Member Info for dustofnations

I worked at a large publicly traded American company for a good number of years.

Employees received RSUs, options, etc. It was automatic when the RSUs vested or options were exercised that a portion of the proceeds would be immediately liquidated and the proceeds withheld to satisfy all tax and fee obligations. This was to ensure it all went through payroll, rather than forcing employee(s) having to hire accountants and/or manually file tax returns. Plus, no nasty surprises if someone forgets.

Thanks, ChatGPT.

For a high profile role like CEO, you interview a large number of people to see who is the best candidate, often having multiple rounds of intense interviews, speaking to references, verifying background information and other due diligence, etc.

It's not like hiring a paper boy.

Unless something exceptional happens, I'd expect it to take a good few months to make a choice. Rushing is not beneficial to us.

As always, a large caveat for this being "what I understand". I'm not a lawyer. Quadrise have always tended to be slightly byzantine, so you can never rule out an alternative.

"""

The parties to the Project Agreement will use their reasonable endeavours to contribute towards the successful Trials and to receipt of a final Letter of No Objection from Wärtsilä following 4,000 hours of bioMSAR™ testing,

"""

The above says that the parties are required to use "reasonable endeavours".

This is a British contract law term of art:

https://gowlingwlg.com/en-gb/insights-resources/articles/2018/best-reasonable-and-all-reasonable-endeavours

You will almost never see stronger versions used, because they require such a high level of commitment that you may have to do crazy things to comply (e.g. drop customers, disrupt other important work, etc).

Anyway, the fact all parties agreed to such binding language is a strong showing of commitment.

@Yorkie90 — You are right, there isn't much point in following her until we get contract announcements. It's just noise for now. If you enjoy it, then go ahead.

As others have ably pointed out, the "reading of tealeaves" into Leandra's every last turn and AIS status was just giving investors unrealistic expectations that POC was underway when it wasn't.

It never made the smallest shred of sense for there to be a secret POC.

You know, the whole episode made me realise that "quantity has a quality of its own" also applies to this kind of misinformation. Eventually, even skeptical people started believing 'there might be something to it' due to the sheer volume of posting (despite all of the tactical disclaimers that are handy to justify it in retrospect, no doubt).

Lesson learned!

It’s definitely nothing exciting, but it’s ‘essential background work’ to build up as much credible feedstock as possible for if/when bioMSAR/MSAR Zero hits its stride. The QRF chemistry lads who are doing this kind of work aren’t out there in the desert with wrenches, and definitely not prodding MSC/Cargill to ‘hurry up and sign’.

I agree that this work will be useless if the company doesn’t make progress with MSC/Cargill/etc, but if we *do* make progress with MSC/Cargill then it becomes essential, as we need to credibly supply millions of tonnes of waste-based biomass, so this seems another good avenue (along with the HTL, glycerine, solvolysis, etc).

Plus, more diverse supply should be good for our economic story.

That said, there have been many agreements that have gone nowhere in recent years, so I don't think it's worth reading to much into any of these early-stage agreements until we see something more concrete (e.g. Euthenia went nowhere).

I should add that my understanding is that Valkor only have Utah exclusivity under the current agreements. Some of the marketing materials floating around suggest they have US-wide exclusivity, but I believe that's not correct — currently there's an "ambition" to expand the relationship in that direction if Valkor hit various milestones and another agreement is made. It's just aspirational at the moment (i.e. don't pay too much attention to the marketing guff).

The unconventional oil reserves in Utah are huge, but are mostly currently inaccessible at the moment.

The big players aren't (yet) interested in exploiting it, and they failed repeatedly in the past.

It's mostly smaller and more risk-tolerant startups and mid-caps that are taking the risk in Utah for the non-conventional resources that make up the bulk of the reserve — for the huge potential reward. There are many who have tried before and failed, but the technology has improved considerably since the big boys last tried.

There are conventional liquid resources as well, but they aren't anywhere near as large.

Utah seems a very good test ground for whether MSAR can unlock this kind of resource, and I don't see the problem in offering Valkor the exclusivity if they can crack the problem and start selling it as part of a solution package to other ventures in the state (who will presumably copy the template). Some of the comments about whether Valkor are big/good enough assume there are loads of other people trying to do this in Utah; I can't find anyone else who is seriously trying to do what Valkor/Lafayette/HSO are doing.

So, I don't think we've hobbling ourselves by working with Valkor in Utah at the moment.

Will they succeed? I don't know. But, nobody else is trying to do what they're doing, so I don't really see a downside at present, as there's nobody else go to with.

Utah has a population of 3.5 million. That's like giving someone exclusivity in Wales. Seems a good testing ground to see whether they've got what it takes to be exclusive in broader parts of US.

Fyoz, your warranty theory sounds plausible to me. Of course, we're speculating.

But, even if not under warranty, large companies generally still use the OEM for regular maintenance, overhaul, spares, etc, for high-value equipment.

It's the same situation with MSC Leandra, albeit an (almost) infinitely less complex application. The MSC Leandra's engine entered active use in 2007. It's obviously not in warranty any more, but best practice is to use the OEM approved procedures and parts for everything. So, having Wartsila on board for the trial has been a big boon for us.

As hinted at in the RNS, one would hope this work can read across into other clients from the same vendor. But, we've heard that kind of sentiment in the past, and so I'd rather they get this across the line before we start concerning ourselves with that.

Fyoz, IIRC, previously Quadrise replaced just the burner lance tips with customised one(s) better optimised for the higher fuel volume and dispersal.

Your post prompted my memory, and if memory serves correctly (we're digging WAY back here), they may have also done a custom swirler. These control the shape of the flame, enhance fuel-air mixing, etc. I may be mixing different memories there though, so don't take my word for it.

All pretty simple changes.

But every kiln is a bit different and there are a numerous common designs (no doubt many more than I am aware of as an absolute amateur on this topic). So I dunno what the exact solution will be for this new vendor's rotary kilns/calciners.

https://feeco.com/category/thermal-processing/rotary-kilns/

One positive thing is that we can stop getting these endless "stealth POC" Leandra updates.

The sheer volume was gradually convincing sensible people here that there was credibility to the idea of secretly recruiting additional vessels into the trial, secretly starting the MSAR POC, practicing for X and Y, turning every move the vessel made into something significant.

Let's just wait for the contracts to land and the company to update us.

You're changing your story, the_adams. We know exactly what you said verbatim.

You said this:

"""

the_adams:

QFI PAID for Maersk to trial MSAR. It was not a success. End of. Let's move on, please.

"""

You have repeated that lie on numerous occasions.

You stated it unequivocally. It isn't even slightly true.

Are you Tim Kempster or associated with him?

@the_adams - And you never apologised for flagrantly lying about the Maersk trial, falsely claiming that "the company paying Maersk for the use of a vessel". You have a real Tim Kempster style about you.

Nothing bad has happened, but no major progress has happened. An update that is fairly frozen in time from our perspectives, but a lot may have happened under the covers that we aren't getting detail on (or isn't relevant to investors). Either way, the timeline advice was rather abject, but fundamentally the projects appear to be continuing.

It seems we are currently trapped in lawyer ping-pong rather than any physical activity. That’s something which can go around indefinitely if you aren’t careful.

Likely this is a topic where executive action is needed to get things closed out and moving forwards. A challenge for the interim or incoming CEO to test their mettle...

Thanks for the insightful comments from other shareholders.

Yes, the RFK 'situation' means HVO's SP will discounted for a while due to political uncertainty.

But, I believe in the fundamental value and business proposition of HVO — the unique set of services it offers.

When the current bunch of antivaxx crackpots go out of power in the US, HVO should remain in a strong position to continue growing the company.

I'm happy to continue holding HVO as one of my core portfolio assets.

That said, I do agree that the current SP makes HVO a candidate for a takeover, as our current valuation includes a significant (transient) discount for political risk which may not be available in the future. Logically, an incumbent in the CRO space could snap us up for a relative bargain today.

But if not, I am content to wait.

The company is extremely well run, has a unique niche, dividend paying, profitable, and has a great future ahead of it.

Bit more context about drift waiting / drift anchorages / controlled drifting from Britannia P&I Club to add to GHOST61 comments:

https://britanniapandi.com/2023/02/drifting-offshore-best-practice/

NUC appears to be one of the commonly used options.

And it's also quite easy for crew to forget to change their AIS status when they get underway

As others have ably pointed out (repeatedly), there is no logic in the POC being started in secret given the guidance we were issued fairly recently. It would be something that needs to be disclosed to the market. As for speculation about involvement of vessels that don't even have the right kind of engine, I'm just at a loss for what the narrative is there.

The issue is that repeating something with enough volume and frequency makes people start to think there's something to it.

I've had a few LTHs I know reach out to me asking whether there's any truth to this theory about the POC beginning without announcement, or additional vessels being drafted into the trials.

The answer is no. But the illusory truth effect is doing its magic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

> the company paying Maersk for the use of a vessel - dont try selling it as Maersk trialling MSAR as that's misleading

What? That is just a flat out untruth. Maersk *were* trialling MSAR. Quadrise *were not* paying Maersk for use of the vessel. The expectation at the time was that Maersk would adopt the product commercially and assist in deploying it to other operators worldwide; in return, they would receive a royalty for their assistance. IMO2020 changed Maersk's plans.

MSC Shanghai V has a MAN B&W 9K90MC-C engine, which is definitely not in the MSAR wheelhouse as it is an old-fashioned manually timed engine.

The "C" after the M is for "camshaft controlled" rather than E for "electronically controlled". We need electronic controls to modify various aspects of the combustion cycle timings.

Here's the MAN engine nomenclature, which helps decode the engine names you see:

https://man-es.com/applications/projectguides/2stroke/content/1983824311.pdf

My hope and expectation from speaking to the team at the AGM is that Quadrise will engage with MAN once the Wartsila/WinGD trials are completed, but this will be with "E" engines.

The good news is that electronic controls have been the standard for a long time now, and even many older vessels have electronic controls. This vessel is from 2002.

Source: classification society website.