Vertex Energy, Inc. (NASDAQ:VTNR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 6 of 6

Noah Kaye: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Echo that the comment from other really nice quarter, great to see the execution here. With the R&D conversion time table on track, I know we got to walk before we run in terms of standing that up. But have seen a number of other projects in the industry doing a sustainable aviation fuel conversions. And so maybe can you just talk a little bit about the technical feasibility of doing a SAF project at this refinery? How much you’ve looked into that? And when you might think about actually doing a project of that nature.

Ben Cowart: Yes. We’re €“ let’s just put it straight. We’re very interested in the SAF. We’re really trying to see what’s the best path forward for us, understanding the economics, what is the impact associated with the RA? And as we analyze, what’s the best path forward for us, what has the lowest capital with the highest return. What can we use that we can either bolt-on to the RD project or the standalone project. And we’re not prepared for that conversation yet, we are very early in it. But you can €“ as you can guess from the conversation, this is something that’s on my agenda and the team’s agenda to help determine the best path forward for us.

Noah Kaye: Very good. We’ll, stay tuned for more details on that. I want to go back to Michael’s question earlier about hedging. I thought it was a thoughtful response around, how you’re approaching hedging. But what do you anticipate maybe articulating kind of a standing profile or cost share for the company on a go-forward basis? Is that something you might actually be able to communicate to investors, either we will hedge or we will hedge x-percent of our exposure? When do you think you might be able to kind of communicate that clearly to folks?

Ben Cowart: Yeah. I can give you a base for today, as we move forward. And it’s pretty straightforward. We’re going to do right by protecting our inventory for market exposure. So there’s always going to be paper around that. That’s just standard operating procedures. And then, we have a team in place with the ability to hedge, with a much deeper view of markets and cracks and a lot of outside consulting that we’d look to. So we are going to work hard to protect our margins and provide the upside exposure to the market for our shareholders. So if we see that turning, then we have the tools to make decisions at that point in time. But as of today, as long as our team has the view that we have we’re going to keep our exposure on the crack spreads and make sure that we can deliver that back to the shareholders. But we are in a position, if things turn, to protect that margin.

Noah Kaye: Okay. Great. Thanks, Ben. I’ll take the rest offline.

Ben Cowart: Thank you, Noah.

Noah Kaye: Thank you.

Ben Cowart: Appreciate it.

Operator: Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the conference back over to management, for the closing remarks.

Ben Cowart: Thank you, Rago and thank you everybody for the time joining the call today. We’re very proud of what our team has accomplished. We look forward to our next call. It shouldn’t be too long. And we will be available if anyone has any questions. You can reach out through our vertexenergy.com so that we can provide more comments and answers if there’s anything else that we had covered today. Appreciate you joining in.

Operator: Thank you, sir. This concludes today’s conference call. We thank you all for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines. And have a wonderful day.

Follow Vertex Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:VTNR)

Page 6 of 6