Good morning, and thank you for joining Comstock Inc.'s Full Year 2025 results and business outlook. I'm Zach Spencer, Director of External Relations. Today is Tuesday, March 24, 2026, 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. Today, we filed our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, and issued a press release summarizing year-end results. Both documents are available on our website. As a reminder, Comstock is listed on NYSE American with the ticker LODE. Joining me today are Corrado De Gasperis, Comstock's Chief Executive Officer; and Judd Merrill, Comstock's Chief Financial Officer. After their prepared remarks, we will take questions. We received more than 35 questions in advance of the call. If you have additional questions during the call, please use the Zoom Q&A window, and we will address as many as time allows. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties detailed in our SEC filings. 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. Judd you may begin.

Thanks Zach and thanks for everyone being on this call. I have a few remarks, and then we'll turn it over to Corrado, but I just want to look at the company dashboard here and just announced from a CFO's perspective, 2025 was really a transformational year for Comstock. We really doubled the size -- doubled our asset base. We strengthened and simplified our balance sheet. We eliminated legacy debt and other legacy obligations and we fully positioned the company for its next phase of growth. And our balance sheet really is the strongest it has been and it's positioned to be even stronger as we monetize noncore assets, and it's giving us kind of a speed advantage on our recycling competitors. Our capital structure is also very clean and our shareholder base continues to strengthen. We continue our targeting and our outreach for what is still relatively a less known story. Less known metal story, less known financial execution and monetization priorities. And at the same time, we are beginning to see the early results of that investment, particularly in metals. Our commercialization efforts are moving us into a second more sophisticated phase. Here are some specifics that all freeing up cash and cash equivalents are stood at 56-point -- or approximately $56 million at March 20, 2026. And our common shares outstanding are 74 million shares at March 20, 2026. And this is reflecting the recent offering which ended up being really outstanding, if not transformational. It's a change in our shareholder base with significant Hood River, Gratia, MA Capital, those are just 3 that represent the top -- some of the top investors that we have an engagement with them and support has been amazing, including what we just recently announced enhancements to our Board. And really,…

Thanks, Judd. Thanks, everyone, for being here. We probably have a record attendance for this call. So I'm really -- I'm excited about the update. Let me start with the announcement that we made just after the market closed today, which for us is incredibly exciting and encouraging. As Judd mentioned, at the end of January, we had a robustly oversubscribed offering. We had tremendous quality of institutional investors. He named a few, Hood River, MA Capital, Gratia. I mean the list continues on down to a solid 25, 30 institutions that joined. What was even more encouraging was Steve Pei, Gratia, Craig and Mike Kaufman, the interest that was taken in the company is very, very high, including site visits, including reviews and tours of all of our assets and quite frankly, extremely constructive engagement about support and help for how do we position this company to be a truly global, truly dominant, metal recycling company. I think that reflects a view that our technology is differentiated. I think it reflects a view that we have a really, really early adopter head start. I think it reflects a view that we did make good progress with this balance sheet. If you go back to the shareholder letter from last January, it was a tough letter, but the message was we need to clean things up. We need to get recapitalized and we need to fund these growth businesses. So if people go back and look at that letter, we could say, wow, we made huge progress. But now we have that posture. So the hard work is now the execution. And how do you take a platform that's regional? Sure, half of the end-of-life market is in the Southwest region. United States, absolutely Nevada and these Nevada permits and…

All right. Thank you, Corrado. As I mentioned at the beginning of the call, we received more than 35 questions prior to the call. And I can see that we have a number of additional questions coming through Zoom. And Corrado, you did touch on a lot of these questions that we have. So perhaps you can just provide a little more color. And pardon me if I do repeat the question. Okay. The first question is, how do you allocate your time versus Judd's time versus the rest of the team's time.

Yes. So I think right now, in fairness, Judd's spending -- obviously, you can see the time we spent from a corporate perspective on recapitalizing and funding and now over the last month or so on the governance. So that's really positive and took a little bit more of our time critically, critically constructive and needed. I think probably I will spend 40% to 50% of my time, and I expect Judd the same on monetizing these noncore assets, okay? It's a priority. And thank God, the metals team is full, and they'll spend 110% of their time. They do nothing but metals all day long and all night long. But I do feel like if we were directly just a solar panel recycling company, just a metal company, we would go from having a strong, capable, sufficient management team to overwhelming force. And so I think ultimately, we'd like to see 80% metals, 20% corporate. But that will only happen once we monetize the assets. So 50% ours, 50% corporate, but that 50% is heavily dedicated to monetizing these assets. And the prerequisites needed to monetize those assets.

All right, Corrado, thank you for that. What is the pipeline of solar panels that will be available to recycle through the Silver Springs facility once it is open?

Yes. So that's one of the most major fronts of our efforts. We're signing master service agreements. We're signing master service agreements all the time right now. We've signed a couple of extraordinary ones with e-recyclers, the folks that have already established recycling businesses. That's about 10% to 15% of the market. We generally think about the major utilities as being 80% of the market. And so what's happening right now is we're signing up -- we're -- I don't -- I can't think of a major utility that we've had a setback on -- and that includes NextEra, Florida Light and Power, everyone is pretty familiar with RWE, Nevada Energy, which is a Berkshire Hathaway, Berkshire Energy company, Brookfield. Edison. I mean we're really making hay with signing these folks up, right? The second point is we're signing up. I think we may have just signed up. We're not yet allowed to release it specifically, but one of the largest, if not the largest e-recyclers in the country, right? So those are the people we want to engage. We've also signed up our first actual solar manufacturing company, which I was talking to Don about this as we were going through the Board process. But the solar manufacturers are not really our customers. They do have some amount of breakage and waste. So they're steady Eddie. They ship us a truck or 2 a week, but they're a very, very small part of the end-of-life market. Of course, they're the beginning of life market. But they also point us to their customers, and they also integrate us with their returns. And so that's all coming along. But to answer your question, locking in the customer is the most critical prerequisite, making sure that we're qualified through their audits and…

This might be a short one for you. Where do we stand with the delivery of the first recycling facility in terms of timing and cost?

So we have -- I think we received all of our equipment and started to receive the components for the oven. I just -- It was mentioned it earlier, I just looked at the shipping schedules for the ovens. It's literally like 20 monster 18-wheel truckload containers. I was surprised at the magnitude of the logistics, right, to get those ovens to us. Those are starting -- the schedule said they start coming next week. They stop coming within 2 weeks, then we have everything. And then we've already started installation. We've already started testing and commissioning the equipment. If those ovens had arrived 4 weeks ago, they would be sitting around because the sequence is pretty precise in terms of what needs to be installed and tested and then processed. So in that regard, we feel again, maybe 3 or 4 weeks of slippage that was fully buffered in our plans, right? So we'll be up and running in Q2, and I think that's going to be a huge milestone.

And speaking of Sequence, please review the timetable for the second recycling project. So its initial revenue and probable location.

Yes. Yes. It's going to be outside of Vegas. Clark County for sure. That's where all the infrastructure is. There's more infrastructure in Clark County in Vegas than there is in Silver Springs, frankly. We have a site. We're in final stages of locking down the terms. We've already submitted the permit because we know where the site is. I think the question is when do we order the equipment. Last time I asked Fortunato, he said as soon as we possibly can because the equipment lead times from -- when we first -- we raised the money in August, we ordered the equipment the next day. We were looking at a 5- to 6-month lead time. It turned out to be 7 to 8, okay? So if 7 to 8 is the real lead time, although I think there's some arguments now that we've gone through this process that it would be shorter, then we probably want to order the equipment sooner rather than later. So if you're quoting equipment in May, you could have it arriving in December, the process should look and feel maybe 3 months faster from a calendar perspective than the first facility or could mirror it very closely, right? Commissioning in Q1, operating in Q2. I'd love to see commissioning in Q4 operating in Q1. And as soon as we order the equipment, we'll be able to communicate that.

Okay. And sticking with Comstock Metals, you've outlined a 7-facility national model with a central refinery hub. What is the capital requirement per facility at the scale you're targeting?

So we've always said recycling facility 12 to 15, okay? And really, that range is tied to if we're leasing a facility, it's $13 million. That's where we're ending up, right, with facility #1. If we had to buy a facility, you might have to put a deposit down, it might be $15 million, maybe $16 million at the most. So it's a nice tight range. It's not a lot. $12 million to $15 million, we'll stick with, maybe $13 million to $16 million is buffered. That's a good number. And that's for each facility. As you heard earlier, $75 million plus in cash flow and they're running full. So that profile is beautiful. The central refinery, though, is still conceptual, like we are certainly not going to build 7 refineries. Ideally, there could be 1 maybe very centrally located. For the math on that is if a recycling facility is taking in 100,000 tons and 10% to 15% are tailings, you're going to get midpoint, 12,500 tons of tailings per year per facility. If you have 7 facilities, that's 100,000 tons of tailings. That's a pretty good sized refining operation. You could start with one in Nevada, and that would be -- if you did that, you'd probably either have one big one there or you might have one on the West Coast, Nevada-based, one on the East Coast, then you'd have 2. We don't know the answer to that yet. We still need to get to FID on the engineering, but we're projecting the capital for one large refining operation like that 100,000 ton of intake level to be about $30 million, right? So in the scheme of -- in the universe of refining capital, it's low, right? When people talk about aluminum refineries and pyrolytic refineries and smelters, they think in the billions, like not in our scenario. We're very precise, very fine industrial tailing. So that's more what we're looking like. I hope that answers the question.

Corrado, pivoting to SSOF. The values sound high. What are the prerequisites for monetizing these assets? And what's the time line?

Yes. So I think, look, there's probably 5 prerequisites. Let's just think them through. industrially zoned land, check, flat developable land, super check, water rights, check, fiber check, electricity, right? That fifth one is where as we sort of hit the wall, if I could give people context, right, the Great Basin Transmission Company came out with an open bid. This is a FERC-regulated utility bid. We committed to like 50,000 dekatherms a day. I think they got bids for 800,000 dekatherms. So if our number is 300 megawatts, their number is 15x that, 13x that. So that's real. That's certified. That tells you what's happening in Northern Nevada in terms of people needing, wanting and committing capital to power. So what we need to do is we need to close out on the land position. There's still some capital required to do that, close out on the land position, have clean title, clean and final environmental reports. We've already done Phase 1 previously, super clean, so no issues. You just need to be updated, right? Water rights certification we have thousands of acre feet of water rights. That allows for a lot of flexibility with the data centers. Some are -- there was a phase of all electric cooling, then the grids ran out of electricity. Now everybody is hell bent on the technologies that reduce water in data cooling, but you got to have water rights, right? So if we do those 3 things, right, just perfect the land, perfect the power, I feel there's a little capital there, but there is also administrative work, like probably 60 days' worth of work. That timing would be perfect, data room would open up and then 60- to 90-day process. So we're looking at -- we're absolutely looking at 2026, getting this done in 2026.

Thank you, Corrado. We do have a question on Bioleum management. Please provide an update on the Bioleum team.

Absolutely. So I think most people appreciate that in March of last year, Marathon Petroleum invested directly into what was previously known as Comstock Fuels. And then in May, a large investor came in with another direct investment. It's about $35 million in total of, call it, Series A investment directly into the newly reestablished Bioleum Corporation. There's a really strong core group of founders, I say 10 people, David Winsness, Rahul Bobbili, but there's Chad, Michael Black. There's a strong group of founders there, but there's an even bigger group. There's probably 40 professionals. And let me just say this. Their whole claim to fame, they're equivalent of Fortunato's zero landfill, highly efficient thermal solution is their ability to unlock lignin in woody biomass. So we call it lignocellulosic technology. But that company's roster includes like Dr. Christian Dahlstrand from Sweden, Dr. Marcus Jawerth from Sweden, Dr. Colin Anson from Madison, Jordan Thutt from Wausau, Dr. Elvis Ebikade from New York, originally from Nigeria, Dana Hatch, Bob Rzmirek, Andrew Hell, these are all chemists and chemical engineers. And then you have Dr. Gregg Beckham at the National Laboratory of the Rockies, previously known as NREL, Dr. Yuriy Roman at MIT. Like you're literally talking about the top 10 lignocellulosic professionals like in the world. And what their coming out with here is the highest yielding lowest carbon ability to take waste into low carbon fuels. But it kind of -- people probably feel -- so that's the management answer, right? Chad Michael Black is the President. Chad is leading this incredible group, right, of primarily engineers and material scientists, right, to final investment decision that allows them to move into biorefining. We haven't gone stealth per se with Bioleum, but there was a concerted effort for them to be independent for them to have their own capital source, for them to ultimately go Series B and IPO. So as you hear me talk about monetizing assets, I don't -- I'm happy to be supportive. I'm happy to be helpful and I am intimate with what they're doing. But their success will be our success, right? We want to put our calories into growing a literally international dominant metal recycling business.

Thank you, Corrado. Looking at our mining assets, what is the timing on the potential monetization of the mining assets? Would it be a JV deal or something different?

I think I'm hopeful that the timing is sooner. We are in pretty deep conversations. We are pretty specific around terms. And we're only talking to people that have credible and immediate -- not immediate, but credible and almost immediate access to capital. Like we're not talking about people who are blue skying possibilities here. So the people that we're talking to have done quite a bit of diligence, like, I would say, a tremendous amount. But just from a legal, administrative final processes, you're probably looking at 75 to 90 days. Is it guaranteed -- could something bust for sure, but we're feeling pretty good about it.

Thank you for that. Pivoting again, is there any intention for issuing additional shares in the near term, resulting in any more dilution?

No. I would like to repeat, though, what I had said earlier. We had 7 or 8 years of excruciatingly poor access to the capital markets, bad structures, bad efforts, probably with hindsight, using a junior mining penny stock structure to capitalize to high-growth innovative technologies was not the smartest thing in the world. But at the same time, we did it, right? We created an incredible opportunity. And I think our investors that stuck with us and our new investors that came in are really, really, really going to profit from that scenario. If there's a perception that we enjoyed raising the capital that way or the dilution that resulted and even more painfully, the low valuation that comes from having other than intermediate and longer-term capital partners, we hated it. So just in case anybody is curious, like we hated it. But we did get this business launched, and we're running now. But what's more important is we have capital partners. We have capitalized and funded. And I think if we had no noncore assets, the positive of that would be that we would be more fully dedicated to metals. But the positive of having them is, as I said earlier, if we monetize those assets and redeploy them, if we monetize those assets and redeploy them, then we have a bonanza on our hands here. We are derisked from distraction. We are derisked from having to slow down. We see some of our recycling competitors struggling to raise capital. We've seen some take capital from very bad sources and do a 180-degree turnaround on their strategy. So we're just going to keep flying forward, and we don't see any -- we have no -- we don't see any reason looking forward, right, that we would have to raise money. If something unknown happened, and we can talk about it, but like we don't see it unequivocal, no.

Thank you, Corrado. We're coming up on time, and I think we've covered several important questions. If we did not get to your question, please send it to ir@comstockinc.com. and we'll do our best to respond either directly or we'll post the response on X. For anyone who is not following us on X, our main account is at Comstock Inc. Please follow us. Corrado, before we wrap up, please give us some final thoughts for the final week of Q1 and the rest of 2026.

Yes. I'm super excited about our new Board members. They've already reached out wanting to start engaging and coming back out to visit. I'm super excited about the work leading up to the annual meeting in May. I think that if you can come to the meeting in person, we're going to take a bus down to Silver Springs. And on the way to Silver Springs, we'll go to the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center and you'll see about 10 million square feet under construction on the way to it. It's probably relevant to point out that 600 Lake Avenue, this incredibly ideal location for solar panel recycling and 800 Lake Avenue, the Monstrous like storage facility right next door, our Sierra Springs properties. Sierra Springs owning those properties allowed us to pivot very, very quickly into the solar recycling business. And I think with hindsight, speed is the winner in all fronts here. And then stay tuned for customer announcements, stay tuned. We're going to -- we'll be more active next week, the week after the week after and the week after with pictures of the ovens, the assemblies, the commissioning and then panels starting to go through the machine. We're really at the inflection point here of 3.5, 4 years of incredibly hard work. So pretty exciting.

Thank you very much, Corrado. That concludes Comstock's year-end 2025 earnings call and business update. Thank you all for joining us.

Thank you all.