FREYR Battery (NYSE:FREY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Gabe Daoud: Really helpful. Thanks, Tom. And then maybe I guess as a follow-up pivoting to Giga America. Can you maybe talk a little bit about the order of operations there? I guess maybe a bit of a chicken or egg scenario there as well. But — so as far as strategic to potentially writing a check, do they want to see more from off-take, but then also from a customer standpoint, because they want clarity around timing of start-up, which I guess requires capital. So how do we think about Giga America? And how that could truly be accelerated alongside Giga Arctic?

Tom Einar Jensen: Well, so I think we see a variety of different levels of interest, right? Some who are ready to step up to the plate and “take more risk” and some who would like to see more data and more sort of results coming out of the CQP. But I do think that the interest in participating in developing Giga America is a function of many things, it’s not only a function of what we do in the CQP, it’s a function of perspectives around the IRA. It’s a function of actually having a viable business case which as Jeremy alluded to, we are working on various different options from, let’s call it, brownfield type options to more fast-tracking first couple of production lines from a larger greenfield development. All of which we are in the coming weeks going to narrow down into a specific development plan.

And in parallel with that, we are presenting these options to a number of these strategic industrial and financial partners, and I have to say the interest is very strong. So yes, you are right in the sense that this is somewhat of a chicken and egg problem, but I will say, it’s much more of us deciding on how we want to go and then deciding on what partners to bring into that equation.

Gabe Daoud: Understood. Thanks, Tom. Thanks, guys.

Tom Einar Jensen: Thanks, Gabe.

Operator: Thank you. And the next question goes to Julien Dumoulin Smith of Bank of America. Julien, please go ahead. Your line is open.

Alex Rabell: Hey, guys. It’s Alex Rabell on for Julien. I appreciate you guys taking the question. Just to follow on a little bit on the U.S. story here with Giga America. I’m curious if you guys have thought through it all sort of the ability to possibly monetize tax credits upfront as a source of capital? And also if we think about a fast track, you’re talking 34 gigawatt hours, eight lines. I mean, is there an opportunity here just to do essentially like an equity based startup take the risk on balance sheet effectively and then try to branch into more strategic from there? Thanks.

Tom Einar Jensen: Thanks for that question. I’m going to have Oscar chime in on this one. Oscar, can I hand it over to you to provide some color on monetization options and how we’re thinking about different development solutions?

Oscar Brown: Yes, certainly. Thanks, Tom, and thanks, Alex. So yes, for sure, there is great opportunities to monetize these tax credits. And as you know with the IRA, a lot of the monetization options have been simplified relative to past laws. So we’re looking forward to that. We’ve talked to several of the commercial banks in the U.S. and other investors on how to do this. So the key question will be, can we pull that, how far up can we pull that, how close to production and what volumes can we do to finance all of that, so that’s sort of evolving in the market real time. But we do see an opportunity there. And just to remind you, we did some math on Slide 10 to give you a sense on how hugely impactful it is to the economics of sort of the giga scale production centers. So for sure, that’s developing and we’ll see, but we think that can happen. Tom, I will flip it back to you on just — on how you want to address the sort of different options for Giga America?