with Westinghouse. I would anticipate this to go down. It's difficult to, to really, with the waste that we know that's in inventory in the U.K. and in Europe, when there's dramatic amounts of, of waste and inventory, at every nuclear facility over there, for the most part. I t's just, it's difficult to say what the margins would be. It's not gonna be as good as we're used to over here, but it shouldn't be much less. I would anticipate 50%-70% margins on the waste treatment over there. Okay. Will you talk about the number of opportunities and the sizing in the uranium mine, the old uranium mines in like in New Mexico or the Navajo projects? How big are those? How many are they? Now that they're starting, how long do we think they actually will continue to run? Yeah, some unofficial numbers, Ross. There's 500 abandoned uranium mines in the country, from what EPA has told us. 250 of those are funded for or slated for remediation. It is at least $1 billion of funding, probably closer to $2 billion identified for this. The contract that we have with our team partners is a $225 million IDIQ. There's two other bidders, there's two other contingencies, or excuse me, two other consortiums of companies that can bid on the task orders. The value of that is $225 million, which is just about, I want to say, two years left on it. That kind of gives you a sense of the near-term revenue we're talking about, is between, between those three companies. Their intention is to get rolling in the field. There's enough work to go around for everybody. I'm sure they'll split it up, and to make sure people stay in the field and keep going, because these, these mines are everywhere. They're, they're—it's painful to deal with them. It's difficult work, very difficult, very remote, very hot, obviously dry, difficult conditions. So once you're out there with your team of people, you don't want to keep moving in and out, you want to keep going. That's hope, our hope there, and that we see this whole program accelerate in visibility and funding and procurement-wise, get, get more task orders out so we can keep going. Okay, same idea. You guys are currently finishing up a job with the Navy in Virginia. I think actually right next door to the Enterprise, if I recall correctly. The Navy has obviously the Enterprise, but it also has a number of other warships that need to be decommissioned in that. What's, what would we be thinking, not just, we got obviously upcoming soon, the Enterprise, you're 1 of 2 on that. Is that kind of the same setup with all these other opportunities that the Navy has, and should we see more than just the Enterprise let out this year? Yeah. The, there's another building that we're bidding on right now, it's due here next week, I think, at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, right next to the ship that we're decommissioning. There's some other ones, other projects are coming out which reflect a new era with the Navy, where they used to just self-perform all this work, now they're outsourcing it commercially. That really opens up the market for companies like ours. To answer your question, the Nimitz is anticipated to be one year behind the Enterprise. The GAO put a report out, I want to say in 2021, that said that there's 48 ships to be decommissioned by the Navy in the next five years. I think they kind of lost a couple of years because of COVID-19. Of those 48 ships, I believe there's about a dozen nuclear ones. They have a list, and I haven't seen the other names below the Enterprise and the Nimitz. The Nimitz is also an aircraft carrier, about the same size, or as far as difficulty goes. We expect the Nimitz to come out right after the Enterprise gets awarded. Okay. Well, great. Congratulations. It looks to me like what you're really talking about is there's so much opportunity here. We're just sitting on a clock or a calendar function. It's really, the every day that goes by, we're a day closer to the tremendous earnings power you're talking about getting unlocked. It's not really a question of if, it's just a question of, can we be patient enough to get there in the next year or so? That's exactly right, Ross. It's been, it's been a real waiting game. You know, COVID has thrown a big wrench, as I've mentioned 100 times, you know, into the procurement process, and there's a lot of waiting for procurement. Everything's funded, or at least not everything is funded, but there's significant funding out there, a significant unspent funding out there, way more than, than ever. We anticipate that to continue, and the missions are all very well defined. They just got to keep moving with getting the procurements out. Okay. Well, you're doing a great job. The company has, it seems like, has really turned a corner, and I congratulate you and your team on that. Great. Thanks, Ross. Appreciate your support. Take care. Thank you. The next question is coming from Aaron Warwick from Breakout Investors. Aaron, your line is live. Hey, guys, appreciate you taking the call, and want to piggyback on what Ross said on the congratulations, and the future certainly looks bright. Wanted to also follow up on something he talked about, just to, just to make it clear, because there's been a lot of confusion, I think, among the investor community. I just want to reiterate, it sounds like regardless of what happens with the DOE's decision as it relates to ITDC, they're under an obligation to get the vitrification plan up and running, and therefore, at some point, getting that secondary waste to you guys. Is that, is that accurate? That's a true statement. Absolutely. The you know Bechtel has the job right now, it as a separate contract, to get it up through hot testing, and then they turn it over to the ITDC winner or something that's like that. That's the current approach. That could change, and it could change, you know, you can tweak it or add more time to Bechtel or something like that. That a mid-2024 timeframe, you know, there needs to be, one would assume, the DOE would have a contractor on board to support that turnover once that plant's hot. Right. That's what I was thinking too, that. It seems likely they'll get this resolved without a third bid, bidding process, but even if they do, they're on that timeline for August 2025 at the absolute latest. Yep. Okay, good. Sticking with Hanford, I attended a public meeting, I think it was in late May, maybe early June. Had all of the entities involved, the government entities involved with, with the Hanford project there. It was quite surprising because, I'd always gotten the impression that, the- Aaron, I think we lost you. Like that was going to be part of their solution. Have you guys seen this change as well? I would assume see that positively. I'm sorry, Aaron, we, we lost a big chunk of your question there. Could you, the, the last, couple sentences, could you, repeat that? Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. yeah, at, at this, conference, this public meeting, the Department of Ecology seemed to have changed their tune to where they're extremely positive To be reluctant. Have you seen that change in, in position from them? I assume, have received that positively. Yeah, you broke up again, I'm afraid, Aaron, but I think what you're asking is how, how has the State of Washington evolved in regards to yes, TBI and grouting. Yeah. Ecology, they have come around. They had some dissension, you know, in the past years. We've had some really good meetings with Ecology. I think this is just speculation on my part. Start looking at budgets and time frames and reality in regards to how long it's gonna take to clean up Hanford, you know, the numbers now are between $400 billion-$600 billion, you know, as defined in some different reports. That something has to, to be done to address that budget requirement and the time frame that that's associated with. I think that Ecology's come around that, while vitrification still is their preferred approach, you know, for treatment, that grouting has to be in that mix. I think they've embraced that. The meetings we've had with them have been very supportive, and it does seem like they're making progress in embracing that as part of the solution. I'm certainly not gonna argue with that, but I would point out that, as it relates to vitrification being their preferred process, they did mention that specifically that, you know, vitrification for on-site disposal is necessary. They seem to be pleased with the fact that, you know, the TBI would be taking the waste out of the state. I, I think, you know, I'm not gonna say that they favor TBI more than vitrification, but they seem to be totally okay with that now. I wonder how much of that, I mean, I mean, perhaps has nothing to do with that at all, but it seems like another party that's sort of come on board is obviously you have this partnership now with the labor union. I mean, it seems to be that everyone in the government entities are now on board with TBI. Is that, is that your sense as well? Absolutely, Aaron, that's a good way to state it. Across the board, including DOE, you know, DOE's had a tough time accepting as well. The NAS meeting you went to helped a lot. I think the congressional delegations have been very supportive. They've started to question DOE as to how they're planning to use grouting as a supplement to vitrification and requesting DOE to be accountable for it. In recent congressional draft, congressional language in both the House and Senate, there has been language that has addressed that as well. I think overall, everyone's kind of planning on it more. There's been press releases recently that grouting has been part of the budget discussions to be included in there as an assumption for DOE as well, so in the near term. I think that overall, everyone has grabbed, grabbed a hold of it. I think it also helps that, frankly, that the vitrification plan is progressing forward and looks like it's gonna be able to be operational in the, you know, in the near term. The whole, the whole roadmap, as DOE refers to as, is coming together, and grouting is an important part of that. I know in the WIR or whatever they refer to it as, for the thing that came out here recently as it relates to grouting, there were 3 companies that were mentioned, that could treat it. It seemed at that meeting, the tribal nations and, Oregon, DOE, I think it was, they seem to be heavily opposed to shipping any untreated waste out of Hanford and going through their territory. Is there any way even for them to get the waste out of Hanford and not go through any of those territories to the others that were listed, in that final document? Yeah, yeah, that is exactly right. You know, those documents have all defined 3 different options, and EnergySolutions and WCS could both treat this waste at their facilities in Utah and Texas, respectively. There's has always been options. At this point in time, to answer your question, they would have to truck it out. There's not rail access on site, so you'd have to truck it, do with a lot of shipments, and a lot of shipments on the highways, versus the approach that we're providing, or the alternative we're providing, which is to grout it locally, and then rail the solidified, stabilized waste for disposal, in a lot less transportation, a lot less risk. The WIR and the EA both have defined that approach, a local approach to this as being the least risk approach. Now, whether DOE will consider those in their final strategy or not, remains to be seen, but those are options that they could consider. I'd have to believe that with the reduced risk of doing it locally, as defined in the EA, as well as the transportation risk, and the less number of shipments, and all the other things associated with doing it locally, I would have to believe that, that treating it at our facility would be the best value overall to the government. Okay, thank you. Final one for me then is just, as it relates to Italy, the JRC, and just trying to track some of that and get a better idea of what's going on. Are you able to talk about any of the reactors that, that, would be part of that contract? The JRC job is just a very specific quantity of drums of waste that are currently buried at the JRC facility in Ispra, Italy. It's just 6,100 drums of a very specific waste form. That job is only for the waste located at the JRC site. It could be more than just the 6,100 drums. It's, it's open-ended, that's the base scope, which we value, you know, in the $45 million range. There's no other reactors or anything that's gonna flow through there necessarily, whereas that's currently defined to flow through there. They could open it up for other facilities or other opportunities to ship waste out of Italy. Right now, that's the base scope, that's pretty much it. Great! Appreciate your time, guys. Thanks for all these explanations for us. Thanks, Aaron. Thank you. The next question is coming from Alan Denzer. Alan is a private investor. Alan, your line is live. Hey, Mark. Congratulations. Thank you, Alan. You done did it. Hopefully, there's a profitable progression ahead. Let me just ask you about the next foreseeable future regarding the possibility of a government shutdown, which seems to be more of a probability than a possibility at this point. How would that affect the company, and what are you doing to prepare for its possibility? Thanks. Yeah, government shutdowns typically haven't had a significant impact on us. It could, it could slow down some way shipments, and most of the work that we do is, is, is referred to as essential, that comes through the DOE budgets. A CR would be a little bit of a threat because, as you know, as CRs, there are some restrictions on new projects. The government has to chisel out about 20% of their budget for During the CR to allocate it for maintaining safety and that kind of thing. CR has more of an impact on procurements and those kinds of things. Government shutdowns haven't had a big impact on us in the past. Typically, our waste streams are coming, they're funded, and there's a safety component to it that need to, you need to keep moving with it, as opposed to store it. The only real threat to me, to answer your question, or to my view, is that some procurements may get, may get delayed, and new projects might get delayed. Existing ones should be sustainable for the most part. All right. Thank you so much. Keep on doing what you're doing. Be good. Great. Thanks, Alan. Appreciate it. Thank you. The next question is coming from Steven Fine, from SoFine LLC. Steven, your line is live. Congratulations, guys, on your, your quarter. Can you hear me? Yeah, we can see you. Go ahead. All right. Thank you. I'm sorry. I had to speak on. You mentioned, you mentioned the, the new agreement with the labor union. Do you expect the labor union to provide any political support in, you know, your efforts in Hanford? You know, there's an obvious political connection with a union like that. Local 598's got a very large group of constituents in the Central Washington area. They have a beautiful facility with enormous training capacity, and they're very politically connected. I would, you know, there, there is a certain amount of, of ability to access different figures and managers in the area. We certainly have not entered into this agreement with that as our focus. We, we sincerely entered into the agreement because we really believe that, that their provision of labor with the training facility they've got and the, and the tradition they have for providing safe workers would give us the stability we need to ebb and flow with these large DOE waste contracts. While there may be some political advantages to that, particularly associated with this administration, our, our objective really was to be able to provide that stability as the grouting starts, as well as some of the DFLAW work that's also gonna be coming up, and making sure that we've got the people we need in a small town, the town of, you know, 250,000 to make sure we've got the people that we need to, to meet the obligations we're gonna have. Okay. All right, that, that was my next question, because you did mention in your presentation initially that you're experiencing labor shortages. Am I correct that that would help the labor, any labor shortage problem out in Hanford, being connected with that union? Absolutely. That's exactly right. We are having struggle-- we're all struggling. I think the whole town is because there's just not that many people. Hanford's hired a lot of people, and taken a lot of people from us, because their benefits packages is better, and they're more competitive in regards to compensation than we are. We're commercial, so we have to compete with people. They don't have to, and it's a different environment. We have, you know, be able to replace people, but with the numbers we're talking-- the levels and numbers we're talking about for these two projects, the DFLAW and the TBI, type of work... you know, we're talking a couple hundred people at max. Boy, having the, the, Local 598 working with us, gives us confidence that we can meet these, meet these obligations. How are you dealing with if, if, if this is, if labor shortage is consistent, nationally and internationally, how are you dealing with that? We've had, we've had a few issues at the other 2 plants, but not quite to the extent we are at Hanford. We have had some issues with, with folks, just like everyone else in the country is having with, with labor. We've been able to find folks. We've had to increase our, our rates, our salaries. We've chewed in the margins a little bit because of that. Our, our rates will catch up to it in regards to what we charge. We've been able to find people. We're almost fully staffed, and we maybe have 5 or 10% availability or openings at the labor level at each site. Hanford, far and away, has been the biggest impact because of the, the Hanford facility, or let's just say our Richland facility, because of Hanford. The ones at, at Oak Ridge, to a lesser degree, and the ones in Gainesville, have, are, even less. We've been able to deal with it, but it has had an impact, and we've been fortunate being able to, to manage it. Has your productivity been impacted by climate change? Our productivity has not been impacted by climate change at all that I can think of. Our productivity has been impacted only really by the labor issues we just discussed, but not by, not by the heat that I'm aware of. Okay. If you were to build a plant in, in, you know, in Great Britain with Westinghouse, how long would you expect it would take to build that plant? Right now, we're estimating, you know, we've been working on design with Westinghouse in a very slow, progression because we're waiting to hear about this, award. With where we are right now on permitting and design, we're, we're looking at, at best, about 18 months from the award date, to, to 24 months, but probably some place in between. The current schedule is 18 months, to answer your question. With regard to Hanford and the opening of the vitrification plant, would the secondary waste just come to you, or would you have to be permitted or, or whatever? We are permitted for it now. We can accept it now. We have a contract with the department for this kind of type of waste through an IDIQ that we use for most of the DOE sites. you know, rates have been provided, and when they generate the waste or are near generating the waste, they'll most likely enter into a task order with us. you know, a task order or RFP, we'll respond to it, and then they'll ship it. that's typically the way it works. With regard to the 2,000-gallon tank test, there was a mention of a public comment period. Why would there be a public comment period if money has been legislated? Basically, what I've read, it's basically said, this should happen. Yeah. The public comment period is for the RD&D permit that the State has to consider. That's for extraction of the waste. I believe it's, I'm not sure if it's driven by REC or what it's driven by, but there is an RD&D permit that's required for DOE to get permission to extract the waste. I'm not sure if I've addressed your question or not, Steven. Yeah. Yeah, I, guess I'm confused because, you know, this is, this has been going on. I mean, the, the money's there. It... You, you did the first part, and I, I guess, you know, the, the, the issue here is, you know, that, that, you know, that this, this should be a more, it would just seem to me it would be a more direct occurrence. You know, why, why should there be a discussion now, with money legislated, with, with, you know, et cetera, and all the time that's gone by? Yeah, it's, it's part of the process. I, I'm not sure exactly what the regulatory drivers are for the that. All right. All right, the, the, the last question is with regard to, you know, the ROD in January. I mean, the ROD clearly... The, the, the spirit of that ROD clearly states that, or, or gives, or infers, or one would infer from it, that DOE does not want to transport waste long distances, and therefore, you know, you are, you know, you, you, you, you, you provide that for them. In addition, there were two other things. One, they stated that all waste would be in, only small containers, drums or totes. Further, it was stated that the secondary waste-... would come back to Hanford. I, I guess I'm somewhat confused, I don't know where maybe I'm confusing the discussions, that how can there be a conversation with any other, you know, suppliers wherein, material would have to be shipped longer distances or not make sense in small quantities? Yeah, I think you're getting a little confused. The, the DFLAW plant, as, as addressed in the ROD, as you said, was just for treatment and disposal, locally, at Perma-Fix. The large reason for that is because it, as you said, it all gets disposed of on-site at Hanford, at their waste cell at Hanford. It would not make any sense to ship anything out of state and then bring it back for disposal at their facility. What we were referring to, what I was referring to in regards to alternatives, was the environmental assessment for, for TBI, for grouting. For grouting, because it's not getting disposed of in state, had alternatives. Again, there, the, you know, the increase with the risk when you leave the state for the grouting part of it, but, that's where the alternatives come in. All right. I, and, and, and again, yes, I guess I was, was not clear. I guess, what, what hits me, if they put out a ROD and they underscore that, "Hey, we want to not travel along, you know, a long distance, we want to only ship in small containers," how these, these other, you know, other manufacturers wherein, represent long distances to get the waste to them, I, I would imagine as a former chemical manufacturer, that, you know, shipping in, in small containers, you know, would absolutely be very expensive and make no sense. Anyway, that. It's, yeah. It's not anticipated that the DFLAW waste will go anywhere besides to, to us regionally or locally. Well. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Again, congratulations on a great quarter. Thank you, Steve. Thank you. Thank you. There were no other questions at this time. I'll now turn the call back to the management team for closing remarks. Okay. Thank you. I'd like to thank everyone for participating in our second quarter conference call. As I said, we remain extremely confident in the outlook for the business. We appreciate the continued support of our shareholders, and we look forward to providing further updates as developments unfold. Thank you. Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.