Aqua Metals, Inc. (NASDAQ:AQMS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript March 27, 2024 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Bob Meyers - IR, FNK IR
Steve Cotton - President and CEO
Judd Merrill - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Michael Legg - Benchmark Company
Sameer Joshi - H.C. Wainwright

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the Aqua Metals Fourth Quarter Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded.

I'll now turn the call over to our host Bob Meyers with FNK IR. Bob, please go ahead.

Bob Meyers

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everybody, for joining. Earlier today, Aqua Metals issued a press release providing an operational update and discussing financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2023. This release is available in the Investor Relations section on the company's website at aquametals.com. Hosting the call today are Steve Cotton, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Judd Merrill, Chief Financial Officer.

Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that during the call, management will be making forward-looking statements. Please refer to the company's report on Form 10-K filed today, March 27th, for a summary of the forward-looking statements and the risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements. Aqua Metals cautions investors not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. The company does not undertake and specifically disclaims any obligation to update or revise such statements to reflect new circumstances or unanticipated events as they occur except as required by law.

As a reminder, after the formal remarks, we will be taking questions. Questions will be accepted over the phone from analysts and all other investors can submit a question using the online webcast portal provided in today's and earlier press releases. We will take as many questions as we can in our available time slot.

To start the call, we will show a brief video that highlights our progress. For those that have dialed in, you will be able to hear the narration and replays will be available on the website. Steve will lead the call from there.

[Video Presentation]

Steve Cotton

To initiating commercialization and we enter 2024 advancing our commercial activities. First, our pilot plant now has over a full year of operations and learnings and is currently operating 24 hours a day and five days a week. The pilot has been producing nickel, cobalt, lithium hydroxide, lithium carbonate, and other valuable materials that we've been using to validate our capabilities and for providing representative materials, shipments, to an expanding list of existing and potential customers and partners. Unlike other moonshot approaches with cost overruns and delays, our commitment to pilot has served to de-risk our process, capitalization and projected operating costs for our commercial-sized Sierra-ARC facility.