Q2 2026 Comstock Inc Earnings Call
Speaker #2: Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Comstock Inc.'s second quarter 2026 results and business outlook. I'm Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary. Today is Thursday, July 23, 2026.
Speaker #2: We are streaming live, and this session is being recorded. A recording will be posted shortly after we adjourn, in the investor relations section of our website.
Speaker #2: Today we filed our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, and issued a press release summarizing quarter-end results. Both documents are available on our website.
Speaker #2: As a reminder, Comstock is listed on the NYSE American under the ticker LOAD, L-O-A-D-E. Joining me today are Corrado De Gasperis, Comstock's Chief Executive Officer, and Judd Merrill, Comstock's Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker #2: After their prepared remarks, we will take questions. We received more than 40 questions in advance of the call. If you have additional questions during the call, please use the Zoom Q&A window.
Speaker #2: We are extending this webcast today to address as many questions as possible. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements; actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties detailed in our SEC filings.
Speaker #2: Full risk disclosures can be found in our filings on the Investor Relations page and on the SEC website. With that, it is my pleasure to introduce our Chief Financial Officer, Judd Merrill.
Speaker #2: Judd, you may begin.
Speaker #3: Thank you, Zach, and welcome, everyone. I'd first like to briefly touch on this slide. Over the past several months, we've worked intentionally to build a stronger capital base and surround the company with high-quality investors, strategic partners, and commercial relationships.
Speaker #3: We view these relationships as important validation of the progress we've made and the opportunities that lie ahead. Before I begin my financial remarks, I'd like to recognize our Board of Directors.
Speaker #3: We have an exceptionally engaged and experienced independent board that is actively involved across every aspect of the company's strategy and governance. Our directors are highly focused on disciplined capital allocation.
Speaker #3: They remain fully informed on our liquidity and cash position, and they work closely with management to ensure that we deploy capital carefully and judiciously.
Speaker #3: This is primarily towards accelerating our metals recycling platform and advancing the monetization of the Sierra Springs investment. And then, on the board, there are committees, and each committee is playing an important role as the business evolves.
Speaker #3: Our Audit Committee is actively overseeing our financial reporting, risk management, and the implementation of controls that support our new Comstock Metals operations. Our Compensation Committee continues aligning both the annual incentive plans and the long-term equity incentive with shareholder value creation.
Speaker #3: So that means that these are truly performance-based incentives. And our Environmental Committee is providing important oversight as we advance first-of-a-kind permitting and sustainable operations.
Speaker #3: Now I will move to some comments on the quarter. Our second quarter progress represents another set of important achievements in completing Comstock's transformation. Last quarter, we talked about positioning the company for execution. This quarter, we have begun executing on virtually every major objective we laid out at the beginning of the year.
Speaker #3: So our balance sheet remains strong, our business has become significantly simpler, and our first industry-scale metals recycling facility is ready. We continue advancing several high-value monetization opportunities, including the sale of the mining assets and the positioning of the sale of our real estate through the now nearly 50%-owned Sierra Springs investment.
Speaker #3: Here are a few financial highlights from this quarter. We ended the quarter with approximately $31.4 million of cash and no debt. We also ended the quarter with total working capital of $39.9 million, reflecting current assets of $58.1 million against lower current liabilities of $18.2 million.
Speaker #3: We do expect another $20 million in cash in August, once we close on the securities purchase agreement and sell 100% of our legacy mining assets to Mackie Precious Metals.
Speaker #3: That sale of the mining assets will also remove all mining reclamation liabilities and related bonding requirements and associated costs from our balance sheet. And this is while retaining an upside in both the NSR royalties across the district and retaining meaningful equity in Mackie.
Speaker #3: And the mining sale will also eliminate annual costs of about $1.4 million, and free our capacity to focus more on the recycling business. Our outstanding share count at June 30, 2026 was only slightly changed since we filed our first quarter 10-Q, reflecting only director stock compensation.
Speaker #3: We were also added to the Russell 2000 and the Russell 3000 indices in late June, and we believe that represents another step in strengthening our institutional capital base.
Speaker #3: So let me spend a minute and review how we deployed capital during the first six months of the year, and some color on why and what these—what we were investing in.
Speaker #3: Our largest source of cash this year was our January equity financing, which generated approximately $56 million in net proceeds. But we also generated nearly $6.5 million in additional proceeds, and that includes receiving over $2 million in cash from mining asset sales, including the sale of some older royalties, mining rights, and the recent discount sale of a note receivable.
Speaker #3: We received another $1.8 million from debt extinguishment related to recoveries where there was a make-whole provision, and that resulted in positive funds coming back to us.
Speaker #3: And then there was $6.2 million solar panel recycling revenue—that's including the deferred revenue from our growing metals operation. And that's where the sales in June, and then continuing even in this month of July, were about double the rate that we experienced in May.
Speaker #3: And the prior months, we're just beginning to bring larger recycling operations online. On the uses side, virtually all of our investments were intentional growth investments.
Speaker #3: So, let's review those. Approximately $21 million was invested into Sierra Springs, enabling and enabling the close of over 2,200 acres of land and nearly 2,000 acre-feet of water rights.
Speaker #3: And that's effectively consolidated one of Northern Nevada's premier industrial land and infrastructure opportunities, while simultaneously increasing our ownership in Sierra Springs to nearly 50% and positioning for major future monetization.
Speaker #3: We also spent approximately $5 million completing the first industry-scale metals recycling facility—that's including the equipment installation and commissioning. Another $1.3 million expanding our product upgrade capabilities, particularly our higher value glass products.
Speaker #3: And approximately $1.4 million in advancing our new metals recovery technologies and approximately $3 million in metals operating costs as we ramp up operations and expand the sales and marketing organization.
Speaker #3: That's nationally. We are deploying this capital as planned, with product upgrade capex and metal recovery R&D accelerated on the heels of our January equity offering.
Speaker #3: We believe that deployment will generate better, higher future operating cash flows for metals. On the operating results, metals buildings during the quarter continued to ramp up, especially in June and now July, reflecting both activity from our small demonstration facility, together with deferred revenue associated with the growing customer and sales collection.
Speaker #3: And our new storage area is completely graded, fenced, and ready to open, and the total panels on the ground and ready for processing approach 9,000 tons.
Speaker #3: So, with our first industry-scale facility beginning continuous operations in August, we expect revenue to increasingly transition from decommissioning activities to our industry-scale commercial production.
Speaker #3: Operating expenses remained as expected. Those investments included efforts for commissioning our first industry-scale facility, expanding commercial organization, building operating infrastructure, advancing product upgrading capabilities, and developing downstream metals recovery technologies.
Speaker #3: And these are planned investments designed to support multiple future production facilities, not just our first operating facility. So now, looking ahead at the objectives for 2026, as we move through the second half of 2026, the financial story begins to change.
Speaker #3: Our capital spending associated with the first facility is complete. Our focus now shifts toward operating performance—throughput, customer growth, and generating higher and higher revenues.
Speaker #3: While we're working on that, at the same time we will complete the monetization of our mining assets, and monetize opportunities associated with Sierra Springs and our remaining real estate.
Speaker #3: Expansion of our metals platform into additional locations, and refocusing our biolithium strategy by advancing commercialization, integrating Hexis, and attracting third-party capital. So even after recording this quarter a non-cash, non-strategic impairment, which is part of simplifying and strengthening, our investments increased to approximately $67 million.
Speaker #3: We are continuing to clean up the balance sheet, maintain a stable liquidity position, and remain highly focused on disciplined, cash-on-return investment decisions.
Speaker #3: So now, I will turn it over to Corrado to discuss these corporate and subsidiary objectives in greater detail.
Speaker #2: Thanks, Judd. Yeah, appreciate it very much. I think I'm going to give just some color on a lot of what Judd said, maybe some visuals. This probably might be the last time we show this slide, but just maybe to segue into real production—this was the slide that we had even before we built the demonstration facility.
Speaker #2: So now, today we've completed all the pilot work. We then subsequently ran the demo facility for two and a half years. It's still running because it's effective.
Speaker #2: We keep processing panels through it and testing other panels and types of panels as they come through. But remember the four fundamental tenets that we still think are the prime differentiators.
Speaker #2: We still do not see a competing system that can eliminate all contaminants. We don't see a system that can eliminate all those laminate plastics and glues.
Speaker #2: At all. So we can do it very efficiently, with no harmful emissions, but we do it effectively, which is the most important thing, because eliminating those contaminants allows us to produce clean, salable materials.
Speaker #2: If they're not clean—if they're contaminated—then we're a hazardous waste generator. We don't have a permit to be a hazardous waste generator; we have a permit to be a recycler of clean materials.
Speaker #2: We do it at an extremely low variable cost, and those things will start to become visible after a quarter or two here. That very efficient use of natural gas, very efficient use of electricity—those are our two primary variable costs.
Speaker #2: It's like 92–93% of our variable costs. And we do it at high speed, which makes it scalable. So we're effective in terms of the output, and we're effective in terms of our ability to scale.
Speaker #2: So this cartoon becomes a reality. We now have the industry-scale 001, first of its kind, deployed. Now, what we've deployed and what we intend to start running immediately here in August is at about 25% capacity.
Speaker #2: In August, we will be ramping that up over the course of the month, but we will start feeding panels in the front and getting panels out the back.
Speaker #2: September, October, November, December—as far as our plans are concerned, we'll be at least 25% capacity. It might be 25% capacity for four months, but that's very important for us.
Speaker #2: It's very important for us that everyone, especially our customers, can see this showcase—can see what we're capable of doing and how we're capable of doing it.
Speaker #2: We are very transparent with the money that we spent. Judd mentioned almost all of these numbers, but $12.25 million for that full system that you just saw in that schematic.
Speaker #2: We were planning to spend a million and a quarter, a million two, a million million three with NV Energy. They got delayed. We put in our own power-generating system for a little bit more than that, but that's portable.
Speaker #2: So we've got some nice optionality there, but regardless, we can generate power. We spent a little bit on the rolling stock because storage became a critical aspect, as all these panels are going to be coming in.
Speaker #2: And we've created a pretty huge storage capacity right next door. So that's it in a nutshell. I think Judd mentioned a smaller number, but Judd, we ended up we ended up with the additional add-ons to the Eddie system spending almost a million eight, million nine on the product upgrades and those product upgrades are immediately effective.
Speaker #2: They've been completely stress tested. They're fully operating, and it allows us to produce not only high-specification glass for sale—and now we have more than enough customers for taking that glass as it comes online.
Speaker #2: But we also were able to get residual metals and residual materials. And, as everybody probably is tired of hearing from us right now, we capture all and we sell it all.
Speaker #2: So, those product upgrades have multiple value enhancements for us and certainly are major de-riskers. When we raised the money in January, we said we'd spend up to $10 million on metal extraction capacity. This will also be first of its kind.
Speaker #2: And we're ahead. We're moving very fast on deploying a one-ton-per-day metal recovery system this year. That's a pilot. Okay? That's a pilot.
Speaker #2: So, one ton a day pilot by the end of this year is what we're really, really pushing hard for. Very important in that process is validating both technically and efficiency-wise, economically, that we can extract and yield high amounts of silver.
Speaker #2: From those industrial tailings that we're producing, that we're doing, we've engaged third-party resources that are helping us do that. It's currently not being done in Silver Springs.
Speaker #2: It may end up very well being in Silver Springs by the time we're done—we'll see. That would be a one-ton-a-day system.
Speaker #2: So that's not to be confused, right, with the 100,000-ton annual capacity that we have now deployed. This is in addition to that. The product upgrades and the upspeccing of the glass are in addition to that.
Speaker #2: So, not to be defensive, but we are a few months later than we thought in terms of bringing the big machine online, even though it's imminent now.
Speaker #2: It's imminent. It's going to be done by the end of this month in terms of full testing and full commissioning, and then we will be ramping it up in August.
Speaker #2: But we also added a one-ton-a-day pilot system to the scope of our projects. We accelerated that aspect of what we were doing, and we added the product upgrade.
Speaker #2: That was by market demand, right? So we responded to the market quickly in terms of glass and certain residuals, and we accelerated our own plans for a pilot.
Speaker #2: Now, you do a pilot for a specific reason. You don't do it for academic reasons, okay? We need to prove that this will be both technically and economically feasible.
Speaker #2: Technically, this means we want to recover all of these materials. We haven't seen anyone do this before with these types of materials. We did submit a grant for this, by the way.
Speaker #2: The government was like, "Fast and Furious" in their demands. We submitted it in January. They still haven't awarded it to anybody. But we never intended to wait, right?
Speaker #2: So even though we're still in the running for some of those monies, and it would be wonderful if we got them, because they might be in time for the demo unit.
Speaker #2: We didn't wait. In terms of that capital to start piloting, that's why we raised the money in January. So, in 2026, we're going to spend that extra $2 million and prove out the extraction of silver, hopefully, and get a one-ton-a-day operation that we can then take to the next level in 2027 with what we would call a commercial demonstration system.
Speaker #2: Commercial in the sense that it's a 25x scale-up, but also in the sense that you build a supply chain around that, exactly like we did with our recycling demo facility.
Speaker #2: This is a picture from the annual meeting. So many of you were there. I think you can see the bus back here. There are two reasons I wanted to show this aerial shot.
Speaker #2: One is where you see cars, or in the back here, or where you see empty space in the front here. Those are all covered with solar panels now.
Speaker #2: I drove around last Thursday through the entire parking lot, and I had to make sure I didn't scratch the truck. It's tight. But the good news is, now you can see a bird's-eye view of the storage area.
Speaker #2: That'll hold easily 25,000 tons of material. I mean, embarrassingly, we're just plugging in the last electrical outlets and installing the toilet in the little supervisor building.
Speaker #2: And it's up and running, so everything's come together very, very nicely. It's a tremendous amount of work to get all of this done. And it's really, really—this is more than just an industrial-scale recycling facility.
Speaker #2: This is literally our platform and our campus for recycling, for upgrading, for piloting and testing the new processes and technologies, and for storage. I mean, Silver Springs is really the hub of all of that.
Speaker #2: And the equipment is all here. It's substantially all installed. There are only one or two more steps of connectivity and stress testing to go. No fatal flaws.
Speaker #2: It's supremely advanced scrubbers and air pollution control you see on the left. Highly automated arms you see on the right. These robotic arms have been stress tested to the point where they've exceeded our expectations.
Speaker #2: Not by a lot, but our expectations were pretty high. What do I mean by that? Some of you may have seen the videos that were posted.
Speaker #2: The thing that's impressive is that we were able to stress test the loading system for an extended period of time, essentially loading two panels every 13.7 seconds.
Speaker #2: You can time it on the video if you wanted to prove me out. That means we are actually loading a panel faster than every seven seconds.
Speaker #2: So, there are two things that are very important here. One, obviously, this brings us to the 3.3 million panels per year capacity that we are looking to affect.
Speaker #2: This is the constraint in the system. If the arms aren't moving, then throughput's not flowing. But also, you can see in the video, it's not Grease Lightning.
Speaker #2: It's not scary fast. It's not like, 'Stand out of the way or you're going to get your head taken off.' This is a very stable, very methodical, very automated continuous loading.
Speaker #2: We just don't waste any seconds. We keep doing it. And the metal recovery system, as I mentioned, wasn't even in the original plan. We thought we were producing the cleanest glass.
Speaker #2: And we were. But then, when some of the more sophisticated customers came in, they asked for even cleaner. And so, kudos to the team for being so responsive, so dedicated, so knowledgeable, that we were able to deploy these systems and have them operate.
Speaker #2: So, we're not just producing high-spec clean glass. We're also recovering some of the metals that some might have thought were inconsequential. The one ton a day is really designed to be the second maximizer.
Speaker #2: So we get the clean aluminum, we sell it all. We get the glass, we upgrade it, we clean it, and we sell it to various customers.
Speaker #2: Now we take these industrial tailings, and this is the real development effort. This is the first $2 million, and then $8 million, to really get to the point where we can be ready to scale this also to industry scale.
Speaker #2: And so far, everything's coming together. I think if you did the analysis, in the grand scheme of what we wanted to do, plus what we added on doing, I would say we're on schedule, if not slightly ahead of schedule.
Speaker #2: So to me, that's kudos to Dr. Villamagna and an incredible team of operators and engineers that are just working their butts off. Many of you met them, of course, as you came to visit the facility.
Speaker #2: What we're seeing in the market is getting updated. We're getting more and more intimate with marketing data. We're doing more and more analysis of the panels.
Speaker #2: That are deployed. We're starting to get very, very specific with all the panels, all the ages, all the dates, all the locations. More importantly, engaging the customers and the people that are in there.
Speaker #2: So there are ranges of possibilities here. It's interesting for us because the age that these things come off is highly sensitive. Everyone's talking about panels lasting 25 years.
Speaker #2: We know that's not true. We're seeing panels come out anywhere from 14 years to 18 years. We looked at the sensitivities of our database on what if everything came out at 14, which won't happen.
Speaker #2: What if everything came out at 18? What if things came out higher? What if things came out lower? We're getting a good handle on these ranges.
Speaker #2: And we're learning some things. One of the things that we learned is that the ultimate macro scale-up might be a little slower than anticipated, but we're seeing regions like Texas and North Carolina that are actually bigger today than we originally estimated they would be, based on the ages.
Speaker #2: And so we're modifying our views of how we would roll out the rest of the network. Fortunately, I was able to come up with some pretty remarkable phasings of our deployments, where instead of deploying 100,000 tons day one, you could deploy 25,000, increase it quickly to 50,000, increase it to 75,000, and then increase it to 100,000.
Speaker #2: We haven't made any decisions on any of that. And I think what's important is we won't make any decisions to deploy the next production equipment until the first facility is up and running—until the first facility is running profitably, until it starts scaling up.
Speaker #2: However, we are site-selecting Ohio. We are site-selecting Northern Nevada. We are looking in Texas. We are looking on the East Coast. And we're looking at, is there a smarter, more intelligent way to secure market share, minimize the cost of the supply chain, grab those customers, and then scale that capital more intelligently.
Speaker #2: For us, those are very, very positive advancements. But there are more deployments across the US than we originally thought. That means panels are already out there.
Speaker #2: That means panels already that have been in production. You saw that we announced OEM. We got an OEM with Illuminate—remarkable, remarkable customer—over a year of working that customer because a competitor had entrenched themselves.
Speaker #2: But we really expressed positively what we thought we could do. And apparently, to the customer, that was better than what they thought other people could do.
Speaker #2: So we're very pleased with that. It's another segment of the market. The utility segment is the biggest segment of the market. It's the one we're doing the most work and analysis on.
Speaker #2: Sorry about that. And what's even more remarkable is the new developments. Normally, when you're in an end-of-life discipline, new developments are sort of in the back of your mind.
Speaker #2: They're sort of not on the forefront of your marketing work, but we're seeing breakages in these installations. And again, those are not as persistent or as reliable as continuous, but they're higher than we would have expected.
Speaker #2: And we've got a lot of trucks that have come in just from breakages, especially in Texas. So we have not changed any of the foundational or fundamental aspects of our guidance, or prices, down.
Speaker #2: So we're keeping a monitor on that. You all have heard from us that we don't love the idea of selling our tailings and only recovering portions of the silver value.
Speaker #2: Excuse me. We're excited about accelerating our own metal recoveries. We can't wait to see the results from that, and we can't wait to share those results.
Speaker #2: We do see clearly, if you just look at the utility segment—which, depending on how you estimate the market, could be 60% of the market, could be 65% of the market.
Speaker #2: We see clearly in the next four and a half years a cumulative of a million tons coming out. Now, we've got analyses, depending on those age ranges, that say it could be that much in a year.
Speaker #2: We have analyses that say it could be half that much in a year. The bottom line is we see a lot of animals coming out in the next four and a half years.
Speaker #2: We have a much stronger intimacy as to where they're coming from, and we believe we could not be better positioned to lead in this market.
Speaker #2: A lot of wood to chop, a lot of execution to do. As Jed said, we're expanding our capabilities for all of that purpose. At the end of the day, it comes down to this.
Speaker #2: Finish the commissioning. We're weeks away. We'll be done with those commissionings by the end of this month. We will start feeding panels in August.
Speaker #2: There will be some time before we ramp up to a certain rate. Then we'll keep it either steady at that rate or growing from there.
Speaker #2: We've already upgraded the lines, capable of making the high-spec glass. We've already finalized the design of the downstream recovery. We're piloting the HEC out of it.
Speaker #2: We've selected site number two. We've selected site number three. We're getting very close to selecting number four. So we're more than halfway through the year.
Speaker #2: We've got more than half of these things done already. But operating a one-ton a day system, okay, ordering that equipment for the second facility.
Speaker #2: And we're revisiting, as I mentioned—how do we do that? How do we phase that? But we aren't doing it until one is up and running, until one shows us, successfully, the ramp that we're expecting to see.
Speaker #2: And then, more and more of our capacity is being allocated to securing larger and longer-term supply agreements. And, as Judd said, the compensation programs are fully aligned to these objectives on an annual basis.
Speaker #2: And they're fully aligned to our equity values on a long-term basis. I'm going to spend a little bit of time talking about Sierra Springs because we deployed a lot of capital.
Speaker #2: This quarter, I'm going to spend a little time talking about Biolium because we're getting good inquiries about it. And then we'll open it up for questions if that's good.
Speaker #2: I think everybody knows we're in a great location. I think the location is great because we're one truck day away from about seven states and 75 million people.
Speaker #2: And it's an extremely well-infrastructured location. As the crow flies, very, very close to the California border. But with huge industrial expansion happening—the industrial expansion that was happening in Reno, the industrial expansion that was happening in this northern part of the industrial park—it's pretty well documented.
Speaker #2: But when this connecting highway came down to Silver Springs, it didn't just enable Silver Springs—it opened up the entire quadrant. And now, what's happening in northern Nevada is quite remarkable.
Speaker #2: It's quite remarkable in terms of the quality of companies that are coming in. It's quite remarkable in terms of the magnitude of companies that are coming in.
Speaker #2: And it's even more remarkable in terms of the capital and infrastructure that they're building. When one CEO says, "We're going to spend $100 billion in the next 10 years," and then within a year of saying that, has 2,600 acres under construction in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, and then just secures another 500 right in Silver Springs, they're walking the talk.
Speaker #2: And we're feeling it. We're feeling it. These this might be the best-kept secret in the nation in terms of these industrial developments we're fixing to help try to change that.
Speaker #2: But what we've put together through this vehicle, Sierra Springs—which had always been a novel, curious, potential monetization of a small percentage of something—has just gotten much bigger than that.
Speaker #2: And we've been and our board's been extremely diligent here. Right? Check the boxes. Land is land. Infrastructure is infrastructure. Okay? But where's the power?
Speaker #2: As soon as we were able to step in and secure that power, comps changed values changed. But most importantly, market interest changed. A minimum of 300 megawatts puts you in the major leagues, right?
Speaker #2: Getting over a gigawatt makes you headline news. But we're being very, very pedantic about making sure the readiness is sufficient for these counterparties. Okay?
Speaker #2: And we're in, regionally, locationally, logistically, a very, very good place. But even environmentally, it's not only a stable, dry temperature, which is ideal for the operation of these kinds of facilities.
Speaker #2: It's extremely safe, insofar as natural hazards are concerned—earthquakes, tornadoes—we don't experience those things in our geography, certainly not like in the rest of the country.
Speaker #2: So, we've put together enough acres and enough power to make it interesting to a lot of people. We've looked at the various types of power and how it could be generated from that gas commitment.
Speaker #2: We've also acknowledged that even though the grid hit a wall, the Greenlink project by Nevada Energy is bringing four gigawatts. The only negative concern with Nevada Energy is delay.
Speaker #2: It's just taking so much longer. But when you talk to hyperscalers, when you talk to people with serious ambitions about compute and power, there's comfort in the grid.
Speaker #2: There's comfort in transitioning to the grid. There's comfort in partnering with the grid. And the grid is going to be tremendously complementary to what we're doing in the future in Silver Springs. The one thing that most people don't think about is fiber.
Speaker #2: Do you have fiber? Do you have transmission of data? We might be in the best location, other than being smack-dab in Silicon Valley, in that context.
Speaker #2: So we cover it all—power, flatness, geography, climate, temperature—to put together an offering that we want to monetize. Okay? So our goal, and hopefully you're feeling it, right?
Speaker #2: When we were getting a lot of inquiries in Q1, we weren't able to say a lot of things because the transactions were being negotiated and approvals were being sought.
Speaker #2: Both boards—Comstock and Sierra Springs—have approved this consolidation of everything that you see in front of you, which then allows us to go to market in unison and in alignment.
Speaker #2: Right? And really, really monetize this thing. So people ask me about timing—we do think that we will launch this marketing effort later this summer.
Speaker #2: We do think we will be engaged very, very quickly with a lot of very prominent counterparties. We do think we can structure transactions before the end of the year.
Speaker #2: But remember, most of these firms will take 90, 120, 150 days of due diligence. We're making sure that regardless of how long that due diligence takes, the answers are going to be the answers that they're seeking.
Speaker #2: Okay? We're self-disciplined in that regard. And so we don't know when we'd actually monetize; hopefully, it would be sooner thereafter. Also, the power commitments phase, right?
Speaker #2: We've got a lot coming in 2028. We have even more coming in 2030, okay? So we're positioning this thing so that the counterparties see it as very strategic, very significant, and very growth-enabling for them.
Speaker #2: Just lastly, and I'll do this briefly, Biolium has been moving forward under the radar. We haven't been speaking about it as much, quite frankly.
Speaker #2: And hopefully, you see, because we're bringing an industrial metals business fully online, it's our number one priority. Selling our mining assets—that's done. We're weeks away, hopefully, from closing that.
Speaker #2: The only thing that's holding that up—I think Judd said it—is TSX clearance. We talk to them on a two or three times a week basis.
Speaker #2: Everything's going fine with the TSX. They just spoke with them yesterday and we expect this is imminent. Sierra Springs has taken the lion's share of my capacity.
Speaker #2: And now, other Comstock resources. We're pleased with the progress. There's a lot that's going on there. But the Biolium team, following the Renfuel acquisition and following the Hexis acquisition, really recalibrated in a much, much more focused, much more realigned way their thesis, because their thesis solves the industry's problem.
Speaker #2: The industry is bottlenecked by feedstock. The industry is bottlenecked by feedstock. There's an abundance of woody biomass in the world. You've heard us say that a gazillion times.
Speaker #2: But the abundance of woody biomass, when it's diverse, disparate, and all over the place, makes it very, very difficult to build and deploy capital unless you have reliable, consistent, long-term offtake agreements for feedstock.
Speaker #2: Acquiring Hexis solves that problem. We now have we now have the technology, the capability, the feedstock to ultimately deliver the fastest growing, highest yielding, lowest carbon, lowest cost solution which you see right in front of you that can be converted with our facilities in Madison Wisconsin, which you see right in front of you, which will allow us to control the integration of this farm-to-fuel platform so that when you are looking at site selection, you can put it where it's reliable, where you want it to be, and it can be fully integrated.
Speaker #2: You won't be dictated by the unreliabilities of these various feedstocks. Can we convert waste wood? Yeah. Will there be opportunities to do it? Yeah. But it's a convenience for us.
Speaker #2: It's a bonus for us. It's an enhancement for us because we've integrated a solution that's better—and it's much better. The fact that you can grow a perennial crop means you don't have to plant it every year.
Speaker #2: That has the highest yielding tonnage of any known, usable biomass in the industry, okay? Where it grows even on marginal lands, where food isn't capable, and where it's already been EPA-approved.
Speaker #2: As a feedstock, where we can leverage existing farming infrastructure. It was designed for that purpose. I mean, basically, describe it as a corn stalk and a bamboo stalk having a baby.
Speaker #2: And there's no vegetable. It grows in marginal climates. It grows fast. It grows strong. And it has a strong lignin content. It was almost tailor-made for this marriage.
Speaker #2: And you combine that crop with our process technologies, our conversion technologies, and I would say the world's leading lignocellulosic team, you can produce more fuel per acre of land than anything that even comes close.
Speaker #2: Having said that, you can produce many, many other things with this feedstock. And an interesting pull that we have right now is Hexis being able to sell solutions and sell feedstocks to others.
Speaker #2: And we expect that's going to be happening in the short term. This is not a slide that I want to cover here. But basically, what is relevant to know is from everything that Marathon did with their technologies, taking sugars to fuels and sugars to oils, and everything that Renfuel did in esterifying and making oils from lignin.
Speaker #2: Everything that NREL, MIT, and these others have been doing to advance lignocellulosic solutions for fuels. And everything Hexis has done to, frankly, unblock the true bottleneck in the industry.
Speaker #2: We've amalgamated into one system, into one company, into one solution. We have it—we have it all in one place. So we're not any less excited.
Speaker #2: We're disappointed at the speed that things are moving forward. We're disappointed that some of the readiness we thought was in place, wasn't actually in place.
Speaker #2: We're being transparent and frank about it. We're downsizing. We're streamlining. Primarily, because we're focusing on the solution that actually is integrated—primarily because we're focusing on the solution that actually works.
Speaker #2: Okay? And it's going to be commercializing. I believe we will have revenues in 2027 other than from Biolium generating fuels.
Speaker #2: We won't have any revenue from Biolium generating fuels. We'll have revenue from Biolium generating materials for fuels. We'll have revenues from Hexis, and that will be very exciting for us.
Speaker #2: But we're also getting and continue to be approached by the leading government and the leading university and the leading technical segments of the market to want to partner with us on this solution.
Speaker #2: It's very proud to say the National Lab of the Rockies, and MIT is our partner, and we have exclusiveity of that tech, and we're advancing it.
Speaker #2: But more are coming. More are coming soon. In terms of those partners and with grants and with money that will come with that as well, so we do expect revenue we expect it next year.
Speaker #2: We expect to be able to raise capital, both non-dilutively and from third parties at the subsidiary level—also non-dilutively for loan shareholders—before the end of this year.
Speaker #2: Now we're realigning, we're recalibrating, and then we'll move forward to that end—hopefully very soon. And this is the famous summary; it hasn't really changed materially.
Speaker #2: Other than we're seeing an amalgamation in Silver Springs to the extent that we were able to—I think Judd mentioned it. It's not a small feat.
Speaker #2: Our increase to almost 50% of serious strengths opportunity fund was coincident with funding them closing on 157 parcels of land representing over 2,000 acres of land, representing over 2,000 acre-feet of water rights, that's all owned now.
Speaker #2: No big obligation, no big monkey on the back, right? That's owned. We own half of it, plus our property. When you put those together into one thing, it's highly valuable.
Speaker #2: And that's what we're going after. So I think, Zach, it's good. Let's turn to questions if that's okay.
Speaker #1: Thank you, Corrado. As I mentioned at the beginning of the call, we received more than 40 questions prior to the call, and I can see we have a number of additional questions coming through Zoom.
Speaker #2: Great.
Speaker #1: Corrado and Judd, our first question is: Does Comstock Inc. expect adjustments in the number of outstanding shares?
Speaker #2: Yeah. So, in the number of outstanding shares, no. But if that question is talking about future issuance of shares, for equity raises or anything like that—as we've talked about—a lot of the capex spend is behind us.
Speaker #2: We got the first facility funded and paid for, and the second facility is well-funded. The R&D activity is well-funded, so we are just focused now on executing. That's our focus—just getting that up and running.
Speaker #2: We also have some additional dollars coming in from the mining asset sale, so we remain strong on our balance sheet and will be able to fund the future.
Speaker #1: Thank you for that, Judd. Our next question is, how long until this company starts making money?
Speaker #2: Well, so I mean, we have been making money from the pilot operations. We will start making additional as we ramp up the plant. But I think the question really probably is more about when do we start getting cash flow positive?
Speaker #2: And we've always talked about Plant Number One. Once we reach 20 to 20-plus percent, we're generating cash from an operations standpoint. And then if we think about company-wide, once we start hitting that 40–50 percent of operations just from Plant Number One, we're covering all the costs.
Speaker #2: And we start generating cash, and that's not too far off.
Speaker #1: Going specifically to Comstock Metals, here is a two-part question. Which company is Comstock's most significant competitor? How will Comstock be able to gain and keep enough business to become and stay profitable?
Speaker #2: So I'll take that one. So, I think starting from the second and going backwards, maybe, Zach, the panels are out there. I mentioned it earlier.
Speaker #2: Our studies show there. We now know more intimately. We've always known a lot. I don't want to make it sound like we're just seeing this stuff for the first time.
Speaker #2: Absolutely not. But we've hired independents to assess it. We've cross-referenced it on our database. We get more and more data all the time. I think the most important thing is just being engaged with customers directly.
Speaker #2: Walking the fields, talking about what their problems are, talking about how they're dealing with their problems. And we're these are the big ones. RWE, Next Era, the Florida Light and Powers, these are the big ones.
Speaker #2: And we have a good national handle on it. I think that the answer to the question is: we solved their problem. We solved their problem.
Speaker #2: They have an environmental issue, first. We solve it completely—we extinguish that liability, and we do it expediently. Secondly, we can scale to the magnitude of their problem.
Speaker #2: Now, that's not as evident to everybody today, right? Because the panels are starting to come out—they're coming out faster, and they're coming out in bigger quantity.
Speaker #2: But it's getting bigger. How fast that grows is still not the easiest thing to predict. And, as I mentioned earlier, you run the models now with 18-year lives versus 20-year lives versus 16-year lives.
Speaker #2: Dramatically different result in the near term. Once we get through 2030, 2031, it really starts to concentrate because there's so many.
Speaker #2: So, I think we keep doing what we're doing in terms of how effectively we engage these customers. Now, in terms of competition—and I mean this humbly, right—it is aggravating to us that people still will exploit the loopholes in the regulations, the inconsistencies in regulations, and send things to landfills. So, we see sometimes material gets hidden in auto fluff and tries to get passed off as solid waste.
Speaker #2: We see people shredding things—we would say irresponsibly—right? Because all the hazardous materials, the cadmium and the lead and the glues, it's all stuck to it.
Speaker #2: And ship it overseas. Technically, by the letter of the law and the right manifesting, that's not allowable. And practically, we're seeing it get stopped when it is discovered.
Speaker #2: We are, right? But it's still happening. So we feel 'competitors' is probably the wrong word. The alternatives that are still being exploited are implicating to us.
Speaker #2: Right? We're not getting those panels coming to our system. Once we have our big machine up and running, as we improve our ability to effectively communicate these issues throughout the organizations we're talking to—not just the field operators, not just the engineering firms that are deploying and/or decommissioning these fields, not just to the directors of HSC and EP, but the C-suites, the C-suites of these companies.
Speaker #2: That's what we're doing. The penetration of that—it's a nascent industry. It's new. A lot of this is new to people. When you talk about actual competitors—and I'm not, this is not being disparaging or disrespectful at all.
Speaker #2: To fundamentally say, we do not see anyone who has a science-based solution that can effectively generate clean materials and scale. We don't see it.
Speaker #2: Right? So when you're operating a 5,000-ton-a-day demo, there are two, or three, or four people you can point to that are doing similar things.
Speaker #2: When you're operating a 100,000—I'm sorry, a 5,000-ton-a-year demo; when you're operating a 3.3 million panel or a 100,000-ton-a-year system, that can scale.
Speaker #2: That is scaled. That is cleaning glass. That is recovering metals. That is—we don't see anybody, I don't even see anybody that's actually trying to do that.
Speaker #2: Right? So I feel we're spending less time looking sideways, and we're spending more time just engaging the customers—and it's working.
Speaker #1: Thank you, Corrado. I have two questions again, but it's just one topic. The first facility should have been operational in June. Is that still the case?
Speaker #1: Are operations still expected to start early in August?
Speaker #2: Right. So, yeah, there's some overlapping there. I don't want to repeat myself too much. We will be done testing the oven by the end of July.
Speaker #2: So, last piece of the equation—okay, we're very, very familiar and confident with the ovens. All the gas lines, gas hookups—they're all in place.
Speaker #2: They're all connected electrically. So we'll be done by the end of July. In August, we will start feeding a panel in the front and material coming out the back.
Speaker #2: Keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it. There's a little bit of, "Okay, you're running a whole thing altogether. A week or two.
Speaker #2: Got all that? How's it working? Some of the new employees, some of the training—some of that is okay. Sometime in August, not too far away, maybe a week or two, it's going to be running at a certain level, and it's not going to stop.
Speaker #2: Now, I said earlier, yes, it's a month or two later than we had hoped. We didn't ever expect to have a full-class upgrade system in place and already operating.
Speaker #2: We didn't even think that we would start on the metal extraction until August of this year, okay? We changed those plans and pulled everything forward, in one case because the government prompted us.
Speaker #2: And we're thankful because now we're ahead of that curve. So, I just feel like by the end of this year, when all three things are running, we will be ahead of our original schedule.
Speaker #2: Not that it's that important if we're a little ahead or a little behind, but just in fairness, we're doing more than we originally thought we would at this point.
Speaker #1: What are the potential revenue and profit margins from the Aluminate agreement?
Speaker #2: So, we wouldn't ever disclose that, right? The thing that's positive about having OEMs, right, is that there's a lot of material that gets scrapped and wasted.
Speaker #2: Maybe not relatively a lot to them, but it's a lot to us that gets scrapped and wasted. In all forms, right? So we're not necessarily getting full broken solar panel.
Speaker #2: We could, right? You could break one at the end of the assembly process. But we're getting other types of scrap materials that are very enhancing to our metal yields, right?
Speaker #2: It's very complementary, and we like it. And it's a very strong—the relationship's getting stronger and stronger, so we like it. And of course, we have a site in Ohio, and I didn't say—I may or may not have said it earlier—but that site's filling up with panels too.
Speaker #2: Right? We're happy that we opened that site when we did.
Speaker #1: Thank you, Corrado. Are you going to have sufficient panels to satisfy three shifts in the new big plant? What about the second plant?
Speaker #2: So that's a good question, right? It's a good question for a different reason: the efficiency of our variable costs, and the relatively very low amount of human labor required to monitor the system as it's operating.
Speaker #2: Obviously, you've got to load panels in the front end. You've got to unload super stacks in the back end, okay? Make it most economical to run the system continuously once it starts up.
Speaker #2: So you could run the trade-off analysis, but at 25% operating capacity, you're running the system full all the time. We're not—we don't need—we're going to be running it full all the time, essentially, starting in August.
Speaker #2: Okay, so the answer to that question is there's a very, very low break-even threshold for one of these facilities. As Judd mentioned, it is not only unlikely—it's not ideal operationally—that you wouldn't run one shift.
Speaker #2: It doesn't work that way, right? Once those ovens turn on, they're going to keep running. It's very efficient to do it that way.
Speaker #1: Corrado, pivoting to Biolium, will we get more regular updates on the technology developments, and how should we interpret the Q2 impairments?
Speaker #2: So, the impairments—Judd, I think, made it a point that they were non-cash, non-strategic. Right? Non-strategic means there was intellectual property associated with the acquisition.
Speaker #2: Most of that was done as a stock acquisition that it's very interesting technology. It's not it doesn't have we don't have any role for the technology and the goal of the company.
Speaker #2: So it's difficult to justify keeping that asset on your balance sheet and amortizing it over 20 years. It just doesn't make any sense, so we impaired it.
Speaker #2: We think the impact that it has in our business is like zero. Okay? So that became apparent as we realigned and focused Biolium on its one true goal.
Speaker #2: And I do think you'll be hearing more updates, right? In part because both Hexis and the Biolium team together are active in the markets, you're going to see some commercial things.
Speaker #2: I think you're going to hear some technology development updates that are both new and evolving. They have a dedicated team, and they're working hard. Right?
Speaker #2: They separated last May, and we're less involved in the day-to-day. That shouldn't be interpreted to mean we're not as excited. Frankly, we're gearing up to raise capital, and it became apparent that getting realigned—getting tightened around this incredible thesis of farm-to-fuel—was important to be done.
Speaker #2: Get it done. Right? So in that context, once all of that gets done—hopefully in the next 45 to 60 days—then we could look back out into the markets.
Speaker #2: My confidence level in being able to raise capital directly into Biolium, like we did last May, is very high. It's very high, so I think it's very high with the right plan.
Speaker #2: It's very high with the right story, and we have it. So, it's just taking a little longer. Disappointing—I want to be clear—disappointing.
Speaker #2: Disappointment is, I said it at the annual meeting, and I'll say it again, okay? But I'm no less excited about the potential.
Speaker #1: Corrado, you also answered the next three questions on Biolium, so let me go to the next question on Biolium. And that is: What is the status of the Biolium capital raise?
Speaker #2: Yeah, I think – well, I kind of just said that, Zach, right? So, a pause, resume September, October, high confidence.
Speaker #1: Okay. And that's followed by: At what point does Comstock need to start giving cash to Biolium to keep it going?
Speaker #2: So, if there's some bridging that needs to happen between now and then, we're looking at that. And it's in our best interest, I think, to do that.
Speaker #2: And we'll be, as Judd said, extremely judicious with our money. And also very safe. It would almost certainly be a bridge loan type of a notion, not more equity.
Speaker #2: We're ready for them to be capital independent.
Speaker #1: Thanks, Corrado. Most of the questions that are coming in are on Comstock Metals, so let's pivot back to Comstock Metals. How robust is your solar panel process to an unexpected power or natural gas outage?
Speaker #1: And this person is asking that because they've seen cases where early plants run into issues due to an unexpected power outage causing damage to sensitive equipment.
Speaker #2: Yeah, that's a good question. So, I think—look, I think in the SSOF presentation I showed, we're in a very safe location. We don't have any kind of history of those kinds of natural disasters.
Speaker #2: Having said that, and interestingly, we have electrical power to the plant with Nevada Energy. We actually were trying to upgrade that electrical capacity, but that didn't work.
Speaker #2: So we essentially put natural gas-generated electricity in place, which you could kind of think of as portable, mobile, and/or redundant. Right? So, it's not full redundancy, but there's a bit of redundancy there.
Speaker #2: If something should happen, which we don't expect. Right? So I think the and we got we bought two generators not one. Right? So we actually have a lot of power capacity in place.
Speaker #2: And some redundancy with the grid. I'm not suggesting we have complete and total redundancy, but we have a lot of redundancy. So I don't see a scenario where the plant would go down.
Speaker #2: Right? But I do see a scenario where, if the world ended, we may be operating at something less than full. So, I think 'we're well protected' is probably the simple answer.
Speaker #1: Has Comstock Metals made progress in off-take agreements? And license agreements?
Speaker #2: Lots of off-take agreements, okay? I think the thing that's probably clarifying there is we're signing a lot of agreements, but that doesn't mean— and we're signing a lot of agreements with a lot of big companies.
Speaker #2: That doesn't mean every big company has a lot of panels today. So I think I've said in the past, you could have a scenario where a customer base could deliver 25,000 or 30,000 tons of business in a year, and then four or five years from now, that same exact base could be five times or ten times that number, depending on what region they are in, what the age of the panels are, and how they scale.
Speaker #2: We're getting more and more intimate with that today, so I think that—I feel like—we're leading in market penetration in securing these customers.
Speaker #2: I think that the thing that maybe is a little deceiving is that securing a customer doesn't mean that you have 100% of the maximum amount of business that they would give you on the first day.
Speaker #2: Right? Because their business is the maturation of those panels, right? It's like when they come to end of life. So their needs today are much smaller than their needs in the future.
Speaker #2: Right? But I think people will have a better feeling about that in October, November, December, January. Right? We'll start to see flows, and they're not going to be tsunamis.
Speaker #2: They're going to come. We're going to keep layering them on. We're going to get new customers. There will be more panel flow. To Judd's point, 45 to 50 percent will be in a happy place.
Speaker #2: We won't be satisfied. We won't be satisfied. But when we see those kind of ramp-ups starting, then we'll start thinking about how do we, again, judiciously deploy in Southern Nevada, in Ohio, in Texas—maybe with less capacity to start.
Speaker #2: That kind of idea.
Speaker #1: What ramp-ups should investors expect going into year-end?
Speaker #2: Look, we're not going to guide past running at this 25% level. We feel very confident running at the 25% level. We will be disappointed—and maybe investors will be disappointed too—if it's not higher than the 25% level.
Speaker #2: But it's just still too nascent for us to be able to protect the ramp-up. We've got incentive to double that number, right? So we're working very hard.
Speaker #2: But I don't feel like we need incentive. We want to get the plant running full, right? We're just going to keep pushing. But 25% is 25%—proves what most people are looking to see.
Speaker #2: Does the machine work? Does the machine work a panel every seven seconds? Okay? Does 25% turn profit at the line of business level? I mean, we don't really think about—I mean, it is relevant to say it is profitable at the line of business level.
Speaker #2: It's relevant to say—it's not that relevant, right? Because we're not a line of business; we're a corporation. So we need to be profitable at the corporation level, company-wide.
Speaker #2: Company-wide, right? So getting to 50%—even getting to 25%—is a hugely meaningful milestone. It works. It works reliably. It works profitably. Three big things.
Speaker #2: Getting to 50%. We're profitable as a corporation. Holy crap. Then the questions are going to be, why isn't Texas up? Why isn't Ohio up?
Speaker #2: Right? And we'll be happy to hear those questions.
Speaker #1: Carrado, we have one of those questions already. What is the timeline for the Ohio facility? And current utilization of California transfer facility including number of panels stored?
Speaker #2: Yeah, so we can say that we've got somewhere between 8,000 to 9,000 tons of panels on the ground. Okay? We're not disclosing how much is at each site and that kind of thing.
Speaker #2: There are panels in California. There are panels in Ohio. There are a lot of panels in Ohio. Okay? When are we going to start?
Speaker #2: We don't have a timeline. We do not, right now, have a timeline, right? The absolute mission-critical thing is to get the first system up and running, ramp it up, show that ramp, and feel that ramp is sustainable.
Speaker #2: Okay, then we'll pull the triggers on deploying more capital after that. So I know some people are nervous that we're going to be premature. We're not going to be premature.
Speaker #2: And for those who want us to go faster, let me put your mind at ease. Selecting the site, permitting the site—I can probably anticipate that question and knock it off right here.
Speaker #2: Right? We are ready for the Ohio submission. We did submit in Nevada. I think I read one of the questions that came in—how come it's not logged in at NDEP?
Speaker #2: We submitted it, and we anticipated there could be some delay before they process it because they're very, very, very busy, which is why we submitted it early.
Speaker #2: So, but we don't. Right now we're comfortable with the lead times, right? We're prospecting Texas. I'll share with you, we waffled a little bit.
Speaker #2: We slowed down in Texas. Now we want to speed up again, right? Because the market intelligence is telling us there's more panels there than we originally thought.
Speaker #2: There's more older panels there than we originally thought. But the actual market, right, is breaking panels and shipping a lot of trucks. So those two things got our attention.
Speaker #2: And we've sort of quickened our step here. With at least site selection. But site selection is not synonymous with deploying production capital. I just want to be clear about that.
Speaker #2: Being ready with the site is very inexpensive. Deploying the capital is when you have a major you have major decision on allocation. Those two things are different.
Speaker #2: So people should feel good that we're not resting. We're building out the network, but that's not synonymous with deploying all the capital.
Speaker #1: Okay, pivoting to the Sierra Springs Opportunity Fund.
Speaker #2: Please.
Speaker #1: Can you please give us an update on the power procurement and timeline?
Speaker #2: Yeah, so the 2028 open bid came out. We participated. We signed a precedent agreement, and we're fully compliant, right? With that initial 50,000 Dekatherms a day—that can translate to up to 300 megawatts.
Speaker #2: That puts you in the game, right? You're in the game. You've got enough industrial land and enough power to get everyone's interest. Full stop.
Speaker #2: Okay? There's another bid—we believe there's, we don't believe. We know, right? There's another follow-on bid that's coming that is much more efficient to participate in. Because if we participate in 2028, we're in a pole position for 2030.
Speaker #2: We've already expressed our interest. It's already been acknowledged. And that's all fantastic. What does that mean? That means we feel like we'll put up to a minimum of 200,000 Deca Therms, 50 plus another 150.
Speaker #2: Okay? But the requirements for that are later, right? So it really works into our scheme very, very nicely—that you can literally come out and say, "We have up to 1.2 gigawatts, and the lands to hold it." That's it.
Speaker #2: That's what we've been working on. Could it be 1.5 gigawatts? Could it be 1.8 gigawatts? Pretty easily. Pretty easily. So we're being extremely diligent.
Speaker #2: We're being extremely diligent. We're very careful. But more importantly, we're just making sure all of the salient, important prerequisites are addressed. So this is not, "Hey, let me put a shingle up on the property and say 'for sale.'" There's fiber.
Speaker #2: There's power. There's water. There's land. There's infrastructure. We're checking all those boxes very, very well. And we're not far away from being ready. I don't know.
Speaker #2: Three, four, five, six weeks, right? Whatever it takes, we're going to do it, and then we'll be out there.
Speaker #1: What is the status of the opportunity zone property that Comstock owns on its balance sheet?
Speaker #2: So, our property is adjacent to these other properties. In fairness, we've always seen them as two assets. I think, with us having near 50%, and likely over 50%, it's all amalgamating in our minds.
Speaker #2: Right? What is the consolidated, amalgamated, powered land value that we can maximize? Right? And so the answer is, it's in lockstep. It's in lockstep.
Speaker #1: If the real estate monetization yields greater than expected proceeds on a return of capital, would there be share buybacks or a special dividend?
Speaker #2: With the magnitude of potential, those are all possible. I think the timing's not certain, so we're not going to get ahead of ourselves. But certainly, those are all things that are possible.
Speaker #1: And what are some conceptual financial structures you are considering regarding the monetization of the SSO?
Speaker #2: Oh, who's asking that question? The easiest answer to that question is, the market will have an influence on it. Right?
Speaker #2: Someone could just come in and say, "We want to acquire the whole thing. The financial structure will be very simple." But we don't know what that's going to be yet.
Speaker #2: Right? It could be phased. It could be bifurcated. We don't know. We know what the value components are—we just don't know how much of those are interesting to whom.
Speaker #2: But we will know that once we engage.
Speaker #1: Okay, Corrado, and this is the final question on SSOF. What is the status of the surety bond on the additional 900 megawatts of natural gas for the SSOF property?
Speaker #2: So, the reference to that is what I was referring to earlier, right? If we—and this probably came from my comment—if we have already committed to 50,000 Dekatherms, signed a hard precedent agreement, which is the equivalent of 300 megawatts, then another 150,000 presumably would be equivalent to another 900 megawatts.
Speaker #2: But that's correct, right? And that's analogous. But as I said earlier, even though we're in the priority queue for that, it hasn't come to a formal bid yet.
Speaker #2: Right? So we see it. We have it in our purview. But it hasn't been locked low. The good news to that is the bonding is pushed off.
Speaker #2: Right? The way it worked last time is, once we committed, you had a number of months—right?—to deal with putting up either collateral or bonding.
Speaker #2: Okay? It's the same thing. So, to the extent we haven't formally or hard committed, then there's going to be a little more time. And I think that should be wonderful.
Speaker #2: Because that almost presents a scenario where the counterparties—that is, the buyers, the interested developers—might step into that scenario before we'd have to. We don't know any of that yet.
Speaker #2: Right? The answer to the question, though, is it's going to be later than we originally thought—and certainly not, in my mind, by September.
Speaker #1: Corrado, we're going to pivot back to Comstock Metals because we've received just so many questions on it. These are rapid-fire questions, and I'll try to keep up with you.
Speaker #1: So, here we go. Could you give us a status update on silver recycling from solar panels?
Speaker #2: Yeah, so I think everybody knows that silver is one of the important value drivers in the equation. We're very unsatisfied with the recoveries that we get by just selling our tailings.
Speaker #2: The answer is that one of the priorities in the development of the metal recovery solution is to test and validate the ability to yield out silver first.
Speaker #2: So, if we're going for a 110-a-day system by the end of the year, hopefully we'll know about silver before the end of the year.
Speaker #1: Are there any updates on the visibility of procuring more panels for recycling?
Speaker #2: Yes. I mean, I think we answered that one exactly. We have a lot of visibility to a lot of panels, and all we're doing right now is procuring more.
Speaker #2: I would use the word 'securing' more, for flow. Yeah.
Speaker #1: Could you indicate the number of solar panels Comstock Metals will recycle in years ahead and the amount of silver this will produce?
Speaker #2: So look, I mean, if you're operating at 25 percent, that's 2,000 tons a month. Sorry, that's 2,000 tons a month.
Speaker #2: If you're operating at 50 percent capacity, that's 4,000 tons a month. Those are our two intermediate objectives. We'll call victory at 2; not just we know we'll get to 2.
Speaker #2: It's just the output that results from that—that will be great. And then when we get to four, that will be great. And then we'll update our guidance because we'll know a lot more.
Speaker #2: When we get to those points, I don't think it's practical to talk about silver yields because that's what we're testing right now. Once we test it, once we've proven a process, once we've had some statistical predictability to the yields, right, then we can talk, hopefully with some joy, about that.
Speaker #2: But it's premature.
Speaker #1: Corrado, you'll need your crystal ball for this one. What is your forecast for the price of silver?
Speaker #2: No, everyone was with us when we were at 35 and 40. Everyone was gasping for air at 110. We're below 60 now, so not something I think anybody's capable of predicting.
Speaker #2: But we're bullish on the metal from a supply and demand perspective, of course, over the long term. But that is not a prediction.
Speaker #1: Okay. And here's a similar follow-up: Do you foresee silver being substituted by copper in new solar panels?
Speaker #2: Yeah, we foresee a lot of changes, right? That's a great question. I'm glad that somebody asked that question. We foresee a lot of changes.
Speaker #2: We foresee increased wattage. We foresee different metals. We foresee a lot of changes. And I guess this is the place where I'd like to say, this is when we like being chemistry-based.
Speaker #2: We like being periodic table grounded. And quite frankly, we see a lot of renewable metal opportunities—of different ilks and different quantities and different sources.
Speaker #2: It's always been our view that you need to walk before you can run. But the one example that I'll use is: we were approached by the Nevada Division of Minerals, through one of our directors – "Hey, you guys are processing industrial tailings."
Speaker #2: Yeah, you're able to recover metals from industrial tailings? We believe so. We're still piloting it, but yeah. You think it would work on some old industrial mine tailings?
Speaker #2: And is that what the composition is? Right? So, I think, obviously, the administration is trumpeting magnets today. I don't know what the exact driver of that is.
Speaker #2: But there are a lot of metals that we have our eyes on, but those are much, much longer-term, and certainly not worth talking about.
Speaker #2: But I think the takeaway from that question is, we're not going to be—what we know is this: there's going to be a lot of waste.
Speaker #2: And it's got a lot of metals in it. So, what do you want to be good at? The chemistry, the science, the responsive nature.
Speaker #2: When major, major glass companies come in, it's going to sound remedial—and it's not. When major, major glass companies come in and they're talking about specifications of materials, and specifications of metals, and specifications of compositions, do you have the ability to assess—right—the technical and economic ability to recover those materials practically?
Speaker #2: Okay? And then engineer and deploy a solution. Your technical competency, your practical operating experience, your lab turnaround time, your analytic and sampling time—those things—and I don't know how to layer on the practical nature of that.
Speaker #2: Fortunato is remarkable. I sat in rooms with four PhDs, brilliant in terms of chemistry theories and possibilities. But he's always the voice that's saying, "Yeah."
Speaker #2: That won't work for this reason—and it's a science-based reason, it's a fact-based reason. And the amount of false starts, or the amount of capacity that you preserve by not going down those rabbit holes, translates to speed.
Speaker #2: That translates to speed and effectiveness in what we're actually deploying. And I think the Eddy system is a fantastic example. It wasn't even in the plan in January, and it was up and running in May.
Speaker #2: Like that, right? That's remarkable. So, and it's valuable. And it's not an R&D lab. Oh, by the way, we have an R&D lab at 600 Lake.
Speaker #2: Right? We need to test the chemistries. So anyway, it's a really great round of questions. I'm thrilled at the number of participants on this call.
Speaker #2: I think we might have broken the record again. And I'm glad, Zach, that you decided to take a little more time to answer most of the questions.
Speaker #2: But we'll leave it with this: Please, please, please—and I know most of our investors are not shy—please reach out. Judd's been incredibly busy.
Speaker #2: From call to call, without reach. That first slide that he showed is who’s in the stock, right? But there’s just as big a slide of the people that are outreaching to talk to us, often for the first time.
Speaker #2: Let's keep that going.
Speaker #1: Thank you, Corrado. That concludes Comstock's second-quarter 2026 earnings call and business update. Thank you all for joining us.
Speaker #2: Thanks, Zach. Thanks, Judd.
