Management Comment
Commenting on the third quarter of 2023 and recent corporate events, Dr. Patrick R. Gruber, Gevo’s Chief Executive Officer, said “We completed FEED earlier this year for our Net-Zero 1 plant (“NZ1”), came to general engineering, procurement and construction terms with McDermott, are deep into detailed engineering, and are three months into the full formal due diligence and term sheet negotiation process for a U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee for the NZ1 project. We said in August that it could take up to 12 months to complete the process, and based on the positive progress we have made this quarter, we believe we are on track.
In addition to progress on NZ1, we are pleased that we completed the planned capacity expansion of our Iowa dairy manure RNG project this quarter, expanding from 355,000 MMBtu to 400,000 MMBtu. The combined three dairy farms, connected by pipeline to our gas upgrading and injection site, capture the methane emissions from cow manure and convert them into a drop-in replacement for fossil natural gas. In addition to being a valuable asset by itself, we believe this gives us strategic optionality to use some of that biogas to support our Net-Zero hydrocarbon production plants. We are on track to meet our annual production goal of more than 310,000 MMBtu, and prove capacity of the system of 400,000 MMBtu per year by year end.
In Q2 we achieved a significant milestone in our Verity Carbon Solutions business by launching a carbon tracking application for farmers. This application provides farmers with a digital interface for a personal computer or other device to visualize data related to the production of corn and determine a CI score field by field. This enables the farmers to make better decisions as to how to improve production and carbon footprint, which go hand in hand, particularly when it comes to soil health and sustainability. We also achieved a milestone in tracking CI scores in an operating ethanol plant. We are able to capture the data from ethanol plants and use that data to calculate CI for the plant on a real time basis. We believe that tracking field level data for feedstock production and the plant operating data will enable a robust system of measuring, reporting, and verifying the CI of low-carbon fuel and food products that we produce. We expect that we will be able to offer some guidance for Verity’s growth profile sometime late this year.
Our ethanol-to-olefins (“ETO”) technology development, believed to be a breakthrough for the process to convert ethanol into olefins that can be used to make chemicals, plastics and fuels, is going well. It was gratifying to receive the first licensing payment for our ETO technology from LG Chem, a very credible partner, in Q2. We have continued to file additional patents on our Net-Zero plant designs, and processes. We are a company with deep intellectual property, which we look forward to commercializing with partners like LG Chem.”
Dr. Gruber concluded, “Even though it feels slow while we are waiting for the Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) rules to emerge, I am pleased with our continued progress, and that we are meeting our previously stated milestones. Our evolution to a model focused on developing and licensing in addition to investing is giving us a more optimized pathway to profitability as it reduces our need for our capital and enables accelerated growth without hindering our ability to invest directly in projects of our choosing. I believe we are at the convergence point of our technology portfolio and strong market tailwinds, giving our shareholders a unique seat at the table to leverage high-growth markets like SAF, RNG, and CI tracking.”
Third Quarter 2023 Financial Results
Operating revenue. During the three months ended September 30, 2023, operating revenue increased $4.2 million compared to the three months ended September 30, 2022, primarily due sales of RNG and environmental attributes from our RNG project. Sales under our RNG project commenced in the third quarter of 2022, and only included RNG sales during the ramp up period. During the three months ended September 30, 2023, we sold 81,271 MMBtu of RNG from our RNG project, resulting in revenue realized of $4.5 million.
Cost of production. Cost of production increased $1.9 million during the three months ended September 30, 2023, compared to the three months ended September 30, 2022, mainly due to the production and sales from our RNG project, which significantly increased in 2023, after the ramp-up phase.
Depreciation and amortization. Depreciation and amortization increased $3.3 million during the three months ended September 30, 2023, compared to the three months ended September 30, 2022, primarily due to additional depreciation for RNG assets placed into service in 2022 and accelerated depreciation on Agri-Energy segment assets due to shorter lives stemming from the impairment assessment during the third quarter of 2022.
Research and development expense. Research and development expense remained flat during the three months ended September 30, 2023, compared to the three months ended September 30, 2022. The expenses primarily consist of patent and personnel related costs, as well as lab work and supplies related to our ETO and other technologies.