Green Plains Inc (GPRE) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the Green Plains, Inc. third quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Following the company's prepared remarks, instructions will be provided for Q&A. (Operator Instructions)

早安，歡迎參加 Green Plains, Inc. 2024 年第三季財報電話會議。在公司準備好發言後，將提供問答說明。（操作員說明）

We will now turn the call over to your host, Phil Boggs, Executive Vice President, Investor Relations and Finance. Mr. Boggs, please go ahead.

我們現在將把電話轉給主持人、投資者關係和財務執行副總裁菲爾博格斯 (Phil Boggs)。博格斯先生，請繼續。

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Green Plains, Inc. third quarter 2024 earnings call. Participants on today's call are Todd Becker, President and Chief Executive Officer; Jim Stark, Chief Financial Officer, and several other members of Green Plains Senior Leadership Team. There is a slide presentation available and you can find it on our investor page under the events and presentations link on our website.

謝謝大家，大家早安。歡迎參加 Green Plains, Inc. 2024 年第三季財報電話會議。今天電話會議的參與者包括總裁兼執行長 Todd Becker； Jim Stark，財務長，以及 Green Plains 高階領導團隊的其他幾位成員。有幻燈片簡報可供使用，您可以在我們網站上的活動和簡報連結下的投資者頁面上找到它。

During this call, we will be making forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections, or other statements about future events. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties.

在這次電話會議中，我們將做出前瞻性陳述，即對未來事件的預測、預測或其他陳述。這些陳述基於當前的預期和假設，存在風險和不確定性。

Actual results could materially differ because of factors discussed in today's press release and the comments made during this conference call and in the risk factors section of our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q, and other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any duty to update any forward-looking statement.

由於今天的新聞稿中討論的因素以及本次電話會議期間以及我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的10-K 表、10-Q 表以及其他報告和文件的風險因素部分中發表的評論，實際結果可能存在重大差異。我們不承擔更新任何前瞻性聲明的責任。

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Todd Becker.

現在我想把電話轉給托德貝克爾。

Yeah, thanks, Phil. Good morning and thanks for joining our call today. We reported $83.3 million in EBITDA for the third quarter, inclusive of a $30.7 million gain on the sale of the Birmingham unit train terminal. Our EBITDA from normal operations was $53 million and our standalone consolidated crush margin was $58 million.

是的，謝謝，菲爾。早安，感謝您今天加入我們的電話會議。我們公佈的第三季 EBITDA 為 8,330 萬美元，其中包括出售伯明罕火車總站帶來的 3,070 萬美元收益。我們正常營運的 EBITDA 為 5,300 萬美元，獨立綜合壓榨利潤為 5,800 萬美元。

Before I get too deep into the numbers, I'm sure you saw the announcement this morning regarding Jim Stark retiring from Green Plains and the promotion of Phil Boggs to Chief Financial Officer. These two guys are really well known to all of you, which should make for a seamless transition. When Jim returned to Green Plains and subsequently named CFO, I always knew this day would come, as his goal was to get back to Nebraska and spend more time with his grandkids.

在我深入了解這些數字之前，我相信您今天早上已經看到了有關吉姆·斯塔克(Jim Stark) 從格林普萊恩斯(Green Plains) 退休以及菲爾·博格斯(Phil Boggs) 晉升為首席財務官的公告。這兩個傢伙大家都很熟悉，這應該可以實現無縫過渡。當吉姆回到格林普萊恩斯並隨後被任命為財務長時，我一直知道這一天會到來，因為他的目標是回到內布拉​​斯加州並花更多時間與他的孫子孫女在一起。

One of the things that was part of this succession planning was to set Phil up for success and Jim lived up to his end of the bargain and more. Jim and I spent many years together at Green Plains and he is one of the many who will have made a long-standing impact on the company and I'm proud to have worked with him.

這個繼任計畫的一部分是讓菲爾為成功做好準備，而吉姆則履行他的承諾以及更多。吉姆和我在 Green Plains 一起工作了很多年，他是眾多對公司產生長期影響的人之一，我很自豪能與他共事。

I'll let Jim tell you a bit more, but he will be exiting the public company world to focus on the next stage of his career with smaller private companies and spend more time with his family. Thanks again, Jim, for your dedication and loyalty. So let's get back to the quarter.

我會讓吉姆告訴你更多的信息，但他將退出上市公司世界，專注於他在較小的私人公司的職業生涯的下一階段，並花更多的時間與家人在一起。再次感謝吉姆的奉獻與忠誠。讓我們回到本季。

Our ethanol operating rate reached nearly 97%, and we also delivered a record quarter of ultra-high protein production, as well as maintaining a strong corn oil yield in line with our record rates achieved in the second quarter. Our operating results are demonstrating the success of years of planning and execution to deliver improved operational performance across our platform, and we believe we have room to continue improving on these operating rates.

我們的乙醇開工率達到近 97%，我們還實現了創紀錄的季度超高蛋白質產量，並保持了強勁的玉米油產量，與第二季度創下的創紀錄水平一致。我們的營運績效證明了多年來的規劃和執行的成功，以提高整個平台的營運績效，我們相信我們還有繼續提高這些營運率的空間。

The mid to high 90s run rate should be the new normal for our platform as we still have some more improvements underway to get there and are finishing up some of those in the fourth quarter as well. Earlier this month we completed an extended shutdown at our Mount Vernon location, as we indicated earlier, location performing some of the needed maintenance to bring the plant back to its full run rate capabilities.

90 年代中高的運行率應該成為我們平台的新常態，因為我們仍在進行更多改進以實現這一目標，並且也將在第四季度完成其中一些改進。本月早些時候，我們在弗農山工廠完成了延長停工，正如我們之前指出的，該工廠進行了一些必要的維護，以使工廠恢復到其滿載運作能力。

We are now beginning to scale up production and expect to reap the reward of additional capacity in the next couple of weeks. We are in the process of upgrading O'Brien in the next coming months and anticipate that plan being able to increase its efficiency in production as well over the next several quarters.

我們現在開始擴大生產規模，並預計在未來幾週內獲得額外產能的回報。我們正在未來幾個月內對 O'Brien 進行升級，並預計該計劃將在未來幾季提高其生產效率。

The operations team has done a fantastic job safely maximizing the platform and we continue to find new opportunities to increase throughput and improve production metrics. Margins were solid during the quarter as we indicated on the prior call, driven by demand of continued strong exports and favorable natural gas and corn prices, even though we did see some rapid compression late into the quarter.

營運團隊在安全地最大化平台方面做得非常出色，我們將繼續尋找新的機會來提高吞吐量和改善生產指標。正如我們在先前的電話會議中所指出的那樣，在持續強勁的出口需求以及有利的天然氣和玉米價格的推動下，本季度的利潤率保持穩定，儘管我們確實看到本季度末出現了一些快速壓縮。

We continue to experience tailwinds for ethanol exports with totals through August of 1.2 billion gallons and on pace for a record year of 1.8 billion to 1.9 billion gallons as other countries ramp up their blend mandates and low carbon programs. We believe this will continue to grow led by Canada, where they are rapidly expanding blends and represent over one-third of where all of our exports go.

我們繼續經歷乙醇出口的順風車，截至8 月份，乙醇出口總量達到12 億加侖，並且隨著其他國家加強其混合指令和低碳計劃，今年的出口量將達到創紀錄的18 億至19 億加侖。我們相信，這一增長將在加拿大的帶動下繼續增長，加拿大正在迅速擴大混合產品，占我們所有出口的三分之一以上。

Overall, we significantly outperformed the prior quarter and we're up prior year as well. We will cover protein, carbon and corn oil on this call as well, but I would be remiss not to start with clean sugar. While it may have taken longer than we all wanted, the ongoing startup and commissioning of our CST project in Shenandoah was a key focus during the quarter.

整體而言，我們的表現明顯優於上一季度，而且去年也有所成長。我們還將在這次電話會議上討論蛋白質、碳和玉米油，但如果我不從清潔糖開始，那就太失職了。雖然花費的時間可能比我們預期的要長，但謝南多厄 CST 計畫的持續啟動和調試是本季的重點。

As we had indicated earlier this week, we have worked through most of the challenges and we have begun to supply product to customers for validation. We also believe we will be executing our first bulk commercial sales and shipping low CI dextrose to customers during the fourth quarter.

正如我們本週稍早所指出的，我們已經解決了大部分挑戰，並已開始向客戶提供產品進行驗證。我們也相信，我們將在第四季度執行首次批量商業銷售並向客戶運送低 CI 葡萄糖。

The production process will continue to be de-bottleneck, ramping up over the coming year, and interest remains very strong despite the delays. Having up to a 40% carbon intensity advantage, it's worth the wait for many of these customers.

生產過程將繼續消除瓶頸，並在未來一年提高產量，儘管出現了延誤，但人們的興趣仍然非常濃厚。擁有高達 40% 的碳強度優勢，對於許多此類客戶來說等待是值得的。

As we always said, this technology developed by Fluid Quip is massively disruptive to an industry supply oligopoly that has existed for decades and no one thought we could make clear, clean, low-carbon dextrose, but here we are. There was a herculean effort across Green Plains and Fluid Quip to get to this point. We still have plenty to do to scale from here, but this is one of the many steps to realizing the true value of this technology. I'll spend a little bit more time on this later in the call.

正如我們常說的，Fluid Quip 開發的這項技術對數十年來存在的產業供應寡占產生了巨大的顛覆性，沒有人認為我們可以製造出透明、清潔、低碳的葡萄糖，但我們做到了。為了達到這一點，Green Plains 和 Fluid Quip 付出了巨大的努力。在此基礎上，我們還有很多工作要做，但這是實現這項技術真正價值的眾多步驟之一。稍後我會在電話會議中花更多時間討論這個問題。

During the quarter, we completed the sale of the Birmingham unit train terminal and used the proceeds to retire the remaining high-priced debt related to Green Plains Partners. This was an important step, enabling the additional simplification and efficiency gains anticipated when we first began the process of acquiring Green Plains Partners. The Board of Directors continues to progress the strategic review process, working with its financial advisors, BMO and Moelis, as outlined in the press release.

本季度，我們完成了伯明罕單元火車總站的出售，並用所得款項償還了與 Green Plains Partners 相關的剩餘高價債務。這是重要的一步，實現了我們首次開始收購 Green Plains Partners 時預期的額外簡化和效率提升。如新聞稿所述，董事會與其財務顧問 BMO 和 Moelis 合作，繼續推動策略審查流程。

And now I'll hand the call over to Jim to provide an update on the overall financial results. I'll come back on the call to provide an updated policy outlook and discuss our progress on all of our initiatives in more detail. Jim?

現在我將把電話轉給吉姆，以提供整體財務表現的最新情況。我將在電話會議上提供最新的政策前景，並更詳細地討論我們所有舉措的進展。吉姆？

Thank you, Todd, and good morning, everyone. Green Plains consolidated revenues for the third quarter were $658.7 million, which was $234 million or approximately 26% lower than the same-period a year-ago. As it has been in the last couple of quarters, the lower revenue is attributable to lower prices experienced for ethanol, dry distilters grains and renewable corn oil in the third quarter of 2024 as compared to the same period a year-ago.

謝謝托德，大家早安。Green Plains第三季合併營收為6.587億美元，比去年同期減少2.34億美元，約下降26%。與過去幾季一樣，營收下降的原因是 2024 年第三季乙醇、乾餾穀物和再生玉米油的價格低於去年同期。

As Todd mentioned, we also saw a drop-in our commodity inputs with corn and natural gas down significantly year-over-year, resulting in a stronger margin opportunity in the quarter compared to the prior quarter and prior year. Our plant utilization rate was 97% during the quarter compared to 94% run-rate in the same-period last year.

正如托德所提到的，我們也看到大宗商品投入量下降，其中玉米和天然氣同比大幅下降，導致本季的利潤率機會比上一季和去年同期更大。本季我們的工廠利用率為 97%，而去年同期的運作率為 94%。

The year-ago quarter of 2023 included production gallons from the Atkinson plant that was sold-in third quarter of last year. So utilization actually increased despite production gallons declining slightly year-over-year. For the trailing four quarters, we have averaged a 94% utilization rate and we anticipate our plants to continue to perform in that mid-90% range of our stated capacity for the fourth quarter, barring any events outside of our control.

2023 年同期包括去年第三季售出的阿特金森工廠生產的加侖數。因此，儘管產量加侖數同比略有下降，但利用率實際上有所增加。在過去的四個季度中，我們的平均利用率為 94%，我們預計第四季度我們的工廠將繼續在我們規定產能的 90% 左右的範圍內運行，除非出現任何超出我們控制範圍的事件。

For the quarter, we reported net income attributable to Green Plains of $48.2 million or $0.69 per diluted share. That compares to a net income of $22.3 million or $0.35 per diluted share for the same period in 2023. I want to point out that the diluted share count for the third quarter for both the current and prior year third quarters include the dilutive effect of the 2027 converts due to the accounting treatment of the as if-converted method, so long as the effect would not be diluted -- anti-dilutive for which it was not.

我們報告本季歸屬於 Green Plains 的淨利潤為 4,820 萬美元，即稀釋後每股收益 0.69 美元。相較之下，2023 年同期淨利為 2,230 萬美元，即稀釋後每股收益 0.35 美元。我想指出的是，本年第三季和去年第三季的稀釋股數都包括由於採用假定轉換法的會計處理而導致的 2027 年轉換的稀釋效應，只要該影響不被稀釋——反稀釋，但它不是。

EBITDA for the quarter was $83.3 million, inclusive of that $30.7 million gain on the sale of Birmingham unit train terminal compared to $52 million in the prior year period. Like-for-like, adjusted EBITDA for Q3 of 2024 was $53.3 million compared to $42.9 million for Q3 of 2023 when you adjust out one-time items for both periods.

本季 EBITDA 為 8,330 萬美元，其中包括出售伯明罕火車總站帶來的 3,070 萬美元收益，而去年同期為 5,200 萬美元。在調整後兩個時期的一次性項目後，2024 年第三季的調整後 EBITDA 為 5,330 萬美元，而 2023 年第三季為 4,290 萬美元。

Depreciation and amortization expense was higher by $2.2 million versus a year-ago at $26.1 million. This includes a onetime $3.5 million impairment charge related to R&D intangible assets that were taken in Q3. We realized $58.3 million in consolidated costs for the quarter and that compares to $52.9 for the prior year of 2023.

折舊和攤提費用比一年前的 2,610 萬美元增加了 220 萬美元。這包括第三季與研發無形資產相關的一次性 350 萬美元減損費用。本季我們實現了 5,830 萬美元的綜合成本，而 2023 年上一年的綜合成本為 52.9 美元。

Also in the third quarter, our SG&A cost for all segments was $26.7 million. That's $8.6 million lower than the prior year due to lower personnel costs and adjustments to incentive accruals. Interest expense of $10.1 million for the quarter, which includes the impact of debt amortization and capitalized interest was $0.5 million higher than the prior year's third quarter. This increase was primarily due to loan fees associated with the payoff of the Green Plains Partners debt retired in the third quarter of 2024.

同樣在第三季度，我們所有部門的 SG&A 成本為 2,670 萬美元。由於人員成本下降以及應計激勵措施的調整，這比前一年減少了 860 萬美元。本季利息支出為 1,010 萬美元，其中包括債務攤銷和資本化利息的影響，比去年第三季高出 50 萬美元。這一增長主要是由於與 2024 年第三季償還的 Green Plains Partners 債務相關的貸款費用。

Our income tax for the quarter was a benefit of $0.8 million compared to a tax benefit of $7.8 million for the same period in 2023. At the end of the quarter, the federal net loss carry-forwards available to the company was $10.8 million, which may be carried forward indefinitely. The NOLs were down significantly from our Q2 2024 as the NOLs were used to offset the gain on the sale of the Birmingham unit train terminal and the profitability we had within the quarter.

我們本季的所得稅效益為 80 萬美元，而 2023 年同期的稅收效益為 780 萬美元。截至本季末，公司可用的聯邦淨虧損結轉額為 1,080 萬美元，可無限期結轉。NOL 較 2024 年第二季度大幅下降，因為 NOL 用於抵消出售伯明翰火車總站的收益以及我們在本季度的盈利能力。

Our normalized tax-rate for the quarter was around 25%. Our liquidity position at the end of the quarter improved from the prior quarter due to strong results from operations. Our liquidity included $252 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash along with approximately $228.5 million available under our working capital revolver.

我們本季的標準化稅率約為 25%。由於營運業績強勁，本季末我們的流動性狀況較上季有所改善。我們的流動資金包括 2.52 億美元現金、現金等價物和限制性現金，以及我們週轉資金下可用的約 2.285 億美元。

For the third quarter, we allocated $28 million of capital across the platform, including $9 million to our Clean Sugar initiative, about $8 million to other growth initiatives and approximately $11 million towards maintenance, safety and regulatory capital.

第三季度，我們在整個平台上分配了2800 萬美元的資本，其中900 萬美元用於我們的清潔糖計劃，約800 萬美元用於其他增長計劃，約1100 萬美元用於維護、安全和監管資本。

On a year-to-date basis, we've incurred capital expenditures of about $67.8 million and we anticipate CapEx for the total year 2024 will be in that range of about $90 million to $100 million. Again, as a reminder, this range excludes the approximately $110 million in carbon capture equipment needed for our Nebraska initiatives as we have financing lined-up to cover those needs.

今年迄今為止，我們已經產生了約 6,780 萬美元的資本支出，我們預計 2024 年全年的資本支出將在約 9,000 萬美元至 1 億美元之間。再次提醒您，此範圍不包括我們內布拉斯加州計劃所需的約 1.1 億美元的碳捕獲設備，因為我們已準備好融資來滿足這些需求。

In closing, my time with Green Plains has been immensely rewarding. I'm grateful for the opportunities I've been given to grow professionally and personally during my 14 years here. I cannot thank Todd and the Board enough for allowing me to rejoin Green Plains at the executive level at the beginning of 2022 to be closer to my family and grand kids.

最後，我在 Green Plains 度過的時光非常有意義。我很感激在這裡的 14 年裡給予我職業和個人成長的機會。我非常感謝 Todd 和董事會允許我在 2022 年初重新加入 Green Plains 擔任高階主管，以便更接近我的家人和孫子。

I have complete confidence that Phil Bobbs will excel in his well-deserved new position as CFO and the finance and accounting team will continue to support him and the management team as the company moves forward. I look-forward to my next chapter and I appreciate knowing and working with all of you on this call over the last nearly 16 years of my public company career in the renewable fuels industry.

我完全相信菲爾·博布斯將在他當之無愧的財務長新職位上表現出色，隨著公司的發展，財務和會計團隊將繼續支持他和管理團隊。我期待著我的下一篇章，我很高興在過去近 16 年的可再生燃料行業上市公司職業生涯中認識你們所有人並與你們一起工作。

Now I'll turn the call back over to Todd.

現在我將把電話轉回給托德。

Yeah, thanks, Jim. And again, thank you and good luck in the future. So let's talk carbon. Our advantage of Nebraska strategy to decarbonize our 287 million gallon footprint in the state remains on-track. And along with our pipeline partners, we have made great progress again this quarter. Of note, Wyoming, which is one of three states with primacy for issuing Class 6 permits approved the first sequestration well for the Trailblazer project in September, and we expect additional well approvals for the project to follow in the coming months.

是的，謝謝，吉姆。再次感謝您，祝福您未來一切順利。那我們來談談碳。我們內布拉斯加州戰略的優勢仍在繼續，該戰略旨在使該州 2.87 億加侖的碳排放量脫碳。與我們的管道合作夥伴一起，本季度我們再次取得了巨大進展。值得注意的是，懷俄明州是優先發放6 級許可證的三個州之一，該州於9 月批准了Trailblazer 專案的第一口封存井，我們預計未來幾個月該專案將獲得更多油井批准。

The long-lead time carbon compression equipment has been ordered and is on schedule for delivery in Q2 of 2025, and we expect to begin construction on these facilities in the next month or so, keeping us on track for the second-half of 2025 operations and cash flows. This is another game-changing and differentiating project for Green Plain shareholders that we will be one of the earliest and largest platforms sequestering carbon.

長週期碳壓縮設備已訂購，並按計劃於 2025 年第二季度交付，我們預計將在下個月左右開始建造這些設施，使我們能夠順利實現 2025 年下半年的營運和現金流量。對於 Green Plain 股東來說，這是另一個改變遊戲規則和差異化的項目，我們將成為最早、最大的碳封存平台之一。

Our carbon earning estimates remain intact with the expectation we will generate $130 million or so per year starting in the second half of 2025, assuming 45Z values and the $70 ton carbon credit or LCFS credit even after discounting the value of the tax credits.

我們的碳收益預測保持不變，預計從2025 年下半年開始，我們每年將產生1.3 億美元左右的收入，假設45Z 值和70 噸碳信用或LCFS 信用額，即使在折扣稅收抵免額之後也是如此。

Nebraska as an asset alone with this type of base earnings is not at all reflected in our share price of our company in my opinion, in our opinion as well. During the quarter, we saw a decarbonized ethanol production facility exchange hands for the price over $3 per gallon, so you could do the math. The value of our 287 million gallons in Nebraska would be higher than our current market cap those plants alone.

在我看來，在我們看來，內布拉斯加州作為一種具有這種基本收益的資產根本沒有反映在我們公司的股價中。在本季度，我們看到一家脫碳乙醇生產設施的易手價格超過每加侖 3 美元，因此您可以計算一下。我們內布拉斯加州 2.87 億加侖的價值將高於我們目前僅這些工廠的市值。

While the Summit Carbon Solution projects continues to make progress with permitting right away, we anticipate that Nebraska pipeline will be on prior to that, giving us some of the largest volumes of low CI ethanol gallons during the existing 45Z runway of 2025 to 2027.

雖然峰會碳解決方案專案繼續在獲得許可方面取得進展，但我們預計內布拉斯加州的管道將在此之前投入使用，從而在2025 年至2027 年現有的45Z 跑道上為我們提供最大量的低CI 乙醇加侖。

With the 12-year 45Q credit available if it is not extended. And what some misunderstand is that 12-year credit is from the date when the facility is placed in service, not from when the IRA was enacted. And I think that's a really important point when we look at the availability of our long-term cash flows.

若不延期，可享 12 年 45Q 信用額度。一些誤解是，12 年信用期是從設施投入使用之日算起，而不是從 IRA 頒布之日算起。我認為，當我們考慮長期現金流的可用性時，這是非常重要的一點。

We do believe that 45Z will be extended beyond 2027 when the new Congress considers a broader tax package next year. Regardless of how this election plays out, there is bipartisan support for this measure and support across a diverse set of industries, but we will still waiting for proposed regulations to come out.

我們確實相信，當新國會明年考慮更廣泛的稅收方案時，45Z 將延長至 2027 年後。無論這次選舉結果如何，這項措施都得到了兩黨的支持，並且得到了各個行業的支持，但我們仍然會等待擬議的法規的出台。

Now on to distillers corn oil. We have seen some stabilization in oil prices as the market has tightened up as evidenced by the rise in palm and soil oil prices during the quarter. We look-forward to 2025 as we know DCO becomes an advantaged feedstock and we continue to push record yields as a platform with more to come in the future. When you add corn oil and carbon, those two account for over $220 million of combined EBITDA contribution beginning in the last half of 2025.

現在來談談蒸餾玉米油。隨著市場收緊，我們看到油價有所穩定，本季棕櫚油和土壤油價格的上漲就證明了這一點。我們期待 2025 年，因為我們知道 DCO 將成為一種優勢原料，我們將繼續推動創紀錄的產量，作為一個平台，未來還會有更多。如果加上玉米油和碳，從 2025 年下半年開始，這兩者對 EBITDA 的貢獻總計將超過 2.2 億美元。

In protein, as noted on the top of the call, we had record production of ultra-high protein during Q3 at our Green Plains plants and we will continue to grow from there in the future. Our commercial and operations team have continued to execute and improve our processes to maximize the flexibility and efficiency at each of those locations. Our Tharaldson JV also ramped-up production during the quarter and continues to get to max run rates.

在蛋白質方面，正如電話頂部所指出的，我們的 Green Plains 工廠在第三季度創下了超高蛋白質產量記錄，未來我們將繼續從那裡成長。我們的商業和營運團隊繼續執行和改進我們的流程，以最大限度地提高每個地點的靈活性和效率。我們的 Tharaldson 合資企業在本季度也提高了產量，並繼續達到最高運行率。

Commercially, we continue to open up new markets and win new customers for our 50 Pro ultra-high protein product, both in the US and internationally. We now ship to many Asian destinations and started commercial shipments to our strategic customers in Latin-America. With JV production, we now also have a better access to customers in the Western US opening another new market for us from a transportation standpoint. The team is making great progress increasing our sales to our pet and aquaculture customers.

在商業方面，我們繼續在美國和國際上為我們的 50 Pro 超高蛋白產品開拓新市場並贏得新客戶。我們現在向許多亞洲目的地出貨，並開始向拉丁美洲的策略客戶進行商業出貨。透過合資生產，我們現在還可以更好地接觸美國西部的客戶，從運輸的角度為我們打開另一個新市場。該團隊在增加對寵物和水產養殖客戶的銷售方面取得了巨大進展。

While operationally, we've been improving, margins are somewhat lower-than-expected due to the availability of cheap competing products. We believe this will work out self out in due time and continue to believe that adding optionality and flexibility to our bio refinery platform to maximize what can be achieved with a kernel of corn positions us for long-term success.

雖然我們在營運方面一直在改進，但由於廉價競爭產品的出現，利潤率略低於預期。我們相信這將在適當的時候自行解決，並繼續相信，為我們的生物精煉平台增加選擇性和靈活性，以最大限度地利用玉米粒實現的目標，使我們能夠取得長期成功。

For our 60 Pro Sequence product, we make -- we have been making additional upgrades to our production capabilities and continue to refine and improve our product. Our upgrade at Wood River is expected to be online in the first-quarter next year to allow that plant to better and more efficiently and cheaper produce more sequence.

對於我們的 60 Pro Sequence 產品，我們一直在對我們的生產能力進行額外升級，並繼續完善和改進我們的產品。我們在伍德河的升級預計將於明年第一季上線，以使該工廠能夠更好、更有效率、更便宜地生產更多序列。

More important, we just completed a new run at Central City and we were up to spec of sequence in less than six hours with little disruption to daily operations as we continue to ship and sell sequence to customers. There is a lot of interest in this agreement, but we are limiting volumes until we finish these upgrades during the first quarter of 2025. We also have some really exciting potential process breakthroughs for 60 Pro on-deck for early next year, so stay-tuned.

更重要的是，我們剛剛在中心城完成了一次新的運行，我們在不到六個小時的時間內達到了序列的規格，在我們繼續向客戶運送和銷售序列的同時，幾乎沒有對日常運營造成乾擾。人們對這項協議很感興趣，但我們正在限制數量，直到我們在 2025 年第一季完成這些升級。我們還將在明年初為 60 Pro 帶來一些真正令人興奮的潛在工藝突破，敬請期待。

Lastly, we will wait-and-see how the margin structure shakes out this quarter once the corn crop is fully harvested. The forward-looking ethanol margins is a bit of an unknown as usual, but we know export and demand overall does not support this margin structure tone as evidenced by yesterday's EIA report showing stocks now under 20 days of production and the crush yesterday finally improving $0.04 per gallon on this news. If you compare year-over-year at this time last year, relative to much similar numbers, margins were significantly higher and hopefully yesterday began the months to start to match some of those numbers, but we have a little bit of ways to go.

最後，我們將拭​​目以待玉米作物完全收穫後，本季的利潤結構將如何變化。像往常一樣，前瞻性乙醇利潤率有點未知，但我們知道出口和需求總體上並不支持這種利潤率結構基調，昨天的EIA 報告顯示庫存目前不足20 天的生產，昨天的壓榨最終改善了0.04美元每加侖此消息。如果你與去年同期進行比較，相對於非常相似的數字，利潤率明顯更高，希望從昨天開始幾個月就可以開始匹配其中一些數字，但我們還有一些路要走。

With regard to sugar, our outstanding operational and engineering teams work tirelessly to prove out this groundbreaking technology at commercial-scale and we have been consistently producing at the facility with product already sent to key customers for formulation testing.

在糖方面，我們出色的營運和工程團隊孜孜不倦地工作，以在商業規模上證明這項突破性技術，並且我們一直在該工廠進行生產，產品已發送給主要客戶進行配方測試。

We will continue to work-over the coming quarters to optimize the Shenandoah facility to increase production volumes, including addressing additional bottlenecks. Learnings from our York Innovation Center pilot and now building and operating this commercial-scale facility in Shenandoah puts us in a much better place for when we decide to execute on cereal number two.

我們將在未來幾季繼續努力優化謝南多厄工廠，以提高產量，包括解決其他瓶頸。從我們的約克創新中心試點中汲取的經驗以及現在在謝南多厄建造和運營這一商業規模的設施，使我們在決定執行第二號穀物食品時處於更好的位置。

The critical piece here is that what we have proven that what we have proven is the technology at-scale and now it's a matter of building out that infrastructure and reshaping an industry that has never been disrupted. Our Q3 performance demonstrated the capabilities of our platform with strong run-rates and yields, allowing us to capture the positive margin environment. We intend to keep checking off milestones of our decarbonization strategy and as we ramp-up the clean sugar technology to improve shareholder value.

這裡的關鍵是，我們已經證明了我們已經證明的是大規模的技術，現在的問題是建立基礎設施並重塑一個從未被擾亂的行業。我們第三季的業績證明了我們平台的能力，具有強勁的運行率和收益率，使我們能夠抓住積極的利潤環境。我們打算繼續檢查我們的脫碳策略的里程碑，並加強清潔糖技術以提高股東價值。

Thanks for joining the call today, now we can start the Q&A session.

感謝您今天加入電話會議，現在我們可以開始問答環節了。

(Operator Instructions) Jordan Levy, Truist Securities.

（操作員指示）Jordan Levy，Truist 證券公司。

Good morning, all. And Jim, thank you for everything and best of luck in the next venture. And Phil, congratulations on the new role. All right. Todd, you mentioned it on the call, but your equity value here is certainly not reflecting the value of Advantage in Nebraska on the CCS side and maybe even more so the other initiatives in protein and sugar.

大家早安。吉姆，謝謝你所做的一切，祝你下次冒險好運。菲爾，祝賀你擔任新角色。好的。托德，您在電話會議上提到了這一點，但您在這裡的股權價值肯定沒有反映內布拉斯加州優勢公司在CCS 方面的價值，甚至可能更不能反映蛋白質和糖方面的其他舉措的價值。

Can you just talk to outside of the strategic review process you have, what you think the market needs to see from you all to get more value reflected there on what the work you guys are doing?

您能否在策略審查流程之外談談您認為市場需要從您身上看到什麼，以便讓您正在做的工作反映出更多價值？

No, I think that obviously, the milestones, there's a couple of big events, the milestones in carbon are going to be really critical and we should be able to break ground here in the next 30 to 45 days on that project. And I think once we do that, you're going to start to see a quick ramp-up in the interest in the credits that we are going to produce both 45Z and voluntary and or low LCFS credits for California.

不，我認為顯然，里程碑，有幾個重大事件，碳方面的里程碑將非常關鍵，我們應該能夠在未來 30 到 45 天內在該專案上破土動工。我認為一旦我們這樣做了，您將開始看到人們對我們將為加州提供 45Z 和自願和/或低 LCFS 積分的積分的興趣迅速增加。

And I think what's really important is that those are programs that are in-place. And I think that once that starts to kick-off just from that alone, the value of our company will begin to adjust higher, if not sooner than that. Obviously, we've gone through some ups and downs as an industry. I think broadly as an industry as well, whether it's going to be in ag or renewable fuels or ethanol or anything in-between. We've seen compressions across-the-board in overall values as an industry.

我認為真正重要的是這些計劃是到位的。我認為，一旦這種情況開始發生，我們公司的價值將開始調整得更高，甚至更早。顯然，作為一個行業，我們經歷了一些起起落落。我也廣泛地認為作為一個產業，無論是農業、再生燃料、乙醇或介於兩者之間的任何產業。我們看到整個產業的整體價值受到全面壓縮。

I think a little bit of that is overblown, especially the value of our asset-base. If you look at a per gallon value of our asset-base today, it's just significantly too low. But we have -- we've had a few challenging quarters. And I think what we were able to show this quarter in a normal margin environment, we can certainly deliver free-cash flows.

我認為其中有點誇大了，尤其是我們資產基礎的價值。如果你看看我們今天資產基礎的每加侖價值，你會發現它太低了。但我們經歷了一些充滿挑戰的季度。我認為我們本季在正常利潤率環境下所能夠展示的，我們當然可以提供自由現金流。

I think when we look at things like sugar that was delayed, it's not going to be an immediate impact to earnings, but what it is, we believe and we've always have believed is that our CST technology developed at Fluid Quip and now producing at Green Plains is a game-changer, but it's a longer-term process that will take place, but we have significant interest in those products.

我認為，當我們看到像糖這樣被延遲的產品時，它不會對收益產生直接影響，但我們相信並且一直相信我們的 CST 技術是在 Fluid Quip 開發的，現在正在生產Green Plains 的項目改變了遊戲規則，但這是一個長期的過程，我們對這些產品非常感興趣。

So I think just overall, it's a little bit of everything. We've had ups and downs as a company and I think the margin environment continues to be very, very volatile in this industry and we're just going to have to watch that closely. But our financial position remains strong. Our per gallon just generally on a generic per gallon valuation is too low relative to replacement and relative to other transactions. And I think just overall, it's just a step process to get ourselves revalued back into where we need to be.

所以我認為總的來說，這就是一切。作為一家公司，我們經歷過起起落落，我認為這個行業的利潤環境仍然非常非常不穩定，我們必須密切注意。但我們的財務狀況依然強勁。我們的每加侖一般估價相對於替換和其他交易來說太低了。我認為總的來說，這只是讓我們重新評估回到我們需要的位置的一個步驟過程。

I appreciate that. And then maybe just kind of building on the CSP side that you mentioned, I don't think it's quite as well of an understood market certainly as ethanol, but even as much as protein. But maybe just help differentiate about the long-term value you see from that business and from some of the more near-term challenges we've seen in protein and maybe just give a little more detail on how you view the sugar dextrose market evolving?

我很欣賞這一點。然後也許只是在你提到的 CSP 方面進行構建，我認為它不像乙醇那樣是一個被理解的市場，但甚至不如蛋白質。但也許只是幫助區分您從該業務中看到的長期價值以及我們在蛋白質領域看到的一些近期挑戰，也許只是提供更多關於您如何看待葡萄糖市場發展的細節？

Yeah, that market and demand remains strong for dextrose overall, but even more so for low-carbon dextrose as CPG companies continue to remain focused on lowering the carbon score of their products and that's where we see interest everything from a pancake syrup to industrial chemicals and everything in-between. I think that's a misunderstanding that that's -- a lot of that happens in fermentation or sweeteners are used in many other areas.

是的，總體而言，葡萄糖的市場和需求仍然強勁，但對於低碳葡萄糖來說更是如此，因為CPG 公司繼續專注於降低其產品的碳分數，這就是我們看到從煎餅糖漿到工業化學品的一切事物的興趣所在以及介於兩者之間的一切。我認為這是一個誤解，很多事情發生在發酵中，或者甜味劑被用於許多其他領域。

And that's really what we're producing. We have started to receive our certifications and now that we are producing product, our goal now is to get our food grade certification, so we can begin to sell into the consumer markets as well. And I think that's just the first step of many steps that we want to do to monetize this product.

這確實是我們正在生產的。我們已經開始獲得認證，現在我們正在生產產品，我們現在的目標是獲得食品級認證，這樣我們也可以開始銷售到消費市場。我認為這只是我們想要透過該產品獲利的許多步驟的第一步。

The margins remain strong. If you make dextrose instead of alcohol, your margin is significantly higher. And I think that's still proven by results that you see from the others in the space that make dextrose in wet mill to those margins continue to remain strong, especially on that product. So we have an interesting technology. We have interest in the technology from around the world right now from Blue Equip continues to get calls in and the work that they've done.

利潤率依然強勁。如果你生產葡萄糖而不是酒精，你的利潤會明顯更高。我認為，這一點仍然可以從該領域其他公司的結果得到證明，這些結果表明濕磨機中的葡萄糖利潤繼續保持強勁，尤其是在該產品上。所以我們有一個有趣的技術。我們對來自世界各地的技術感興趣，Blue Equip 不斷接到電話以及他們所做的工作。

And what we're proving out in the United States where we're going to -- we're really going to focus our efforts is that there's significant demand. People have waited for us and it's from food all the way through chemicals. And I think you'll start to see us deliver on some commercial volumes to customers and also some offtakes as well during the kind of next 30 to 90 days. So we're really excited about that. The team has worked really hard, but.

我們正在美國證明，我們真正要集中精力的是，那裡有巨大的需求。人們一直在等待我們，從食物一直到化學物質。我認為，在接下來的 30 到 90 天內，您將開始看到我們向客戶交付一些商業量以及一些承購量。所以我們對此感到非常興奮。團隊真的很努力，但是。

The margins have maintained themselves throughout this whole process and have not compressed relative to everything else that we have seen. And we're really excited about it. It's a long game on this one, but owning and controlling this IP and this technology and proving at commercial-scale that we can make low-carbon dextrose and sweeteners.

在整個過程中，利潤率一直保持不變，並且相對於我們所看到的其他一切都沒有壓縮。我們對此感到非常興奮。這是一場漫長的遊戲，但擁有並控制這項知識產權和這項技術，並以商業規模證明我們可以生產低碳葡萄糖和甜味劑。

This has never been done before in the history of agriculture at this type of scale and this type of level where you can take a dry grind facility and make dextrose to be used in food and industrial products. So it's really exciting it's a great testament to our team.

在農業史上，這種規模和水準是前所未有的，您可以使用乾磨設備生產用於食品和工業產品的葡萄糖。所以這真的很令人興奮，這是對我們團隊的一個很好的證明。

Lawrence Alexander with Jefferies.

勞倫斯·亞歷山大和杰弗里斯。

Hey, good morning. This is Kevin Estok on for Lawrence. I've got two questions. One on clean sugar and one on ethanol margins. I guess, I know that you said that margins don't really reflect current conditions. And I guess just given the direction that ethanol prices have moved in the last like several weeks, months, I mean, could you foresee producers possibly lowering rates like timber production to sort of lift pricing?

嘿，早安。我是勞倫斯的凱文·埃斯托克。我有兩個問題。一種是清潔糖，一種是乙醇利潤。我想，我知道你說過利潤率並不能真正反映當前的狀況。我想，考慮到乙醇價格在過去幾週、幾個月的走勢，我的意思是，您能否預見到生產商可能會降低木材產量等利率，以提高價格？

And just curious how your outlook has changed from margins and prices into last earnings. And I guess, I think you said last call that the corn basis was coming down into Q3. Just did that play-out as expected.

只是好奇你的前景如何從利潤和價格轉變為最近的收益。我想，我想你在上次電話會議中說過，玉米基差將下降到第三季。剛剛按照預期進行了比賽。

Yeah, This is a little bit of a wait-and-see on margins this quarter. I think what we saw was a compression late in the quarter. You all saw that. You've all talked about that late in the third quarter and it continued a little into October. But I think as we leave October and these numbers that we saw yesterday prove that what we produce is being absorbed withdraws at a 1,080 run-rate yesterday. And I think the market is going to have to adjust that.

是的，本季的利潤率有點觀望。我認為我們在本季末看到的是壓縮。你們都看到了。你們都在第三季末談論過這個問題，並且這種情況一直持續到十月。但我認為，當我們離開 10 月時，我們昨天看到的這些數字證明，我們生產的產品正在以昨天 1,080 的運行速度被吸收。我認為市場將不得不對此進行調整。

I think we were dragged down by this weakness in oil and gasoline prices that we saw in the quarter and ethanol took to hit as well. But overall, I think hopefully we're going to -- we're bottoming out here and we saw -- again, we saw some increase yesterday and we'd like to see that continue and see what happens over the next coming weeks.

我認為我們受到了本季石油和汽油價格疲軟的拖累，乙醇也受到了打擊。但總的來說，我認為希望我們能夠——我們正在觸底，我們看到——昨天我們再次看到了一些增長，我們希望看到這種情況繼續下去，看看接下來幾週會發生什麼。

But we still have turnarounds in the industry and we still have some other areas where I think we're going to take some stuff offline naturally. But I don't know yet today that we're at a point where anybody is going to significantly reduce production. And as we go into next year, if we can maintain these stocks and get-out -- get through the first quarter and get into driving season again, I think that will be a very positive for next year margins. And we do believe exports will remain strong through the rest of the year and hit those numbers.

但我們的行業仍然有轉變，而且我認為我們仍然有一些其他領域，我們會自然地將一些東西帶到線下。但我今天還不知道我們是否已經到了任何人都會大幅減少產量的地步。當我們進入明年時，如果我們能夠維持這些庫存並退出——度過第一季並再次進入駕駛季節，我認為這將對明年的利潤率非常有利。我們確實相信今年剩餘時間出口將保持強勁並達到這些數字。

So generally speaking, we're using what we're producing, but it would be nice if we can get even a larger draw. But with days of demand less than 20, typically we see an expansion back into normal margin structures.

所以一般來說，我們正在使用我們正在生產的產品，但如果我們能夠獲得更大的吸引力，那就太好了。但由於需求天數少於 20 天，我們通常會看到利潤結構恢復到正常水準。

On a corn basis, we've definitely come out of harvest firmer than I think anybody really thought the farmer was able to put some of this away. But we are -- the corn basis in Q3 was at least $0.50 a bushel, better than the prior three years. So we saw that market come down, which obviously helped the margin structure for everybody in the industry, including ourselves.

就玉米而言，我們的收成肯定比任何人真正認為農民能夠把其中的一些收起來的情況更加堅定。但第三季的玉米基差至少為每蒲式耳 0.50 美元，優於前三年。因此，我們看到市場下跌，這顯然有助於行業中每個人（包括我們自己）的利潤結構。

And as we come out of -- as we come out of harvest, our basis is still lower in areas than traditional last couple of years, but it's definitely firmer than we thought. But we're not having any trouble buying corn. It's just a matter of -- at these flat prices with futures pushing towards $4, the basis is going to remain firm, I think, throughout the year.

當我們結束收穫時，我們的基礎仍然低於過去幾年的傳統水平，但它肯定比我們想像的更堅固。但我們購買玉米沒有任何困難。這只是一個問題——在這些固定價格下，期貨價格逼近 4 美元，我認為，全年基差將保持堅挺。

Understood. Thank you. Understood. Thank you. And then just on clean sugar, as you announced earlier this week, the first commercial clean sugar tech deployment examples going to customers. Just curious what your feedback has been from those customers? I mean whether or not you've received feedback on those samples? And I guess, just curious about the geographic makeup. I mean, are most of them North American customers or any color there would help be helpful. Thank you.

明白了。謝謝。明白了。謝謝。然後就清潔糖而言，正如您本週早些時候宣布的那樣，第一個商業清潔糖技術部署範例將交付給客戶。只是好奇這些客戶對您的回饋如何？我的意思是您是否收到了有關這些樣本的回饋？我想，只是對地理構成感到好奇。我的意思是，他們中的大多數都是北美客戶，或者那裡的任何顏色都會有幫助。謝謝。

I'll answer your last question first. They're all North American customers today. It's really where sugar is going to. Our dextrose is going to travel. We are seeing global demand for the technology from customers. I want to talk to Fluid Quip about bringing their technologies to other countries. And again, we're not opposed to that. And I think it's going to be a very big value creator for them and for Green Plains as well.

我先回答你最後一個問題。如今他們都是北美客戶。這確實是糖的去向。我們的葡萄糖將會被運送出去。我們看到全球客戶對該技術的需求。我想與 Fluid Quip 談談如何將他們的技術帶到其他國家。再說一遍，我們並不反對這樣做。我認為這對他們和 Green Plains 來說都將是一個非常大的價值創造者。

Relative to customer feedback, they've seen product already out of our York Innovation Center that is structurally similar to what we're going -- we're producing in Shenandoah and the product we'll have in Shenandoah will be even better. So for us, it's really a matter of time now.

相對於客戶的回饋，他們已經看到我們約克創新中心已經生產出的產品在結構上與我們將要生產的產品相似——我們在謝南多厄生產，我們在謝南多厄生產的產品會更好。所以對我們來說，現在這確實是時間問題。

You have to make product before you can get food grade certification started the process and that's where we're at today as we're going to start that process. But you saw we had GMP approvals, we got other approvals pending. I think you'll start to see that our product will become a very well-accepted product.

您必須先生產產品，然後才能獲得食品級認證，開始流程，這就是我們今天要開始的流程。但你看到我們已經獲得了 GMP 批准，我們還有其他批准正在等待中。我想您會開始看到我們的產品將成為一種廣為接受的產品。

Our first goal is to ship our products into industrial markets today because they're not food grade markets, although they do need some of their own certifications and -- but early feedback and stuff that we have shared has been good. But again, we're just starting to ship it out now. So it's going to take a little bit of time. This is a long game, but owning and controlling this IP and this technology that is such a disruption and game-changing and we have proven now that it works and it works at-scale, but there's still some things we're going to have to continue to work-through in Shenandoah.

我們的第一個目標是今天將我們的產品運送到工業市場，因為它們不是食品級市場，儘管它們確實需要一些自己的認證，但早期的反饋和我們分享的東西都很好。但同樣，我們現在才剛開始出貨。所以這需要一點時間。這是一場漫長的遊戲，但擁有並控制這個智慧財產權和這項技術是一種顛覆和改變遊戲規則的技術，我們現在已經證明它有效並且可以大規模發揮作用，但我們仍然需要做一些事情繼續在謝南多厄進行工作。

But as we think about number two, it will be better engineered and better constructed in terms of cost and cost per pound and cost per ton and those type of things. I think we're on our -- it's just a long path, but this is absolutely a disruptive technology that has never -- this has never been done before in history and we're very proud of the team that has done it.

但當我們考慮第二點時，在成本、每磅成本和每噸成本等方面，它將得到更好的設計和更好的構造。我認為我們正在走上——這只是一條漫長的道路，但這絕對是一項顛覆性技術——歷史上從未這樣做過，我們為做到這一點的團隊感到非常自豪。

Thanks.

謝謝。

Saumya Jain with UBS.

瑞銀 (UBS) 的 Saumya Jain。

Hi, hey guys, congrats on the quarter. I guess I just wanted any color on how the partnership with Shell is progressing and if you guys have any updates on Tharaldson as well?

嗨，大家好，恭喜本季。我想我只是想了解一下與殼牌的合作進展情況，以及你們是否也有關於 Tharaldson 的任何更新？

Yeah, I'll let Leslie comment on our SFCT partnership. There's some exciting things going on there. Leslie, you want to comment on that to start?

是的，我會讓 Leslie 評論一下我們的 SFCT 合作夥伴關係。那裡正在發生一些令人興奮的事情。萊斯利，你想對此發表評論嗎？

Sure. So the process has successfully started up in New York and the first cellulosic ethanol has been produced. The process will now switch to really a one-of-a-kind opportunity, the DCO or what we call the second-gen DCO is the next in-line to line out. So that's basically the previously unattainable corn oil.

當然。因此，該製程已在紐約成功啟動，並生產了第一批纖維素乙醇。這個流程現在將轉變為真正獨一無二的機會，DCO 或我們所說的第二代 DCO 是下一個排隊的機會。所以這基本上就是以前無法取得的玉米油。

And then the last piece is going to be the alignment of protein. Once that all is up and running, then the process will switch to campaign mode and that's when we'll be producing more products for validation efforts on the protein side.

最後一部分是蛋白質的比對。一旦一切啟動並運行，該過程將切換到活動模式，屆時我們將生產更多產品以進行蛋白質方面的驗證工作。

Thanks, Leslie. And then also then -- what was the second question that you had?

謝謝，萊斯利。然後還有──你的第二個問題是什麼？

Any update on Tharaldson?

塔拉爾森有最新消息嗎？

Yeah, Tharaldson startup, obviously it took a little bit longer than we wanted, construction took a little bit longer and we continue to debottleneck there, there, but we're starting to push towards the upper end of the rates that are available of the production capacity there bringing on that much protein on the market. We had to wait for customer approvals, but the quality of the protein is excellent.

是的，Thalaldson 啟動，顯然它比我們想要的要長一點，建設花了一點時間，我們繼續在那裡消除瓶頸，但我們開始推動可用的費率的上限那裡的生產能力為市場帶來了那麼多的蛋白質。我們必須等待客戶的批准，但蛋白質的品質非常好。

The toxin levels at Tharaldson are the lowest in the country, which is nice because there are certainly customers that wanted North Dakota product because of the absolute zero toxin in corn that is there. And so that's getting opening us new markets as well as the West Coast where we really did not have a freight advantage out of our terminals or out of our facilities to get to the West Coast. We're seeing some new demand out of there as well.

塔拉爾森的毒素水平是全國最低的，這很好，因為肯定有客戶想要北達科他州的產品，因為那裡的玉米絕對為零毒素。因此，這為我們打開了新市場以及西海岸，在西海岸，我們確實沒有從我們的碼頭或設施到達西海岸的貨運優勢。我們也看到了一些新的需求。

So again, these are long games, but I think as we go to max production over the next several quarters, we're just excited about the fact that we have a really great product and as Sequence starts to kick-in 2025. So more on that next quarter.

再說一遍，這些都是漫長的遊戲，但我認為，隨著我們在接下來的幾個季度達到最大產量，我們對我們擁有一款非常出色的產品以及Sequence 在2025 年開始啟動這一事實感到興奮。下個季度會有更多內容。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Andrew Strelzik from BMO Capital Markets.

BMO 資本市場的 Andrew Strelzik。

Hi guys, this is actually Ben on for Andrew. I just want to say congratulations Jim and to Phil as well. Jim, wish you all the best of luck there. So my question has to do with carbon capture. Can you just walk-through the key milestones that we should be tracking in order to hit the second half 2025, $70 a credit target? Thanks.

大家好，這其實是本為安德魯主持的節目。我只想向吉姆和菲爾表示祝賀。吉姆，祝你一切順利。所以我的問題與碳捕獲有關。您能否簡單介紹一下我們應該追蹤的關鍵里程碑，以實現 2025 年下半年 70 美元的信貸目標？謝謝。

So what we're watching very closely, obviously is the lead-time -- our equipment order, that is all on-track and we've been talking to the manufacturer and they believe they are on-track for our second-quarter delivery. We expect to break ground on the structure in the next several weeks or less than a month from now. And that will really be the first milestone. I think that will be important to everybody. Most of the engineering has been done already.

因此，我們正在非常密切地關注，顯然是交貨時間——我們的設備訂單，一切都在正軌上，我們一直在與製造商交談，他們相信他們正在按計劃實現我們第二季度的交付。我們預計該結構將在未來幾週或不到一個月內破土動工。這確實是第一個里程碑。我認為這對每個人都很重要。大部分工程已經完成。

We have the credits or the permits to operate in all of the counties, where we are located. Nebraska is very different than other states relative to carbon capture and approvals and permits. And so very supportive from the state. So we'll wait to see when Trailblazer starts to build their laterals as well. And so we'll know at that point. I think we'll watch that closely.

我們擁有在我們所在的所有縣開展業務的信用或許可證。內布拉斯加州在碳捕獲、審批和許可方面與其他州有很大不同。國家非常支持。因此，我們將拭​​目以待，看看拓荒者何時也開始建造他們的支線。到那時我們就會知道。我想我們會密切關注。

We do have some air permits just to start to construction -- start construction, which we expect to receive shortly. And those are just permits from the state as we receive in every other construction project that we do and there doesn't seem to be any delays receiving those relative to the start of construction. So that's really up to our partner to make sure the pipeline is in-service and the laterals are built and the continuation of Class 6 wells in Wyoming.

我們確實有一些航空許可證可以開始施工——開始施工，我們預計很快就會收到。這些只是來自國家的許可證，就像我們在所做的所有其他建設項目中收到的那樣，與施工開始相關的許可證的接收似乎沒有任何延遲。因此，這實際上取決於我們的合作夥伴，以確保管道投入使用、支線已建成以及懷俄明州 6 級井的延續。

All this has been laid out in the past and I think each of those are going to be really important. I think what also is important is the rules on 45Z as they roll-out early next year sometime. And we believe those will be positive relative to what we've seen in the past and expect certainly by the third quarter of next year to have those full rules outlined by the time we're sequestering carbon. So we can earn the 45Z tax credit. And then on-top of that out the voluntary credits or the LCFS credit. So it's just a step-by-step process.

所有這些都已經在過去提出過，我認為每一個都將非常重要。我認為同樣重要的是 45Z 的規則，因為它們將於明年初推出。我們相信，相對於我們過去所看到的情況，這些將是積極的，並且肯定會在明年第三季度我們封存碳時制定這些完整的規則。這樣我們就可以獲得45Z稅收抵免。除此之外還有自願信用或 LCFS 信用。所以這只是一個循序漸進的過程。

But at this point, the equipment is, the equipment is in-construction and in manufacture. So this is -- we're on path to somewhere in that third quarter begin to compress carbon. And when we turn it on, we're basically turning on a full-rate and we have no reason to believe that our partner won't be operational as well.

但目前，設備正在建設和製造中。所以，我們將在第三季開始壓縮碳。當我們打開它時，我們基本上是在全速率打開，我們沒有理由相信我們的伴侶也不會正常運作。

So we're -- I mean, I think that when you look at that and the interest that we have not only in low-carbon ethanol, which I think you don't underestimate the interest in low CI ethanol both domestically and globally, especially as we start to see what we believe will be better outcomes in Europe and foresee a modeling is what we're hearing as well. As well as some of the other things that are happening relative to modeling in carbon markets.

所以我們——我的意思是，我認為當你看到這一點以及我們不僅對低碳乙醇感興趣時，我認為你不會低估國內和全球對低 CI 乙醇的興趣，特別是當我們開始看等到我們相信歐洲會取得更好的結果並預見到我們所聽到的模型。以及與碳市場建模相關的其他一些事情。

But I think what's also really important is our door is also of being knocked for getting those carbon credits and also providing us with payments relative to those credits. So I think the value of it is just very well misrepresentative in our current in our current share price. And I think that's going to have to -- that's going to have to change because the value of these assets are just too high in the future, especially relative to the future cash flows.

但我認為真正重要的是，我們也因獲得這些碳信用額並為我們提供與這些信用額相關的付款而被敲門。所以我認為它的價值在我們目前的股價中是非常錯誤的。我認為這種情況必須改變，因為這些資產的價值在未來太高了，特別是相對於未來的現金流而言。

When you add that corn oil in Nebraska add-on top of that protein in both of those plants, add-on top of that, those are some of the best plants that we have, generally speaking, long-term, the value of that asset-base is under representative in our share price. But I think one thing that's really important here is that which is missed and we don't talk about it much is we think by the end of the year, early into the first-quarter, we will have nine of our 10 plants approved for D3 RIN generation at for a 1% or 2% of our capacity and that D3 RINs because we are -- you add certain things into fermentation, when you talk about 8 million or 9 million gallons and the spread between D3 and D6 RINs is $2.50 to $3 a gallon, that is not represented at all-in our capabilities of the company.

當你在內布拉斯加州添加玉米油時，在這兩種植物中添加蛋白質，添加這些植物，這些是我們擁有的一些最好的植物，一般來說，從長遠來看，其價值資產基礎在我們的股價中代表性不足。但我認為這裡真正重要的一件事是被遺漏的，我們沒有過多談論它，我們認為到今年年底，第一季度初，我們將有 10 家工廠中的 9 家獲得批准D3 RIN 的生成量占我們產能的1% 或2%，而D3 RIN 是因為我們在發酵中添加了某些物質，當您談論800 萬或900 萬加侖時，D3 和D6 RIN 之間的價差為2.50 美元到每加侖3 美元，這根本不符合我們公司的能力。

On-top of that, the corn fiber program in California is not represented either. And we think in 2025 that also gets added to carbon earnings. So there's a lot more going on here than just sequestering carbon, especially around D3 RIN generation with our ability to make a 1% or 2% of cellulosic or next-generation ethanol as well as what's going to happen with SFCT in the future. So, it's a step-by-step process, but I think each of those milestones will be met in carbon and it's just now a path to turning it on in the third quarter of next year.

最重要的是，加州的玉米纖維計劃也沒有得到體現。我們認為到 2025 年，這也會增加到碳收入。因此，這裡發生的事情不僅僅是封存碳，特別是在 D3 RIN 世代方面，我們有能力生產 1% 或 2% 的纖維素或下一代乙醇，以及未來 SFCT 將會發生的事情。所以，這是一個循序漸進的過程，但我認為這些里程碑中的每一個都將在碳方面實現，而且現在只是在明年第三季啟動它的一條途徑。

Hey, thanks guys. I'll leave it there.

嘿，謝謝大家。我會把它留在那裡。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Salvator Tiano with Bank of America.

美國銀行的薩爾瓦托·蒂亞諾。

Thank you very much. Firstly, I want to check a little bit on any update on Blue Blade energy. I think the plan was you test the SAF technology and if it works, you start construction of the power plant this year 2024. So where do we stand-on that?

非常感謝。首先，我想檢查一下有關藍刃能量的任何更新。我認為計劃是測試 SAF 技術，如果有效，今年 2024 年就開始建造發電廠。那我們的立場在哪裡呢？

Yeah. I think from a Blue Blade standpoint, what we've done is we had a partnership and we looked at several different catalysts or we looked at a catalyst that we had control of and at this point, we've decided not to proceed with that catalyst. I think there's other things with the other technologies that are out there that are much quicker to get to-market.

是的。我認為從Blue Blade 的角度來看，我們所做的是我們建立了合作夥伴關係，我們研究了幾種不同的催化劑，或者我們研究了我們可以控制的催化劑，在這一點上，我們決定不再繼續這樣做催化劑。我認為其他技術的其他東西可以更快地推向市場。

When you bring a new technology market as we learned in Clean Sugar and even in sequence and other proteins, it just takes a long-time to scale-up. And since there are other technologies much like a UOP, Honeywell or others that are out there, we think that that's a much faster path-to-market for alcohol-to-jet.

當你引入一個新技術市場時，正如我們在清潔糖甚至序列和其他蛋白質中學到的那樣，它需要很長時間才能擴大規模。由於還有其他技術，例如 UOP、霍尼韋爾或其他公司，我們認為這是酒精到噴射機更快的上市途徑。

Our focus from that standpoint is we want to be a provider of low-carbon fuels, energy and ingredients and that's where we're spending our time to -- before anything happens in sustainable aviation fuel with alcohol-to-jet, you have to be able to decarbonize the alcohol. And being a significant advantage for Green Plains is we will have some of the largest quantities in the United States and globally on decarbonized alcohol middle of next year. And that's where we're going to focus our efforts today.

從這個角度來看，我們的重點是我們希望成為低碳燃料、能源和原料的供應商，這就是我們花時間做的事情——在酒精到噴射機的可持續航空燃料發生任何變化之前，你必須能夠使酒精脫碳。Green Plains 的一個顯著優勢是，我們將在明年中期擁有美國和全球最大數量的脫碳酒精。這就是我們今天要集中精力的地方。

I think for Green Plains to build a jet -- alcohol-to-jet plant is probably not something we focus on today because I think we can earn a significant return for our shareholders by just making sure that we're a great supplier of low-carbon ingredients and fuels.

我認為，對於Green Plains 來說，建造一座噴射機——酒精噴射機工廠可能不是我們今天關注的重點，因為我認為，只要確保我們是低酒精的優秀供應商，我們就可以為我們的股東賺取可觀的回報。

Perfect. And I wanted to ask also what's kind of your view for ethanol exports next year and essentially demand from some key end-markets or key producing markets like Brazil and India given what's happening in sugar production among others.

完美的。我還想問一下，鑑於食糖生產等方面的情況，您對明年的乙醇出口以及巴西和印度等一些主要終端市場或主要生產市場的需求有何看法。

We think this trend is going to continue down the road relative to us finding our path into global markets as they have increased their blend rates. You saw Brazil did that. You saw other countries have done that. We are going to -- we're hitting some of the European markets as a country as well that the EU is very strong and we continue to think that will continue to gain momentum, especially if we see positive news out of for US ethanol and the way they model that relative to 20-year-old modeling that's been in-place. I think they've realized that we grow more per-acre than 20 years ago and that reduces our overall carbon scores.

我們認為，隨著全球市場提高了混合率，這種趨勢將持續下去，而我們正在尋找進入全球市場的道路。你看到巴西就是這樣做的。你看到其他國家已經這樣做了。我們將——我們還將衝擊一些歐洲市場，因為歐盟非常強大，我們仍然認為這將繼續獲得動力，特別是如果我們看到美國乙醇和的積極消息的話他們的建模方式與20 年前的現有建模方式相比較。我認為他們已經意識到，我們每英畝的種植面積比 20 年前更多，這降低了我們的整體碳分數。

Generally speaking, the demand remains robust globally and I think that's going to continue because I think we are a value molecule. We're $0.40 or $0.50 less than wholesale gasoline today at a minimum, plus in the United States with the RIN. But globally, we are very, very competitive as a molecule. And I think we've shown that we can ship significant quantities and I don't believe next year will be any different than this year.

總體而言，全球需求仍然強勁，我認為這種情況將持續下去，因為我認為我們是一個價值分子。我們的汽油批發價格至少比現在低 0.40 美元或 0.50 美元，加上美國的 RIN。但在全球範圍內，我們身為一個分子非常非常有競爭力。我認為我們已經證明我們可以大量發貨，而且我不認為明年會與今年有什麼不同。

And I think we need that. And I think we also continue to see blends increase in the United States, especially as we go through quarter-after-quarter of driving demand, which doesn't seem to be going down right now, but we've seen good driving miles in the last couple of months and we saw great demand this week relative to the blend rate. So, if you add all that up together and if we can keep these stocks at check as we move into the end-of-the year, I think we have a really good shot at a good margin environment in 2025.

我認為我們需要這個。我認為我們也繼續看到美國的混合動力車數量增加，特別是當我們經歷一個又一個季度的駕駛需求時，這種需求目前似乎並沒有下降，但我們已經看到了良好的駕駛里程過去幾個月，我們看到本週相對於混合率的需求很大。因此，如果將所有這些加在一起，並且在進入年底時我們能夠控制這些庫存，我認為我們很有可能在 2025 年實現良好的利潤率環境。

Perfect. Thank you very much.

完美的。非常感謝。

Kristen Owen with Oppenheimer.

克里斯汀歐文與奧本海默。

Hi, thank you for taking the question. A couple here that I wanted to ask on. First is the protein margins. You touched on this being a little bit lighter than what you were hoping for that spread over traditional soybean meal, not quite where you want it to be yet, but as we look at some of the soybean crush capacity and the transition in the policy in 2025, how are you thinking about the premium for ultra-high protein as we come into this transition year next year.

您好，感謝您提出問題。我想問這裡的一對夫婦。首先是蛋白質利潤。您提到，這比您所希望的傳統豆粕價差要小一些，還沒有完全達到您想要的水平，但當我們研究一些大豆壓榨能力和政策轉變時， 2025 年，當我們明年進入這個轉型年時，您如何看待超高蛋白質的溢價。

It's really going to depend on what market we go to. When we are going sending our product internationally as we continue to grow those markets, we see -- we realize the full spread and more many times or at least within plus or minus 5 points or 10 points of that. Our pet food demand remains strong. We've just renewed with our long-term customer and increased volumes during the first quarter of next year.

這實際上取決於我們去哪個市場。當我們在繼續擴大這些市場的同時將我們的產品發送到國際上時，我們看到——我們實現了全面傳播，並且實現了更多次，或者至少在正負5 個點或10 個點之內。我們的寵物食品需求仍然強勁。我們剛剛與長期客戶續約，並在明年第一季增加了銷售量。

On our 50 Pro product and continue to get full access to that with a new plant coming on next year as well. But I think, look, there's a lot of protein coming. So we've seen a lot of protein hit the market already and we've settled out at these type of spreads. Demand remains really good. We'll have to wait-and-see what happens out of South America.

在我們的 50 Pro 產品上，明年也將建立新工廠，繼續充分利用該產品。但我認為，看，有很多蛋白質來了。因此，我們已經看到很多蛋白質已經進入市場，我們已經確定了這種類型的價差。需求仍然非常好。我們必須拭目以待南美洲會發生什麼事。

Look, 14 million or 15 million tons sounds like a lot. And if it all comes at-once, it is a lot of soy meal hitting the market. But when ethanol came on, we brought 40 million tons of distillers onto the market as well. And so I think we are going to absorb much of that. It may take a few more quarters or at least another year or so.

你看，1400萬噸或1500萬噸聽起來很多。如果這一切同時發生，市場上就會有大量豆粕。但當乙醇出現時，我們也將 4,000 萬噸蒸餾器推向市場。所以我認為我們將吸收其中的大部分內容。可能還需要幾個季度或至少一年左右的時間。

But look, we still earn a margin. It's not like we don't earn a margin and a return on our investment. It's just that we've seen some compression relative to the soy against corn. And I think that's probably -- that is most likely stabilizing at this point. I don't think that -- I don't think we're going to see much more compression against those spreads and we continue to make our products and sell everything that we produce.

但看，我們仍然賺取利潤。這並不是說我們沒有賺取利潤和投資回報。只是我們看到了大豆相對於玉米的一些壓縮。我認為這很可能在這一點上趨於穩定。我不認為——我認為我們不會看到這些利差受到更多壓縮，我們將繼續生產我們的產品並銷售我們生產的所有產品。

And one of our past and one of our things that we've always talked about is our way to get-out of that is we can make 60% protein products and higher even and we're working on even some of those products today and Leslie's team is making great progress. And we're learning how to reduce the cost of producing sequence, which I think drives a bigger margin contribution as well as we go into next year with the improvements we're making and some of the other technology improvements we made in the cost of production coming down.

我們的過去之一，也是我們一直在談論的一件事，就是我們擺脫困境的方法是，我們可以生產 60% 甚至更高的蛋白質產品，我們今天甚至正在研究其中的一些產品，萊斯利的團隊正在取得巨大進展。我們正在學習如何降低生產序列的成本，我認為這會帶來更大的利潤貢獻，並且我們將在明年進行改進以及我們在成本方面所做的一些其他技術改進產量下降。

So it's a little bit of learnings, but I think in the next 18 months, a lot of this protein will just get absorbed into the market. There's not a bunch more soy crush capacity to come on and it seems to be coming out in a in a more methodical pace and you start to see investments being made in export capacity as well to get some of this protein out-of-the country.

所以這只是一點點學習，但我認為在接下來的 18 個月內，大量這種蛋白質將被市場吸收。沒有更多的大豆壓榨能力出現，而且似乎正在以更有條理的速度出現，你開始看到對出口能力的投資以及將一些這種蛋白質運出該國。

Okay. That's helpful. I was actually thinking there's some soybean crush capacity that's not coming on and potentially flowing. So that could be a tailwind for your margins next year as well.

好的。這很有幫助。我實際上認為有一些大豆壓榨產能沒有啟動並且可能會流動。因此，這也可能成為您明年利潤的推動力。

Yeah. We've seen some of that where projects were abandoned because of the cost versus the overall margin structure and we believe that's happening as well that it will come on slower or not come out at all. And I think that will be helpful overall. And then we get into next year and let this RD market settle out and see where that settles out from the oil standpoint as well.

是的。我們已經看到了一些項目因為成本與整體利潤結構而被放棄的情況，我們相信這種情況也正在發生，但它會進展緩慢或根本不會出現。我認為這總體上會有幫助。然後我們進入明年，讓研發市場穩定下來，看看從石油的角度來看它會穩定下來。

Super. So then my follow-up question, as you said, the $250 million to $300 million run-rate value of carbon just from those Nebraska assets, probably not baked into most folks models at this point in time. Help us understand now that is becoming much more within the next 12 months timeframe, help us understand the mechanics of those credits? How you think about monetization of them, like what sort of tolling fees you might have to pay to use that pipeline? Just give us a little bit more granularity so that we can build that into our forecasts.

極好的。那麼我的後續問題，正如您所說，僅來自內布拉斯加州資產的 2.5 億至 3 億美元的碳運行率價值，目前可能還沒有納入大多數人的模型中。現在請幫助我們了解在未來 12 個月的時間範圍內這種情況會變得更加嚴重，幫助我們了解這些積分的機制？您如何看待它們的貨幣化，例如您可能需要支付什麼樣的通行費才能使用該管道？只需給我們更多的粒度，以便我們可以將其納入我們的預測中。

So let's start from the pipeline standpoint. We have an agreement with Trailblazer on transport and injection and that is just a fixed-fee and there's no sharing of our upside and our credit values from the revenue side. So we just pay a standard transport midstream relationship that we have with Tallgrass and-or with Trailblazer owned by Tallgrass. And that's really -- it's very simple.

那麼讓我們從管道的角度開始。我們與 Trailblazer 就運輸和注入達成協議，這只是固定費用，並且沒有從收入方面分享我們的收益和信用價值。因此，我們只需支付與 Tallgrass 和/或 Tallgrass 擁有的 Trailblazer 之間的標準運輸中游關係費用。這真的非常簡單。

And then what we generate is revenue from 45Z, 45Q and either voluntary credits or LCFS credits. And that's the revenue side of the equation. And I think we've outlined in the past our carbon score reductions at Central City, Wood River and York, which will be on the pipelines to start. And I'll get into York in a second.

然後我們產生的是來自 45Z、45Q 以及自願積分或 LCFS 積分的收入。這就是等式的收入面。我認為我們過去已經概述了中心城、伍德河和約克的碳分數削減計劃，這些計劃即將開始。我很快就會到達約克。

But when we look at the revenue side of the reduction, which is $0.2 per gallon per point from our starting point, it's everything below 50 carbon score. That's on the revenue side with the 45Z. On-top of that, we'll be generating over 800,000 tons of high-quality carbon credits that either will flow into California or will -- from the fuel standpoint and will monetize LCFS and or from voluntary markets.

但當我們考慮減少的收入方面時，即從我們的起點開始每加侖每點 0.2 美元，碳分數低於 50。這是 45Z 的收入方面。最重要的是，我們將產生超過 80 萬噸的高品質碳信用額，這些信用額要么將流入加利福尼亞州，要么將從燃料的角度將 LCFS 和/或從自願市場貨幣化。

So monetizing the 45Z and monetizing the carbon credit will be something that there are well-developed markets to do that. We've seen those trades in that 90% 95% of faced value happen and that's in our numbers as well. So we're going to sell those credits and monetize them and not use them internally unless we need to down the road from a standpoint of then we can realize 100% monetization of those credits. So we add all that revenue up, we discounted by somewhere between 5% and 10% to get to our net revenue, deduct our transport fees, a little bit of operational cost for the facility to get to an EBITDA number.

因此，將 45Z 貨幣化和碳信用額貨幣化將是有成熟市場可以做到的事情。我們已經看到這些交易發生了 90% 95% 的面值，這也反映在我們的數據中。因此，我們將出售這些積分並將其貨幣化，而不是在內部使用它們，除非我們需要從一個角度來看，才能實現這些積分的 100% 貨幣化。因此，我們將所有收入加起來，進行 5% 到 10% 之間的折扣，以獲得我們的淨收入，扣除我們的運輸費和設施的一點運營成本，以獲得 EBITDA 數字。

Now, when we look at York, York is today is a 45Q plant because they start with a higher carbon score, but we are on-deck to lower their carbon score through low-energy distillation that we would expect that we will try to get that into service within the first-six to 12 months of their operations so that we can have that plant qualify for 45Z as well, which is upside to those numbers.

現在，當我們看看約克時，約克今天是一家 45Q 工廠，因為它們一開始的碳分數較高，但我們正在準備通過低能耗蒸餾來降低他們的碳分數，我們希望我們會努力實現這一點在營運的前6 到12 個月內投入使用，這樣我們就可以讓工廠也符合45Z 的資格，這對這些數字來說是有利的。

Once we're able to do that, then we'll do other things to reduce our carbon scores overall to give to give upside to those numbers. So it's 287 million gallons generating 800,000 tons or more of carbon credits. And we today have interest from companies and the broker markets to take our take our credits to market and/or come up with some structure to monetize those credits the day we started.

一旦我們能夠做到這一點，我們就會採取其他措施來整體降低碳排放分數，從而為這些數字帶來上升空間。因此，2.87 億加侖可產生 80 萬噸或更多的碳信用。今天，公司和經紀商市場對我們感興趣，希望將我們的積分推向市場和/或提出某種結構，以便從我們開始的那天將這些積分貨幣化。

And we could actually start selling credits before we even start to sequester carbon knowing that we will be sequestering carbon at a certain date and we have interest in that as well. So generally speaking, the demand for the alcohol remains strong from alcohol-to-jet players and the demand for the credit remains strong from the tax credit markets all the way up from the big tech companies that need to buy offsets and they can use our tax credits all the way down into just monetizing into the LCFS market.

實際上，我們甚至可以在開始封存碳之前就開始出售信用額，因為我們知道我們將在某個日期封存碳，我們對此也感興趣。因此，一般來說，從酒精到噴射機的參與者對酒精的需求仍然強勁，並且從稅收抵免市場一直到需要購買抵消的大型科技公司對抵免的需求仍然強勁，他們可以使用我們的稅收抵免一直延伸到LCFS 市場貨幣化。

Does that helpful for you? Did we lose everybody?

這對你有幫助嗎？我們失去了所有人嗎？

No, we must-have lost her. Operator, time for the next call.

不，我們肯定失去了她。接線員，下次通話時間。

Matthew Blair with TPH.

馬修布萊爾 (Matthew Blair) 與 TPH。

Thanks, and good morning and congrats Jim and Phil on your respective moves here. I wanted to ask about the election risk to the IRA and the associated credits like 45Z and Q. I think the Wall Street Journal had a story yesterday talking about how a potential candidate for Treasury Secretary was talking about scrapping the entire IRA. What do you make of that? And how much does that concern you? And is there anything you can be doing today to potentially mitigate some of that risk?

謝謝，早安，恭喜吉姆和菲爾來到這裡。我想問 IRA 的選舉風險以及 45Z 和 Q 等相關信用額度。你對此有何看法？這對你來說有多重要？您今天可以採取哪些措施來潛在地減輕部分風險？

I'll let Devin comment on that first and I'll close off after that.

我會讓德文先評論一下，然後我就結束了。

Sure. So thanks for the question, Matthew. We saw that article and there's been a lot of talk in this campaign of this Republican sweep of trying to eliminate the entire IRA. You recall that they tried to do this with the debt ceiling lift back-in April of 2023 and there were seven Republican House members, all of whom had voted against the IRA who blocked that from happening as it relates to 45Z.

當然。謝謝你的提問，馬修。我們看到了那篇文章，在這次競選活動中有很多關於共和黨試圖消滅整個愛爾蘭共和軍的言論。您還記得他們早在2023 年4 月就試圖通過提高債務上限來做到這一點，當時有七名共和黨眾議院議員，他們都投票反對愛爾蘭共和軍，後者阻止了與45Z 相關的這種情況的發生。

So there remains bipartisan support for not only preserving but extending 45Z. Several bills have been introduced with both Republican and Democratic support to extend that credit. And you got to remember that there's now multiple industries that are interested in this. It's not just biodiesel and renewable diesel and ethanol, it's also sustainable aviation fuel because the 40B credit rolls into the 45Z.

因此，兩黨仍然支持保留並延長 45Z。在共和黨和民主黨的支持下，已經提出了幾項法案來擴大這種信貸。你必須記住，現在有多個行業對此感興趣。它不僅是生物柴油、再生柴油和乙醇，也是可持續航空燃料，因為 40B 信用額可計入 45Z。

So we believe that regardless of the election outcome, there will be support for that program. And while some aspects of the IRA may be curtailed, if Republicans control all three corners, we think the prospects are bright for having that extended to have a much longer runway.

因此，我們相信，無論選舉結果如何，該計劃都會得到支持。雖然愛爾蘭共和軍的某些方面可能會受到限制，但如果共和黨控制了所有三個角落，我們認為將其延長以擁有更長的跑道的前景是光明的。

And one last thing, Matthew, is the 45Q, let's just say worst-case scenario the 45Q is the remaining program. If that were to happen, which we do not believe that will happen, that is not part of the IRA. So it's expanded during the IRA, but it's not part of the IRA. And I think that that's an important point as well. And it's a 12-year program that has -- that starts when you start sequestering carbon. It doesn't go away from two years ago to 10 years from now. It goes away 12 years after you start to sequester carbon. It's been permanent for a long-time in the program and it's a direct pay program as well for the first five years.

馬修，最後一件事是 45Q，我們只說最壞的情況，45Q 是剩餘的程序。如果這種情況發生，我們不相信這種情況會發生，那麼它就不屬於愛爾蘭共和軍的一部分。所以它在 IRA 期間得到了擴展，但它不是 IRA 的一部分。我認為這也是很重要的一點。這是一個為期 12 年的計劃，當你開始封存碳時就開始了。從兩年前到十年後，它都不會消失。當您開始固碳 12 年後，它就會消失。該計劃在很長一段時間內都是永久性的，並且在前五年也是一個直接付費計劃。

So while we certainly would not like that to be the program because I think that's much more opportunities around 45Z. If that were worst-case scenario, then we'd have less revenues around carbon, but it would still be a significantly profitable project instead of paying-off in less than a year, maybe we pay-off in a year in four months. And it's really not that much of a big difference for us, but it certainly is nicer to have the 45Z and we do believe that will stay intact.

因此，雖然我們當然不希望這個計劃成為這樣，因為我認為 45Z 周圍有更多的機會。如果這是最壞的情況，那麼我們在碳方面的收入就會減少，但它仍然是一個利潤豐厚的項目，而不是在不到一年的時間內收回成本，也許我們在四個月內就可以在一年內收回成本。對我們來說，這確實沒有那麼大的區別，但擁有 45Z 確實更好，我們相信這一點將保持不變。

Thanks. That's helpful. And then earlier in the call, there was some talk about Mount Vernon and O'Brien increasing capacity. What's the total capacity increases that you're expecting? And does that shift anything on your product slate? Would you expect to increase your exports as a result of that new capacity?

謝謝。這很有幫助。在電話會議的早些時候，有人談論了弗農山和奧布萊恩增加產能的問題。您預計的總容量增加是多少？這會改變您的產品清單上的任何內容嗎？您預計新產能會增加出口嗎？

So Mount Vernon is complete. We've redone all the full conveyor systems among other bins and tanks and systems and processes and that was needed. We're starting to ramp that plant back up as we speak, and that should add about 20 million gallons of yearly production run-rate capacity there. And when we add gallons, we had pounds of corn oil and we add tons of protein on-top of that, that has a protein system down there as well. So it's going to be all three components there.

這樣弗農山就完成了。我們已經重新設計了其他箱子、儲槽以及系統和流程中的所有完整輸送系統，這是所需要的。就在我們說話的時候，我們正開始恢復該工廠的產能，這將使該工廠的年生產能力增加約 2,000 萬加侖。當我們添加加侖時，我們有磅玉米油，我們在上面添加了大量的蛋白質，那裡也有一個蛋白質系統。所以這將是所有三個組成部分。

In O'Brien, we're waiting for a final construction of the RTO or instead of a TO, thermal oxidizer through a regenerative thermal oxidizer and that will allow the plant then to get back to the traditional run-rate. That is another 20 million to 25 million gallons of opportunity per year as well.

在奧布萊恩，我們正在等待 RTO 的最終建設，或者透過再生熱氧化器來取代 TO，熱氧化器，這將使工廠恢復到傳統的運行速度。這也是每年 2000 萬至 2500 萬加侖的機會。

And that project should be completed in the first quarter of next year. That plant should be running at a much higher rate, but because of the longer-term effects of this piece of equipment, we haven't been able to and then we brought protein on. And now combined, it's just overloading all of the systems and we're going to be able to get that back in line sometime, hopefully early in the first quarter of next year as well.

該項目應於明年第一季完成。工廠應該以更高的速度運行，但由於這台設備的長期影響，我們無法做到這一點，然後我們引入了蛋白質。現在綜合起來，它只是讓所有系統超載，我們將能夠在某個時候恢復正常，希望也能在明年第一季初。

So the two of those combined should add 40 million to 50 million gallons, about 40 million gallons of additional capacity that we bring online. And but it doesn't necessarily change where we ship, it's just shipping more product to the same markets and those markets are ready to absorb everything we bring on.

因此，這兩者加起來應該會增加 4000 萬至 5000 萬加侖，即我們上線的約 4000 萬加侖的額外產能。但這並不一定會改變我們的發貨地點，只是將更多的產品運送到相同的市場，而這些市場已準備好吸收我們帶來的一切。

Thank you.

謝謝。

Craig Irwin with ROTH Capital Partners.

克雷格歐文 (Craig Irwin) 與羅斯資本合夥人 (ROTH Capital Partners)。

First, I would say, congratulations, Phil, on the promotion, Jim, going to miss you. It's been great working with you these last many years. My question is around Clean Sugar. I wanted to ask for a little bit more color. So Todd, do you feel some of the projected economics that you've talked about these last couple of years are starting to be confirmed by the plant startup.

首先，我想說，恭喜菲爾升職，吉姆，我會想念你的。過去多年來與您合作真是太好了。我的問題是關於清潔糖的。我想要求多一點顏色。托德，您是否覺得您過去幾年談到的一些預計的經濟效益已開始得到工廠啟動的證實？

And then if we rewind about a year, there was some optimism that we couldn't start seeing additional facilities once this plant was up and running. What do you expect to see out of Shenandoah, what do you need to see out of this plant to make a go decision to invest in the next facility? And can you remind us maybe on the CapEx and project returns that we should be thinking about?

然後，如果我們倒回大約一年，我們會樂觀地認為，一旦工廠建成並運行，我們就無法開始看到額外的設施。您希望從 Shenandoah 看到什麼，您需要從這個工廠看到什麼，才能做出投資下一個工廠的決定？您能否提醒我們應該考慮的資本支出和項目回報？

Yeah, thanks. And we have significant optimism for this product, the production process. And there's definitely things that we will do different in a much larger facility than we did here relative to some of the equipment that we had outlined in the past where we had some early issues that we work-through and have fixed some of those issues. But I think the engineering on plant number two would be different than plant number one, just in terms of improving the capabilities of the asset.

是的，謝謝。我們對這個產品、生產過程非常樂觀。相對於我們過去概述的一些設備，我們肯定會在比這裡大得多的設施中做一些不同的事情，我們在這些設備中遇到了一些早期問題，我們已經解決並修復了其中一些問題。但我認為二號工廠的工程設計與一號工廠不同，只是在提升資產能力上。

And the [econs] are very similar to what we -- when we started this five years ago. We said it's $0.67 to $0.87 a gallon uplift relative to making alcohol and those still exist today even relative to sugar prices and sweetener prices that are out there on top of lower corn and input costs.

[經濟]與我們五年前開始時非常相似。我們說，相對於酒精生產，每加侖上漲了 0.67 美元至 0.87 美元，即使相對於玉米和投入成本較低的糖價和甜味劑價格而言，這種上漲至今仍然存在。

So from that standpoint, nothing has changed economically on how we think about a full-blown build of a Clean Sugar facility at a plant, either ours or even potentially standalone with support of a Gen-1 ethanol plant.

因此，從這個角度來看，我們對在工廠全面建造清潔糖工廠的看法在經濟上沒有任何改變，無論是我們自己的工廠還是在第一代乙醇工廠的支持下可能獨立的工廠。

So additional facilities more to come on that. I think what we want to do is, like I said, it's only been a week. We've been at it, give us a little more time. But I think what has been proven is that we can make the product. We can -- we're shipping the product. It's in railcars. It will be shipped in trucks. It will end-up on people's doorsteps for them to analyze. We still have to get food grade certification and we'd like to run it just a little bit longer than a week or two to -- and continue to optimize and continue to drive better and better product quality because I think we continue to do that.

因此，還會有更多額外的設施。我想我們想做的是，就像我說的，這才過去一週。我們一直在努力，請再給我們一點時間。但我認為已經證明的是我們可以製造該產品。我們可以—我們正在運送產品。是在電車裡。它將用卡車運輸。它將最終出現在人們的家門口供他們分析。我們仍然需要獲得食品級認證，我們希望運行時間比一兩週長一點，然後繼續優化並繼續推動越來越好的產品質量，因為我認為我們會繼續這樣做。

It's not just around 95 dextrose equivalent. There's 63 and 48 and I think that we want to make sure we can make all of those as well and then we want to make sure we get into the food market. So it will be a little bit before we decide on cereal number two or plant number two. But I can tell you based on early returns, we're very optimistic that technology will be radically transformed not just what we can do at a dry mill, but in the industry in general over the long-term, not necessarily in the next six to 12 months.

它不僅僅是 95 左右的葡萄糖當量。有 63 和 48 個，我想我們要確保我們也能生產所有這些，然後我們要確保我們進入食品市場。因此，我們還需要一段時間才能決定選擇第二種穀物或第二種植物。但我可以根據早期的回報告訴你，我們非常樂觀地認為，技術將發生根本性的轉變，不僅是我們在乾磨機上可以做的事情，而且是整個行業的長期變革，不一定是在未來六年內至 12 個月。

But CapEx still working through that. We've seen some stuff come down and some stuff go up, labor is still a challenge when you build anything and long-lead time on electrical gear and switches and those type of things remain a significant challenge with all the data center demand that exists in the United States and other things that are happening around nuclear and those type of things.

但資本支出仍在解決這個問題。我們看到有些東西下降了，有些東西上升了，當你建造任何東西時，勞動力仍然是一個挑戰，電氣設備和開關的交貨時間很長，而這些類型的東西仍然對現有的所有數據中心需求構成重大挑戰在美國以及圍繞核子和此類事物正在發生的其他事情。

But when we look at CST and we look at Clean Sugar and we look at what we can make out of a dry grind facility when everybody said you can't do that. I'm going to tell you that for this right now. We are absolutely 100% doing it. It's an amazing technology from Fluid Quip, still has some work to do relative to what we would do maybe in cereal number two, but we are really, really optimistic about the future of this technology as a whole.

但是，當我們研究 CST 和清潔糖時，我們會研究我們可以用乾磨設備生產什麼，而每個人都說你不能這樣做。我現在就為此告訴你。我們絕對100%這樣做。這是來自 Fluid Quip 的一項令人驚嘆的技術，相對於我們在第二號麥片中可能要做的事情，仍有一些工作要做，但我們對這項技術整體的未來非常非常樂觀。

Thank you for that. So my follow-up question, I guess, is a two-part question, right? Can you maybe share with us the -- well, the housekeeping side is really sales mix on high-pro products, 50 versus 60 Pro. Do you have an estimated mix exiting the year and then comments around what you think is reasonable for Green Plains to target in 2025?

謝謝你。所以我想我的後續問題是一個由兩部分組成的問題，對吧？您能否與我們分享一下——嗯，內務管理方面實際上是高專業產品的銷售組合，50 與 60 Pro。您是否有今年的預計組合，然後就您認為 Green Plains 在 2025 年設定的合理目標發表評論？

And then the second part is the blue-sky economics at high-pro, one of the more exciting parts, the story was always the collaboration with Novozymes for some tailored products that might have improved nutritional profile and make it an even better match for many of the markets that you're pursuing. Do you have an update on the Novozymes partnership? And is there anything we should look for there over the next number of quarters?

第二部分是高專業領域的藍天經濟學，這是更令人興奮的部分之一，故事始終是與 Novozymes 合作開發一些客製化產品，這些產品可能會改善營養狀況，並使其更適合許多人您所追求的市場。您有關於 Novozymes 合作夥伴關係的最新消息嗎？在接下來的幾個季度裡，我們應該尋找什麼東西嗎？

I'll start with that and let's talk about -- let me talk about some of the things that we're doing around product quality and nutritional quality and working with other customers on that. But we have resigned our agreement with Novozymes in our partnership. We did it quietly as we were working together on several products and several opportunities. We are -- it's an amazing partnership between Green Plains and Novozymes and what we've been able to accomplish together and especially around development of higher proteins and different nutritional characteristics that we continue to work on. So that has been renewed.

我將從這個開始，讓我們談談——讓我談談我們圍繞產品品質和營養品質所做的一些事情，以及與其他客戶在這方面的合作。但我們已經解除了與 Novozymes 的合作協議。當我們共同開發幾種產品和一些機會時，我們悄悄地做到了這一點。我們是 Green Plains 和 Novozymes 之間的令人驚嘆的合作夥伴關係，我們能夠共同實現這一目標，特別是在我們繼續致力於開發更高蛋白質和不同營養特性方面。所以這已經被更新了。

On-top of that, we talked about our pet food customer has begun to renew for 2025 as well as we just finished the first quarter at higher volumes in 2025. And so we're really excited to work together on all different types of recipes with Novozymes inclusive of generating these D3 RINs as well.

最重要的是，我們談到我們的寵物食品客戶已開始續約 2025 年，我們剛剛在 2025 年以更高的產量完成了第一季。因此，我們非常高興能夠與 Novozymes 合作開發所有不同類型的配方，包括生成這些 D3 RIN。

Everything evolved in all of these technologies. When we started out, we thought we put protein everywhere and along came the IRA and now we're going to invest capital into carbon sequestration with significant returns. And someday I'm absolutely confident we'll continue to build protein systems as we absorb this protein into the market because what we have is that depending on the species, it's a very special product that does really interesting things relative to that.

所有這些技術的一切都在不斷發展。當我們開始時，我們認為我們將蛋白質無處不在，愛爾蘭共和軍隨之而來，現在我們將投資資金進行碳封存，並獲得可觀的回報。有一天，我絕對有信心，當我們將這種蛋白質引入市場時，我們將繼續建立蛋白質系統，因為我們擁有的是，根據物種的不同，它是一種非常特殊的產品，可以做與之相關的真正有趣的事。

We continue to work with some of the largest pet food customers in the world on 60 Pro inclusions in 2025 and we believe we are going to get a significant lift relative to demand from this year to next year. Today, we are making 60 Pro product. We are shipping 60 Pro product around the world.

我們將繼續與世界上一些最大的寵物食品客戶合作，在 2025 年添加 60 Pro 成分，我們相信，從今年到明年，我們的需求將顯著提升。今天，我們正在製作60 Pro產品。我們正在向世界各地運送 60 Pro 產品。

It's always -- as we always say, it always take longer than we ever really wanted to take. But when you kind of look at -- when you kind of look at what we've been able to accomplish so-far and where we've been able to ship this product, our team has done a great job of finding homes for the product and we are still working with those same large pet food customers on getting 60 Pro in large volumes into their systems.

正如我們常說的，它總是比我們真正想要花的時間更長。但是，當你看看我們迄今為止所取得的成就以及我們能夠將這個產品運送到哪裡時，我們的團隊在為這些產品尋找住所方面做得非常出色。合作，將60 Pro 大量引入他們的系統。

What we want to make sure though, and Leslie maybe talks about that. Is that what we send them is the same every day out of every location. And that's why we wanted to make sure that we got -- we did a little bit of CapEx in Wood River and Central City. And wanted to make sure that we are able to ship that product consistently.

不過我們想確定的是，萊斯利可能會談論這一點。我們每天向每個地點發送的內容都是一樣的。這就是為什麼我們想確保我們在伍德河和中心城進行了一些資本支出。並希望確保我們能夠持續交付該產品。

We are developing new markets in Asia and South America. We expect volumes to ramp-up as we get through Jan and June and then really ramp-up in July through this of next year. We have very large vibes that we expect to kick-in July of next year. And we have other customers that we can sell more volumes of sequence without negatively impacting anything else that we do, it's only positive impacts.

我們正在開發亞洲和南美洲的新市場。我們預計，隨著一月和六月的到來，銷售量將會增加，然後從七月到明年，銷售量將會真正增加。我們有很大的共鳴，預計明年七月就會開始。我們還有其他客戶，我們可以銷售更多的序列，而不會對我們所做的任何其他事情產生負面影響，這只是正面的影響。

So overall, everything always takes longer as we always know, but the demand for our product remains strong and we expect to make significant inroads in the 60 Pro market next year. Leslie can talk a little bit about some of the things we're doing on quality?

因此，總的來說，正如我們所知，一切總是需要更長的時間，但對我們產品的需求仍然強勁，我們預計明年將在 60 Pro 市場取得重大進展。Leslie 可以談談我們在品質方面所做的一些事情嗎？

Sure. Yeah, as Todd mentioned earlier, I think you're kind of looking at a bookend where we're looking at consistency on the product side by really making sure that -- that is where our customers can actually go to increased inclusion levels. And then the other side, which was already mentioned is really the cost-reduction. So that's been an opportunity for us to really tailor the use of our biological system to fine-tune it.

當然。是的，正如托德之前提到的，我認為你正在看一個書擋，我們正在透過真正確保——這就是我們的客戶實際上可以提高包容性水平來考慮產品方面的一致性。然後，已經提到的另一面確實是成本降低。因此，這對我們來說是一個真正定制生物系統的使用並對其進行微調的機會。

On-top of that, the team has been working on increased protein concentrations, which is again almost a third-generation product that we're working on. But I think the main focus has been between that consistency and the OpEx reduction side.

最重要的是，團隊一直致力於提高蛋白質濃度，這幾乎是我們正在研究的第三代產品。但我認為主要焦點在於一致性和營運支出減少方面。

Excellent. Well, thanks again for taking my questions and congratulations on the really strong crush margins this quarter. It's good to see those come through.

出色的。好吧，再次感謝您提出我的問題，並祝賀本季非常強勁的壓榨利潤。很高興看到這些都成功了。

Thank you.

謝謝。

I would now like to hand today's call back over to Todd Becker, CEO, for any closing remarks.

現在，我想將今天的電話會議轉交給執行長 Todd Becker，讓其結束語。

Yeah, thanks everybody for jumping on the call and participating in today's call. Our continue -- our teams continue to execute at a high-rate. We look-forward to sharing our continued progress with you in coming months. We also want to make sure that we provide you with the information you need to make the best decisions around our company. And as you can see with our carbon strategy, which is very unique and very advantaged and very early in the cycle is going to be providing significant what we believe shareholder value creation.

是的，感謝大家踴躍參加今天的電話會議。我們的繼續－我們的團隊繼續高速執行。我們期待在未來幾個月與您分享我們的持續進展。我們還希望確保為您提供所需的信息，以便您在我們公司做出最佳決策。正如您所看到的，我們的碳策略非常獨特，非常有優勢，並且在週期的早期階段將提供我們認為的股東價值創造的重要內容。

On-top of that, all of our products are starting to kick-in and obviously, when strong margin environments exist in the base product of fuel, which we believe will start to ramp back up as we get into 2025. I think we're well-positioned to capitalize on all that we have invested and all the strategic advantages that we have as a company.

最重要的是，我們的所有產品都開始發揮作用，顯然，當燃料基礎產品存在強勁的利潤環境時，我們相信進入 2025 年，該產品將開始回升。我認為我們處於有利位置，可以利用我們所投資的所有資金以及我們作為一家公司擁有的所有戰略優勢。

And again, we wish Jim best of luck. And Phil, best of luck in his new role and we really appreciate your support. And we look-forward to talking to you next quarter. Thank you for everybody being on the call.

我們再次祝吉姆好運。菲爾，祝他在新職位上好運，我們非常感謝您的支持。我們期待下個季度與您交談。感謝大家撥通電話。

This concludes today’s call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

今天的電話會議到此結束。感謝您的加入。您現在可以斷開連線。