NET Power Inc. (NYSE:NPWR) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And so that’s what me and the team have been working on for the last few months is really starting to map all this stuff out. And then from identifying these bright spots, actually then turning our attention to how do we go secure these opportunities. So OP1 is really the first of what will be a lot of these projects. I think we’re really looking at these maps and these bright spots in a really unique way that really nobody else is because there’s no technology like this that can really take advantage of those sort of subsurface and surface features. So that’s kind of like the background on how we got to OP1. I think as we think about just talking about details of these projects going forward, and this is just level setting expectations with everybody.

But really for the benefit of the shareholders, I think one of the things that’s so important is really making sure we’re very judicious and prudent about being very transparent about all the details of these projects only when the project is fully baked. And fully baked does not mean just we have the subsurface under control and we have the surface under control, and we’re going through the interconnect process. It’s we have alignment with local landowners. We have alignment with the communities. We have alignment with the regulatory agencies, both within the state and at the federal level. And it’s — to part of your question, we have alignment with the local utilities. We have alignment with any other folks that we need to help on the CCUS side, whether it’s on CO2 transportation or CO2 sequestration.

And so I think when we fully announced like these projects, it’s going to be in a place where we’re going to have a whole host of really important stakeholders on our side. And I think the industry has kind of seen the CCUS industry specifically has kind of seen what happens if you announce projects before they’re fully baked, right? I think you put yourself in a position where you’re susceptible to just a lot of opposition. And so I think for us being able to build that support — so people really understand the benefit, not just the energy benefit, not just the economic benefit, but just a broader social and environmental benefit to what these projects can do is really, really important to ensure, that we’re minimizing the roadblocks or potential just derailing of these things between announcement and COD getting those projects online.

So OP1 is going to be the first of a bunch of projects that we’re working on right now. And the goal really for us is by the time that first plant comes online, Project Permian comes online, we’re going to have a pretty good backlog of where we want to put plants numbers 2 through 10, 2 through 30. And in really all of it’s really in advance of getting to manufacturing mode that we’ve continuously preproducing dozens of plants per year. So I would imagine the origination strategy is going to be really just the foundation of that commercial launch point into manufacturing mode. And really there’s going to be a really cool handoff, we think, from origination into just almost pure licensing by the middle of next decade. As the utilities really start to understand, this is the playbook, this is how you develop NET Power plants.

Here’s how you operate Net Power plants. Here’s how you build the community benefits piece. I think it’s really up to us to be able to demonstrate the optimal way to deploy these plants and this origination strategy is going to be a key part of making that happen.

Leo Mariani: Okay. Very thorough answer for sure here, Danny. And it certainly sounds like to paraphrase a little bit it’s a bit early days and there’s probably still a lot that kind of needs to happen to get all the right, stakeholders and investing partners been in place here, but it sounds like you guys are well on your way and working on a lot of that.

Danny Rice: Yes, that’s right. The key pieces, these are going to be economic and socially beneficial projects that folks want to be a part of…

Leo Mariani: That’s okay. That’s helpful.

Danny Rice: That’s kind of what we have control over. Yes.

Leo Mariani: And then just a question on kind of the financials here. I know it’s always a little tricky to kind of critically things going forward. But as I’m looking at your kind of third quarter numbers, just kind of eyeballing this I mean, it looks like if I just kind of call cash costs, if I add up sort of G&A, kind of sales and marketing, R&D, I assume that’s kind of pretty much your cash cost, looks like that’s kind of $17 million, $18 million here in the third quarter. Is that kind of roughly the run rate we should expect as we roll into fourth quarter in 2024? Or do you think there’s going to be some flowcrete on those costs next quarter and into next year? And similar sort of line of thinking around CapEx from $3.5 million this quarter, is it going to be substantial at all next quarter or next year, or is this something that really takes that a few years for some of these costs to start building in your cash burns days, I’ll call it relatively low, for the next year?