Operator: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Gevo, Inc. Quarter 1 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I am Fran, and I'll be the operator assisting you today. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Eric Frey, Vice President of Finance and Strategy. Please go ahead.

Eric Frey: Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call to discuss Gevo's first quarter and full year 2026 results. I'm Eric Frey, Vice President of Finance and Strategy at Gevo. With me today, we have Paul Bloom, our Chief Executive Officer; Leke Agiri, our Chief Financial Officer; and Greg Hanselman, Executive Vice President of Operations and Engineering. Earlier today, we issued a press release that outlines our first quarter 2026 results and some of the topics we plan to discuss. Copies of the press release are available on our website at www.gevo.com. Please be advised that our remarks today, including answers to your questions, contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from those currently anticipated. Those statements include projections about the timing, development, engineering, financing and construction of our alcohol-to-jet project, the potential expansion and debottlenecking of our Gevo, North Dakota plant, the potential expansion of our carbon sequestration well, our expected future adjusted EBITDA, our agreements with Ara Energy and other activities described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are incorporated by reference. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements. In addition, we may provide certain non-GAAP financial information on this call. The relevant definitions and GAAP reconciliations may be found in our earnings release, which can be found on our website at www.gevo.com in the Investor Relations section. Following the prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call is open to the media, and we're providing a simultaneous webcast to the public. A replay of this call and other past events will be available via the company's Investor Relations page at www.gevo.com. I'd now like to turn the call over to the CEO of Gevo, Paul Bloom. Paul?

Paul Bloom: Thanks, Eric. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining us. This quarter was about advancing execution and strengthening the foundation for scale. Our team continued to build on the momentum of last year, strengthening our core business while advancing the next phase of our growth. We made measurable progress on our ATJ 30 project and our planned debottlenecking and expansion of Juba, North Dakota. We continue to improve the performance of our existing business and refined our financing strategy. The first quarter of 2026 was our fourth consecutive quarter delivering positive non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA and reflected better-than-expected results with improved margins on top of solid production volumes. Our carbon business continued to deliver strong returns from low-carbon ethanol compliance markets. In Q1, we sold approximately 57% of our carbon attributes attached to fuel. We also generated nearly 20,000 tons of engineered carbon dioxide removal credits or CDRs we sold into the voluntary carbon market and continue to see steady demand and relatively strong credit pricing for low-carbon ethanol sales in markets where we participate. Our customers for CDRs continued to grow in Q1, including purchases and retirements of credits by Amgen, Bank of Montreal and PayPal while continuing to advance more sizable long-term CDR deals. Importantly, we see continued growth this year even before our debottlenecking at Vivo, North Dakota comes into effect. Last year, we reported approximately $16 million of adjusted EBITDA. For 2026, we expect approximately $30 million of adjusted EBITDA as we progress towards our previously stated target of achieving $40 million of adjusted EBITDA on an annualized run rate basis from existing operations by the end of this year. The impact of our debottlenecking and other growth plans is incremental to this target. To further support our efforts, we've launched a corporate-wide initiative we're calling the EBITDA challenge. This is about unlocking new revenue growth, improving operational performance and managing costs across our organization. We look forward to providing more updates as we make progress on this critical initiative. Now let me turn to our alcohol to jet project that we call Project North Star since I know that's top of mind. As previously announced, we made the decision to withdraw from the DOE financing process following a conversation with them around certain new requirements for the loan guarantee, including enhanced oil recovery as a business objective. These requirements did not align with our duty to maximize value for our stakeholders from both an economic and time line perspective. Withdrawing from the DOE process allows us to fully engage with a broader group of private capital providers while adding greater certainty and flexibility to our financing efforts. I'm pleased to report that we have received nonbinding indications of interest from multiple lenders, which supports our goal of securing financing for Project North Star by the end of 2026. As a reminder, we are pursuing a combination of nondilutive project level debt and strategic capital options for Project North Star. Beyond financing, we are making good progress on our other key milestones that include engineering and offtake agreements. On engineering, we talk about front-end loading, otherwise known as FEL for which Stage 2 has been completed. We remain on track to complete FEL3 this quarter, which will further refine our capital cost estimates and position us to move forward to detailed engineering. Regarding offtake, we've already secured approximately half of the financeable long-term contracts for synthetic aviation fuel and carbon attributes for the project. Currently, we are at the term sheet stage for additional contracts, which upon completion, we expect will meet our financing requirements. We see a clear path to final investment decision or FID and based on our progress, continue to believe that Project North Star could deliver approximately $150 million of adjusted EBITDA per year once fully commissioned and online. Switching gears to our expansion projects. On March 30, we announced our intent to expand the capacity of Gevo, North Dakota by up to 75 million gallons per year, bringing our total capacity to an expected 150 million gallons per year. This expansion would effectively double the carbon capture and low-carbon ethanol production and all the value that comes with that from our original acquisition of the plant last year. To help finance the expansion, we've entered into a preliminary agreement with Ara Energy, a global private equity and infrastructure firm focused on industrial decarbonization to co-invest in the project. We still have to finalize the details, but we believe partnering with experienced capital providers will allow us to move faster than our balance sheet alone would support while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital projects, avoiding dilution and optimizing risk-adjusted returns. We expect construction of that expansion to take approximately 18 to 24 months following final investment decision. Lastly, let me touch on the debottlenecking and other site improvements that are currently in progress at Gevo, North Dakota. As previously announced, the volumes unlocked by our debottlenecking efforts should expand adjusted EBITDA in the Gevo, North Dakota segment by an anticipated 10% to 15%. We are on track to deliver the debottlenecking and operational reliability projects by the end of 2026. Site improvements are underway, and Greg will talk more about that and our other operational and engineering highlights. But first, I'll turn it over to Leke to run through the financial performance for the quarter, and I'll come back at the end to recap.

Oluwagbemileke Agiri: Thanks, Paul. During the first quarter of 2026, we reported revenue of $43 million compared to $29 million in Q1 of last year, net loss attributable to Gevo of $22 million or $0.09 per share, which is consent the same as it was in Q1 of last year. I would emphasize that first quarter results include debt extinguishment and modification of $11 million and non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA of $9 million compared to a loss of $15 million in Q1 last year. Adjusted EBITDA largely reflects contributions from our carbon capture, low carbon ethanol and RNG operations and corporate expenses. While our adjusted EBITDA for the full year 2025 was $16 million, we continue to see adjusted EBITDA growth in 2026 and are excited to reaffirm our target of reaching an annualized run rate adjusted EBITDA of $40 million this year. During the 12 months of 2026, we expect $30 million of adjusted EBITDA. Our first quarter results were better than expected due to strong production and margin performance in spite of typical seasonal softness in ethanol margins. We are optimizing value from monetizing carbon, commodities and tax credit in addition to our strong focus on fiscal discipline and cost management. As Paul mentioned, we launched a corporate-wide initiative that we're calling the EBITDA challenge. This is not just a cost-cutting exercise. This is about unlocking new revenue growth, improving operational performance and managing costs across our organization. Going forward, we continue to expect some quarter-to-quarter variability in adjusted EBITDA. But overall, we reaffirm our targets. I also note that we see some potential upside to our targets across a number of fronts, including unlocking revenue from expected new low carbon fuel pathways approvals we've been working on for over a year. Turning to cash flow and the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with approximately $79 million of cash and cash equivalents. We reported negative operating cash flow of $21 million. This reflects timing-related impact, including $17 million of tax credits that have been generated but have not yet been monetized and roughly $4 million of onetime costs tied to debt refinancing and extinguishment. Adjusting for these factors, operating cash flow would have been close to neutral in line with our expectations and consistent with our path toward achieving our 2026 cash flow objectives. In financing our growth, we're taking a disciplined and methodical approach. Our priority is to ensure that any capital we raise aligns with our long-term strategy, preserves flexibility and supports sustainable value creation for our shareholders. Regarding ATJ 30, we're actively evaluating indication of interest that we have received from private capital providers. This process is focused not only on securing funding, but partnering with capital providers who understand the strategic position of our projects, share commitment to our execution time line and help minimize dilution. On debottlenecking and other asset enhancement projects, we expect to spend $26 million this year that we plan to fund internally as we have said previously. And as Paul mentioned, we expect to finance our expansion projects with capital partners like Ara Energy. Overall, we believe our cash and cash flow position puts us in a strong place to execute this year and confidently pursue our long-term objectives. And now I will hand it over to Greg to talk about operations. Greg?

Unknown Executive: Thanks, Leke. From an operations standpoint, we saw consistent performance across our asset base in the first quarter. At Gevo RNG, we produced about 92,000 million BTUs of renewable natural gas compared to about 80,000 during the same quarter last year or a 15% increase. Last quarter saw an improved reliability as a result of our continued focus on operational stability. At Gevo, North Dakota, the plant delivered 18 million gallons of low-carbon ethanol, plus 16,000 tons of dry distiller grains, 51,000 tons of modified distiller grains and 5 million pounds of corn oil co-products. This was even better than expected as a result of our continued focus on operational excellence. The team remains focused on executing the debottlenecking and asset reliability projects that are expected to unlock incremental volumes and expand margins. During a planned shutdown in April, we succeeded in making the process tie-ins we need for these improvements. We believe we won't need any additional or unplanned outages to complete and commission the debottlenecking. That's great because we can start adding long-term production capacity without sacrificing our short-term volume this year. We are currently in construction of a new fermenter, liquefaction tank, beer degafting system and a new milling building, which are all part of our plans to increase the plant capacity to around 75 million gallons per year of low-carbon ethanol starting in 2027. For comparison, the current nameplate capacity is 67 million gallons per year, which we are already exceeding. We budgeted $26 million in capital expenditures this year for the debottlenecking and site improvements funded by Gevo, North Dakota operating cash flows, as Leke mentioned, and we continue to expect about that level of capital spend. On our plant expansion from 75 million to 150 million gallons a year, we are repurposing much of our work, design and team from our previous ethanol project that was originally planned for South Dakota. We believe these efforts, while working with our existing network of partners, including Fluid Quip Technologies, will accelerate the expansion. Finally, on ATJ 30, we are on schedule to complete FEL3, which will bring us to a plus or minus 10% estimate on the capital cost of the project, including the modularization work being done by Praj along with the Gevo engineering team in India. Our U.S. engineering team and engineering partners are focused on completing the balance of plant design and integration of the entire project. In summary, we are focused on delivering operational excellence while also positioning our assets to support the next phase of growth. Now I'll turn it back to Paul.

Paul Bloom: Thanks, Greg. As you can see, we are in a much stronger position than we were a year ago. We have a solid operating base, a clear path to improving profitability and multiple opportunities to scale our business in a meaningful and repeatable way. In addition, the conflict in the Middle East has highlighted, among other things, the relative inelasticity of jet fuel supply and demand, underscoring the critical importance of renewable alternatives like SAF. With the expected increase in global demand for jet fuel in the future, Gevo has seen increased interest in our SAF and franchise strategy, both in our carbon management and our anticipated ability to supplement regional supply with our modular approach to deploying alcohol to jet capacity. Let me finish by saying our focus is clear. First, expand our cash-generating business; second, secure a durable capital structure; third, deliver our first commercial scale SAF project; and lastly, build a repeatable platform for growth. With that, I'll turn it back over to the operator to take your questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from Amit Dayal from H.C. Wainwright.

Amit Dayal: Good to see all the progress, Paul. On the debottlenecking front, should we assume that the impact from these efforts will reflect in the financials in 2027?

Paul Bloom: Thanks for the question. Yes, absolutely. That's the plan here because we'll have -- like Greg mentioned, we've already got the tie-ins done for the expansion. We're working on that construction today. That will be done at the end of the year. So that should immediately start in 2027 in Q1 to start delivering that extra 10% to 15% that we were talking about compared to where we end the year.

Amit Dayal: Understood. And with the efforts with Ara, does that require any capital commitment from you? Or will that also be project financed? I'm just trying to think through whether that puts any burden on the balance sheet or whether you have optionality to fund that through project financing and outside sources?

Paul Bloom: Yes. Leke, why don't you take that one?

Oluwagbemileke Agiri: Yes. No, thanks for the question. So high level, we're going to arrange a project level debt to complete the capital stack. So, the combination of cash that we have on hand with capital from Ara Energy, that completes all the capital we need to complete that expansion project.

Paul Bloom: Yes. So, we are really excited about that one, Amit, to say, hey, look, we found what we think is a really good partner in Ara Energy. We're looking forward to getting that finalized, right? And then so we can get started because the clock is ticking, right? We want to get that done as soon as possible, like we mentioned, we've got a time line that we announced to 18 to 24 months to get that completed, but that effectively doubles what we've got at Gevo, North Dakota. So that's a pretty exciting project for us. And again, we just can't go fast enough.

Amit Dayal: So on that front, Paul, can we assume that work on that potentially, if everything closes timely manner, work on the build-out starts this year in 2026 itself?

Paul Bloom: Yes, absolutely. We've already started to work on this project because Amit, we had a lot of the team working on ethanol plant design back when we had the South Dakota greenfield plant. So we've done a lot already. And so we're repurposing the team. Greg mentioned, we're already working with Fluid Quip, for example. And so we've already started how do we get this done? What does that engineering look like on the site? And we started talking about that right after we got the acquisition done of the Red Trail assets, now Gevo, North Dakota. So this has been in the works and in the planning for some time. So we're ready to hit the ground running.

Amit Dayal: That's good to hear. Just last question. I didn't share too much about Verity. Just wondering how that is progressing and if you are seeing traction with potential customers, et cetera, on that front?

Paul Bloom: Yes, sure. Thanks for the question on Verity. We love Verity, right? Verity has become really part of our core franchise business for one, right? Because as you know, if you look at a bottle of Jet A and a bottle of SAF, they look the same because the molecules are essentially identical. So the only difference is how did I get there, right? What was the source of the feedstock? How did I produce it? What's the carbon intensity score and customers want that proof. So as we build out our business, right, we'll have Verity kind of inside everything that we're doing, whether it's low-carbon ethanol or on the SAF side. So think about that, right, as we continue to build. But on the Verity side, look, we've got more customers -- we had a couple of partnerships that we've announced over the past few months. One was with Bushel who basically services about 50% of the grain elevators in the United States and in Canada. So we think that's a really good way to take Verity and combine it with already another software platform and get out to the market faster. And then we've also been working with a company called Cboe and Cboe really helps with data acquisition, boots on the ground. So we've got -- we've signed up 8 customers so far. We're really excited about this. But the one thing that we need to still see for Verity because we've designed this really to take the benefits from the field to the fleet or the field to the seat on the aircraft is that we want ag benefits, the 45Z ag benefits specifically included into the 45Z. So we've been waiting for that. We've been waiting for that. We think we're getting closer, but we really need to see that. And I think that's a catalyst for Verity to really take off and grow in the marketplace because we've got a tool that was really designed to do that.

Operator: And your next question comes from Jeff Grampp from Northland Capital Markets.

Jeffrey Grampp: I'm curious, with respect to the project finance opportunities for both the expansion project and ATJ, given that the time lines could potentially coincide a bit, are you guys evaluating perhaps a single source of capital for both projects? Does it make sense to have varying capital for different projects? Just kind of curious how you guys are evaluating funding since it seems like there's perhaps some overlap.

Oluwagbemileke Agiri: Yes. No, thanks for the question. I think high level, we're evaluating all of the executable project financing plans. And some of the current project capital providers that we're talking to have expressed appetite in both projects. But at the end of the day, we have that decision to make in terms of how we prioritize the capital providers that optimize our return for each of the various projects that we have in front of us. So we're really excited about the opportunities or the engagement that we have so far. But stay tuned. We'll be sharing more definitively in terms of what those selection criteria and the parties that we are going to be developing those projects with, especially ATJ 30 in due course.

Paul Bloom: Yes. Thanks. And just to add on to that, Jeff, I mean, one of the things that we want to make sure is that we go as fast as we can on these projects. And so making sure that we've got the right options, whether they're together or independent, that could change time lines on some things. So like I said, we're looking at all the options, but really excited and happy about the response that we have at this point.

Jeffrey Grampp: Appreciate those details. For my follow-up, somewhat related to the financing, but more specific to ATJ -- so it sounds like you have the offtake in place. You guys are working on additional offtake. Is that -- is it safe to assume that is a prerequisite disclosing anything on that side? And are there any other major obstacles, negotiating points, et cetera, outside of the offtake beyond just, I guess, kind of normal terms and conditions negotiations?

Paul Bloom: Yes. I think the offtakes are the major gating item that we're still working through here, Jeff. I mean, if you think about it, we're really focusing on delivering those bankable contracts that everybody is comfortable with on the financing side. So, we're pretty far along. We just need to finish up a few things like we said, that are at the term sheet stage. We'll get that completed here, hopefully in the near future. And then we'll see. I don't want to have everything under contract either for the ATJ 30 project. Mean Project North Star, we believe, is going to be very accretive, and we want to make sure that we've got some free to sell in the market so we can take -- so we can be opportunistic with those sales because who knows what those carbon values are going to be and the jet fuel prices are going to be in the future, right? So we'll get enough to get where we need to be for the financing and go from there.

Jeffrey Grampp: Understood. If I could sneak one more in related to that last point. What is that right mix? I understand there's not a right number, but is it -- what kind of spot exposure makes sense for you guys, do you think?

Oluwagbemileke Agiri: Yes. I mean, ideally, I think to actually understand what that question means, right, is you've got to effectively do the math to understand what amount of contracted offtakes underpin the investments for our capital providers. So, it's a negotiation that we're going through and to be transparent. But typically, when you look at capital projects like ours, you typically see those facilities effectively be under contracted offtakes somewhere between 70% and 80%. So maybe we'll be in that mix, maybe we can expose our volumes to more spot upside volumes. That's yet to be determined. Did I address your question?

Jeffrey Grampp: Yes. Perfect.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from Derrick Whitfield from Texas Capital.

Derrick Whitfield: Congrats on the strong quarter. I'm sure -- well, Paul, I'm sure a lot of this was in process with your team before, but you've hit the ground running with this release.

Paul Bloom: Yes. We've been busy. It's a busy group.

Derrick Whitfield: All right. Very good. And then just on the EBITDA challenge, could you speak to the scale and scope of the program and what it could reasonably yield on the current platform before accounting for debottlenecking and expansion?

Paul Bloom: Yes, sure thing. So, I mean, we're pretty excited about this. And look, it's one of those things that we are focused on doing and delivering and getting us to the first pass there. Gets us to the run rate of $40 million in adjusted EBITDA per year as soon as possible. That's where we're headed. We said we're going to do it. But I think the main thing is you can say that you're going to do it, but how are you going to do it? How are you going to measure it? We put a process and an initiative in place for all Gevo colleagues where we're capturing the metrics of what we're putting in place. It's part of an incentive plan that all employees have to drive EBITDA, not just to that $40 million, but well beyond that, right? So, this is -- think of this as Phase 1, but it's really getting us all to think about how do we work, how do we do our jobs the most efficient way and deliver value, whether we're unlocking revenue, whether we're managing our costs, and coming up with better operational projects. We've got a whole list of these already, and that list is going to continue to grow. So, I think it's going to go well beyond that $40 million that we've set as a target by the end of the year. But just think of it as the way we work. And if you look at the investor presentation that we've got after 40, then like you just mentioned, we're going to have the debottlenecking. After debottlenecking, we're looking at the terminal for third-party CO2. And then now we've got the expansion with our Energy and then monetizing that pore space fully, that gets us to that over $100 million in adjusted EBITDA that we're really targeting. So again, think of it as a phased approach. We'll continue this challenge. The challenge never ends. It will just go in phases as we work through it. I don't know, Leke, if you wanted to add anything.

Oluwagbemileke Agiri: No, I mean, you captured it. I think the like one of the key points also just identify is we're targeting sustainable EBITDA growth. So, as we look at cost management, we look at opportunities for investment to expand margins, those are aspects that we hope to translate into recurring EBITDA growth and drive the shareholder values.

Paul Bloom: And maybe just one other thing that Leke mentioned it when he was talking earlier, but it probably didn't resonate as well. So, I'll reinforce it. We've got a number of fuel pathways today where we're selling low carbon fuel with the carbon attributes attached in compliance markets as part of our carbon business. Some of those have -- are recognizing the value of carbon capture and sequestration or the CCS value. Some of them are not. So we've made sure that with our sustainability team that we're going after and making sure we've got the optionality to sell that value with or without the fuel and -- but we're getting more approvals. And so, we expect some additional approvals this year that should unlock some substantial value. So that's just an example of one of a revenue unlock that we think could be quite substantial for us going forward.

Derrick Whitfield: And then, Paul, kind of along the same lines, and you somewhat referenced it earlier in your commentary, but are you guys seeing opportunities to further improve your ethanol netbacks, as ethanol, if you look globally, it's the cheapest octane in the world at present and the global product markets are exceptionally tight. So, it seems like there's a fairway of ways to make more economics just on the brown molecule as well.

Paul Bloom: Yes, absolutely. Look, I mean, we've got a couple of things that are going on. One, we'll see where the farm bill gets with E15, but that could increase ethanol demand by 50% just right there if we go to year-round E15. So that's strong. We've also seen other markets that are pulling for export, just extra demand, right? So, we see demand growth in Japan, for sure, as they think about E10 and then moving on to E20. We look at marine markets where there's been a lot of talk and could expand. We're going to stay focused on the markets that we can service really well because those are also great markets for us. And we see new low-carbon fuel markets open up. Hawaii just announced a low carbon fuel standard. We've got New Mexico that's starting to take shape. And then obviously, the Canadian market is really strong today on their credit pricing and on their demand, and they're large -- a really large importer of U.S. ethanol, and we're well positioned to take advantage of that growth.

Unknown Executive: Yes. I'd add on, Paul. As we look inside the fence and drive operational excellence, we're very focused on energy consumption, how can we be more energy efficient and also how can we drive value in our co-product valorization. One project being how can we be even better with our corn oil recovery.

Paul Bloom: Yes. I think Greg brings up a really good point, right? This whole operational excellence piece, look, Red Trail assets and the team there have done a phenomenal job over time. we're bringing our team and combining forces now as Gevo, North Dakota to drive that operational excellence that we think it's not just small incremental amounts. These are step change kind of numbers that we could see in that improvement. The corn oil recovery is a big one. And as we look at even things like D4 RINs, I mean, that's -- we'll see how that continues to drive values for things like distillers corn oil as the D4 RINs and the recently announced RVO has gone up. And that is also good for potentially jet fuel in the future because we believe that, that RVO increase with SAF qualifying or anticipated to qualify for a D4, that's all moving in the right direction.

Derrick Whitfield: And then just with respect to ATJ project financing plans, how much of the total project CapEx could you reasonably cover with project financing? And should we think about the cost of financing is, let's call it, 200 to 300 basis points wide of DOE funding? Is that the right way to think about it?

Paul Bloom: Leke, do you want to take that?

Oluwagbemileke Agiri: Yes. So, we're still targeting leverage ratio of around 60% of the total project cost for ATJ 30. So that's our target. That is -- our engagement with the private capital providers is on that basis. And we do think that, that actually tracks what the market will bear or what we're going to transact. So that's the answer to your first question. And then your second question around pricing, I think what you're triangulating, I think, is close to fair, right? There is a strategic aspect of the cost of debt that the DOE brought to us that's going to erode a little bit as we are engaged with the private capital providers. And some of those reasons, I think you know why, right? The subsidized capital and the guaranteed structure ideally had, that does not exist with some of these parties, and they have to charge closer to what the market rate is. So, in fact, I think the range you gave is close to where we might end up.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Paul Bloom for the closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Paul Bloom: Well, thanks again, everybody, for joining us for this quarter's update. I think we're really happy with the team's performance. We're really headed strong. And I think you'll see continued focus on our EBITDA growth, which is obviously one of the critical things for us. Obviously, stay tuned for more updates on our ATJ30 financing Project North Star as we really get that done for the financing for the end of this year. But again, great quarter, really pleased with the progress that everybody is making, and thanks for joining us.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for joining, and that concludes today's conference call. All participants may now disconnect. Thank you.