Origin Materials, Inc. (NASDAQ:ORGN) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Rich Riley: Yes. So thanks, Frank. Appreciate the questions. So first one is, on market demand in general. So for both the biofuels product and also for FDCA and some of our HTC-related products, I think we see very, very strong demand for each of those three product categories. I think, it’s worth saying that that was a very significant contributor to our view of the new product slate and the new scope for Origin 2 and absolutely not to be underestimated. That said, of course, a huge proportion of our capacity reservations and opting agreements are, as you said, for para-xylene. We have seen so far customers are very committed to the long term of para-xylene with us and we, of course, are no less excited about para-xylene than we have ever been and, in fact, as we mentioned, I think, during the earnings script, we really see a very attractive pathway forward for para-xylene that takes advantage of working with strategic partners of various sorts who have lower costs of capital for these sorts of things in general as compared to origin right now.

So we’re excited about para-xylene. We remain excited about it. Our customers remain excited about para-xylene and, frankly, a huge part of the look towards products such as FDCA and its biofuels product are the result of demand, very strong demand from customers for this product.

Frank Mitsch: Got you and as you indicated, capital constraints were also a part of this decision. Just curious, let’s assume, let’s hypothetically say that nine months from now we’ve had really smooth operations at Origin 1 and so let’s say that would attract a strategic or another party that would be willing to make a very large capital commitment, capital injection. Would that accelerate the timeline? How do you think about taking on a strategic financial partner, as I said, sometime in 2024?

Rich Riley: Yes, I think it’s a really interesting question. I think, we tend not to think in hypotheticals around these sorts of things. But I will say, just generally as a company that is small relative to some of the chemical majors out there, there are limits to the number of things that we can do in parallel. And so anytime that we have access to additional resources, that can have an impact on schedule.

Frank Mitsch: Have an impact on schedule. All right. Hey, thanks so much.

Operator: The next question comes from John Roberts with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

John Roberts: Thank you for Slide 27 with the Origin 2 economic summary. If I just divide EBITDA by CapEx, the return on Phase 1 is 20%, and the return on Phase 2 drops a little bit to 17.5. Why is Phase 2 not higher than Phase 1?

Rich Riley: Yeah, it’s an interesting question. I think our view there is that one, because it’s a little bit further out, we have, frankly, a different level of specificity around some of the Phase 2 elements and so that just inherently we’re going to give that a little bit more of a discount from our view. I think the other is there are significant parts of Phase 1 and Phase 2 that you could argue are sort of arbitrary as to whether we count them as part of Phase 1 or Phase 2. We didn’t try to load balance too carefully between the two. But a lot of benefits are realized with Phase 2 beyond just the fact that we’re getting access to larger markets for those products, that we’re getting access to all kinds of sort of mission-driven sort of objectives with Phase 2 as well. So we do see them as relatively well and synergistically linked, but to your point, Phase 1 standalone is an attractive project all on its own.

John Roberts: And then do you think you’ll have a new CFO in place by September 01? Or what’s the backup plan there? Oh, go ahead, Rick. Sorry.