Good morning. My name is Karnythia and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Gulf Resources 2018 Fourth Quarter and Annual Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Helen Xu. Ma'am you may begin.

Okay. Thank you, operator. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and good evening to those of you who are joining us from China and we'd like to welcome all of you to Gulf Resources' annual and fourth quarter 2018 earnings conference call. My name is Helen, the IR Director. Our CEO of the company, Mr. Xiaobin Liu will also join this call today. I will be offering translation for his commentary and for the company's operating results during the Q&A section. I would like to remind to all of our listeners that in this call, certain management's statements during the call will contain forward-looking statements about Gulf Resources Incorporation and its subsidiaries business and products within the meaning of Rule 175 under Securities Act of 1933 and Rule 3b-6 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and are subject to the Safe Harbor created by those rules. Actual results may differ from those discussed today taking into account a number of risk factors, including, but not limited to, the general economic and business condition in China, future product development and production capabilities, shipments to end customers, market acceptance of new and existing products, additional competition from existing and new competition from the bromine and other oilfields and chemical products, change in technology, the ability to make future bromine assets, and various other factors beyond its control. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement and the risks factors detailed in the company's reports filed with the SEC. Gulf Resources assumes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this call. Accordingly, our company believes the expectations reflected in those forward-looking statements are reasonable and can be no assurance of such will prove to be correct. In…

Hey, everyone. Thanks for attending Gulf Resources’ 2018 fourth quarter and annual earnings conference call. Fiscal year 2018 has been the most difficult year for Gulf Resources. All of our bromine mines and crude salt ponds were forced to close by the government for environmental reasons. Our two chemical factories were also closed for the environmental reasons. Our natural gas well required new equipment before it could begin test production. We worked very hard to get all our facilities rectified. Subsequently, the provincial government decided it required even stricter environmental controls to protect the population. During the summer of 2018, our mines and factories in Shandong Province were hit by one of the most powerful typhoons, as a result of which we spent more than $8 million on cleaning up the facilities, many of which had been recently rectified. Finally, in September 2018, the government informed us that we would have to close our bromine factories Number 3, Number4, and Number 11. During this period, it would have been easy for us to give up. Our revenues came only from selling inventory. We had a loss from operations of approximately $83.55 million. We could have discontinued our bromine, salt, crude salt, chemicals, and natural gas business, which is represented by over $3.82 per share and switched to other businesses by taking advantage of our strong cash balance position. However, it is not our intention to pursue any of those. Instead, the company spent $15.8 million on the protection shells of our crude salt fields at costs and $17.8 million on building new extraction wells. We spent more than $8 million on cleaning up our facilities after the typhoon. We purchased new equipment for our natural gas well in Sichuan Province, and we kept our work force intact. We held quarterly…

Okay. So now I would like to forward the questions, particularly one we received from our investors. Firstly, let’s look at bromine factories. The first question is, in your press release of October and December 2018, you indicated that rectification and repair process would be done before the end of 2019 first quarter. We are now end of first quarter. Has all the work been completed? If not, what remains to be done and how long will it take, is there any unresolved issues? The answer is that, the work has been -- basically been completed. However, it is always possible that government might ask for some other works to be done before we get permission to be open the facility. 2nd question. You also indicated that you would receive project approval, planning approval and land use rights approval shortly. Have you received such approval? And if not, which ones are you still waiting for and when do you expect to get them? We have not got these project approval, planning approval and land use rights approval. We expect to seek them soon. Once we receive them, we’ll be able to open those facilities. Question 3. Are all seven factories at a same stage of reopening or are some factories close to be reopened soon? The seven remained factories are all at about the same stage of reopening. However, we would not be surprised if the approval for reopening come in several tranches. In other words, we would not be surprised to see approvals maybe for three or four factories in the first tranche and three or four in the second tranche. Question 4. What is your expectation regarding ramping up production at these facilities during the second quarter? What do you expect your production capacity to be end of…

Hi, operator. If there’s no one asking the question, can we close our call for today?

Yes. You may.

Okay. Thank you.

This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.