Welcome to the Gevo Incorporated First Quarter 2017 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Vanessa and I will be your operator for today’s call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please note that this conference is being recorded. And I’ll now turn the call over to Mr. Geoffrey T. Williams, Jr., General Counsel. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining Gevo’s first quarter 2017 earnings conference call. Earlier today, we issued a press release, which outlines the topics that we plan to discuss. I’d like to point out that the press release was inadvertently issued two hours earlier than we had intended. As in the past and going forward, Gevo expects to release its earnings press releases after market trading hours conclude. A copy of the first quarter 2017 earnings press release is available on our website at www.gevo.com. I would like to remind our listeners that this conference call is open to the media and we are providing a simultaneous webcast of this call to the public. A replay of today’s call will be available on Gevo’s website. I’d now like to introduce today’s participants from the Company. With us today is Pat Gruber, Gevo’s Chief Executive Officer; and Mike Willis, Gevo’s Chief Financial Officer. On the call today, you will hear discussions of certain non-GAAP financial measures. Non-GAAP financial measures should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures is contained in the press release distributed today and which is posted on our website. We will also make certain forward-looking statements about events and circumstances that have not yet occurred including but not limited to projections about Gevo’s operating activities for the remainder of 2017 and beyond. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current, beliefs, expectations and assumptions and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties including those disclosed in Gevo’s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, and in subsequent reports and other filings made with the SEC by Gevo including our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements speak only as of today’s date and Gevo disclaims any obligation to update information contained in these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. On today’s call, Pat will begin with the discussion of Gevo’s business developments; Mike will then review Gevo’s financial results for the first quarter of 2017. Following the presentation, we will open up the call for questions. I’ll now turn the call over to Pat Gruber.

Thank you, Geoff and thank you all for joining us today. Following up on our earnings call of only a few weeks ago, our whole team at Gevo remains laser focused by getting the Company to profitability. As I said in last call, we believe the best path to becoming profitable company is to turn 100% of our grind fermentation capacity at Luverne to isobutanol and/or hydrocarbon products, namely ATJ, Alcohol to Jet Fuel and isooctane. We are executing on this plan and are well into the engineering work to make this happen. We believe that the isobutanol our capacity of the expanded plant will be more than 12 million gallons per year with the actual size and configuration being dependent on customer contracts, capital requirements and financing. Given the level of engagement by customers for our ATJ and isooctane, we expect the majority of the isobutanol capacity will be processed further to produce hydrocarbons. We currently expect that the hydrocarbon capacity will be in the 8 to 10 million gallons per year range although this number could change for a variety of reasons including customer demand and sources of financing. So in parallel, with us doing the engineering work, what do we believe are the things we need to accomplish in the near-term to enable this build out of Luverne to occur. In our minds, it boils down to two key things, one conclude the restructuring of our balance sheet to lessen our near-term liquidity issues and extend our runway, which we believe will give customers, partners and the investment community much more confidence in Gevo; two, sign-up customers for long-term supply agreements, forward selling the products we expect to be producing from the expanded Luverne plant. As already mentioned, the nature of these contracts will dictate the configuration…

Thank you, Pat. Gevo reported revenue in the first quarter of 2017 of $5.6 million as compared to $6.3 million in the same period in 2016. The decrease in revenue during 2017 is primarily a result of the production and sale of approximately $5.5 million of ethanol, isobutanol and distillers grains at the Luverne plant as compared to $5.8 million in the first quarter of 2016. This decrease in revenue was mainly due to lower ethanol production and distiller grain prices in the first quarter of 2017 versus the same period in 2016. During the first quarter of 2017, hydrocarbon revenues were $0.1 million, down $0.2 million versus the same period in 2016, principally as a result of the shipment of less isooctane during the quarter. Gevo also generated grants and other revenue of $32,000 during the first quarter of 2017, down $0.2 million as compared to the same period in 2016. The decline was primarily due to the completion of our project with the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance or NARA in the third quarter of 2016. Cost of goods sold was $9.4 million in the first quarter of 2017 versus $9.2 million in the same period in 2016. Cost of goods sold included approximately $7.8 million associated with the production of ethanol, isobutanol and related products and approximately $1.5 million in depreciation expenses. Gross loss was $3.8 million for the first quarter of 2017 versus $2.9 million for the first quarter of 2016. R&D expense for the first quarter of 2017 increased to $1.2 million compared to $1 million for the comparable quarter in 2016 due primarily to an increase in employee related expenses. SG&A expense for the first quarter of 2017 increased to $2.2 million compared to $1.9 million for the comparable quarter in 2016, also due primarily…

Thank you. We’ll now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] And I see we have our first question from Amit Dayal with Rodman & Renshaw. Please go ahead.

Congrats on all the recent developments. Those lines -- this HCS related announcement, has that promoted any other discussions with other potential customers around similar agreements?

It has in that HCS is a pretty famous company, unfortunately not here in the U.S. but in Europe they are. And so, people took notice of that. And what’s interesting is it’s about isooctane, and isooctane is the major component of gasoline. And in fact that’s what they are going to be using it for is for really high-end gasoline and reference fuels and things like that. But price that they are paying for us now and in the future is that quite a premium. So, people take notice of that and of course it’s relevant as we discuss isooctane with airlines because whenever we produce hydrocarbon form isobutanol, we get a mixture of jet fuel plus isooctane. So, the airlines and the jet people are keen on seeing what we do with the isooctane.

Got it. In regards to the extension on the debt maturities et cetera. Is the shareholder vote coming up in June, is that sort of the final step in completing that process?

It is.

Okay. And then in terms of the outlook, you’ve provided an outlook for 2017 earlier in the year, are you sort of maintaining that outlook, is there any sort of updates to that?

We’ve not changed guidance at this time.

Okay, got it. And then, in regards to the build out at Luverne coming up, when will you have a more concrete sort of plan of execution and estimates of cost et cetera?

That would be later this year we’d be further along with the engineering. So far, it’s all looking pretty good though. We like where we are on the engineering around hydrocarbon plant. When you use isobutanol as a raw material, it’s clean, we do the hydration chemistry to revive [ph] that oxygen, left with butylenes; that’s a clean chemistry and then you forth and make the octane in the jet fuel. And it’s all coming together real well. And of course on the isobutanol side that we know how to do because we just built versus last year a year ago, so pretty clear on with that cost.

Got it. And then, just in terms of market development, final question for me. You guys have been pretty busy with dealing with the debt related issues et cetera in the early part of the year. Going forward, what are going to be doing differently? Are we going to be getting more aggressive on the market development side? Any sort of color on or specifics on what we’re going to be doing to build the pipeline to match some of our production et cetera?

Yes. So for us, there is three big market areas that are going to matter. Number is the jet fuel. The jet fuel is interesting because we have Lufthansa out there, there is other people that are in negotiation. And we’re going to move those contracts along that’s our intent. And our stated goals for the year is at 50% of our output of that expanded Luverne plant covered with the definitive contracts. The jet fuel is interesting. We want multiple players there and recently why multiple players is because we’re not just focused -- we want to get the Luverne thing done, get that booked, we do. But we’re also keen on making sure we can draw a projection at the future plants as well. And so that’s part of our thinking. Octane, I would say the same thing. The main focus has been so far on going for these niche applications like Haltermann Carless and HCS. And we will start to work on making -- looking at isobutanol for gasoline blendstocks here in the states that will take later this year. One of the interesting things that we also will work on this year now as just started Praj in India this last month. Praj has made great progress making isobutanol from [indiscernible]. The economics look to be attractive at this point, was able to able to observe isobutanol being run using feedstock. So, we got to put our team to plan together for how we’re going to commercialize that. Praj has access to over 300 ethanol plants and some big number like that; you can see it on their website even. And the idea is to use -- license our technology into those plants. I like it; it’s a low carbon fuel. And so it’s look like it will be economical. So we’ve got work added to our plants as well.

Understood. That’s all I have guys. I’ll take my other questions offline. Thank you.

Thanks, Amit.

Thank you. We have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Patrick Gruber for closing remarks.

Well, thank you all for joining us. I appreciate your support. And with that we can end. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thanks, everyone.