Greetings from Canada. It's Michael Binnion, CEO of Questerre Energy, and I'm on with our CFO Jason D'Silva for our first presentation of quarterly results to shareholders.

Welcome, welcome today. We're we're going to go through the a short presentation to go to supplement or to to help explain our our results that were just issued, and we will take some moderated questions.

If you if you put your a question or comment in the chat, Jason will be monitoring that, and he can present at the end some questions for us to for him or myself to try to answer for for you. I'm going to get Jason to start flipping the slides for me, cuz he's in control of the screen.

The main I think just it's worth reviewing that we did a major acquisition in the third fourth quarter of last year, and the goal here was to be able to move advance forward what we think is really extremely interesting technology for refining oil shale and to have a platform to to commercialize multi-billion dollar barrels of resources that we've been able to acquire in in Utah, United States. We're in the process of reacquiring acreage also in Kingdom of Jordan and and now also Brazil.

Adding up to multi-billion barrel potential for our company while we're cash flowing. It's a I think we think an extraordinary opportunity for us to commercialize a technology with a cash flowing platform.

The other key thing for for those of us followers for a long time is that we made a giant gas discovery in 2010 in Quebec, in eastern Canada, and we've been pursuing a business and political solution there, and we think that the as we've as we've been saying, we're waiting waiting for the winning conditions politically, and we think that that those winning conditions may may have now arrived. We have a dual class structure.

The preferred shares have a preferred ownership in those Quebec assets, and the rest of the assets are owned solely by the common shares. Next, different places that we have assets or operations, Brazil now has by far become our main operation with now we now about 900 employees and contractors.

Utah is a is we have a a license and several hundred million barrels of shale oil under license, but the main the main thing there is we've got 15-plus years of technology development into refining of oil shale or kerogen. Kingdom of Jordan, we're securing rights.

We had a 7 billion barrel claim there, we're just re-securing those in the process of re-securing those rights now. In western Canada, we have a Montney resource in in that with a lot of undrilled locations after the recent sale of our original Montney discovery, and we also have a Torquay or Torquay, Torquay [Spearfish?]

tight oil in Saskatchewan and Manitoba that we expect to be able to grow over the next couple years. Then, as I just mentioned in Quebec, we're looking to we're looking to deliver value to shareholders out of what is a incredibly important strategic discovery for for Quebec.

Next, there we go. Now into the into the results, and I think we'll see that we've been able to turn around continue to turn around for positive cash flow the the asset we acquired in in Brazil.

I would say the main the main highlights have been that we had a very important test of HCCO, which is the name of our technology refining technology. It stands for homogeneous charge, so that means like an even charge, and continuous oxidization.

That means a continuous thermal process that generates heat to refine the rock. We were able to do a test in our new platform, our new operation in Brazil, on a full-scale commercial-sized refining vessel, which is which is which which is what we're operating in Brazil.

The the key things there was to show that we could deliver that working gas in a homogeneous way, not have it be uneven, and also that the oxidization was continuous and there was no thermal runaways. We we'd only been able to test that we originally were testing it in vessels of 6x6 and and then more recently 2x12, 2 feet by 12, about a little bit less than a meter in diameter.

These were large laboratory vessels, but small for the real world. We've now tested it in a vessel that's over a 10-meter in diameter vessel, and we were able to show that we can deliver that working gas both in a homogeneous way and in a way that the oxidization was continuous without uneven heat or thermal runaway.

We think it's a big technical breakthrough. Just to give some people some idea why we felt the acquisition of of PX was important for this is because to do that test in Utah, which would have been on a test that was 1/10th scale, rather than a full-scale vessel, a 1/10th scale vessel, but in the field, we estimated the cost of that to be about 30 $20 million to $30 million US to be able to build and and carry out that field pilot.

We were able to do this particular test at PX for under $100,000. In one sense, we've already gained a value of $20 million or $30 million out of this acquisition above and beyond what is going to be shown in the results.

We also were able to sell some fairly well-developed assets in the Montney that were had not that many drilling locations left in them. We were sale we sold that for $23.5 million in cash.

They also assumed $6.5 million Canadian in abandonment liabilities. From a balance sheet point of view, it was a $30 million transaction.

I think that we've been, as I said, quite pleased to be able to have disposed of an asset that didn't have a whole lot of whole lot of drilling locations left so that we can focus on on some of our assets with a better better future inventory of locations. In the results, you'll see that the result was a was recognized net income from that sale, we were able to sell it at above our book value.

The funds from operations at $18.3 million, almost the same as the first quarter. There were a few extra operating costs in this quarter compared to Q1, but it is now the second quarter that we've been able to develop to deliver significant positive cash flow, and and and so we're we're pleased with the results.

In fact, the the results at PX Energy were a record profit for that entity in its in it as we understand it, in its history, certainly in the history that that we're aware of. It's a it's a record quarterly profit for for PX.

Interestingly, and we'll go into this a bit more detail, but it was not generated just by higher oil prices. We had we had retort production issues related to the last turnaround that happened before we bought it, and that caused some production declines.

The higher prices helped offset that, our revenue was really on budget or close to on budget. A lot of the the profit was really delivered by more efficient operating costs and and lower just cost cost control generally.

The preferred shares were were listed on Euronext Growth, and so that value is now in the market. As I said, they have a preferred ownership in the Quebec assets, our average production 5,700 barrels a day, and we had a a noticeable improvement in working capital, which we'll go into in more detail as well.

Next slide, Jason. This gives a lot of details on the on on the production.

The main The main point here is in Brazil is that we now have an operation that's a refinery. We distribute we sell through distributors.

The distributors are selling directly to end customers, we we really, we have we market our product. We have we have technical sheets.

We have we have sales people that talk to end customers about some of the technical advantages of the composition of our fuel oil relative to others, it's a it's a it's a we do have a marketing and sales organization there. We mostly work to produce to order so that we are producing more or less just-on-time to meet our customer customer demand.

In the last quarter with the last two quarters with the destruction in due to the war in Iran, we've had some destruction with our customer demand, and you'll see here that there's been a a production and sales have diverged and that we have what been holding some fuel oil in in inventory. That this product this slide, I think, gives you a good sense of what was produced and and versus what's being held in inventory.

The parts being held in inventory have not been recognized in our sales revenue as of yet. Although we it's important to note that we do have minimum commitments from our two main distributors, and so we have been collecting cash for minimum sales whether they're delivered or not.

Jason, next one. This this gives you a sense of our our financial financial results for the quarter just to break down the what the reported net income is and reconciling you to the adjusted funds flow of $19 million.

Then we we also are showing the difference between cash flow to the adjusted funds as well in the two reconciliations. The main the main items there are both the deferred revenue, which is now under IFRS referred to as contract liabilities, which we are relating to the future sale of the inventory that we have, and the other one is non-cash non-cash items in the like depreciation, etc., like that.

That gives you the I think the the key the key the key items there for that. You'll see that we've got a noticeable improvement, I think the noticeable improvement in cash, and you'll see also noticeable improvement in working capital.

This This was not shown in the first quarter. In the first quarter, there were a lot of hangover issues from the last from the from the last vendor or from the vendor of the last owner.

A lot of the positive cash in the first quarter went to clean up some of the issues in the purchase and sale from the vendor, and they had sold the asset cuz it was in financial distress. This quarter, we're really seeing seeing that the the cash flow is making a difference to our working capital and and cash on hand.

Of course, just mention the other item that's helped our cash is the sale of the asset in in in in Montney. Jason.

Just to analyze, excuse me, the working capital deficit. There's a lot of current liabilities that do relate, still, as I said, we cleaned up a lot of them in the first quarter, but there's a lot of current liabilities now from the purchase and sale that are non-cash.

The there's an obligation to assume some of these liabilities through the issuance of of of shares or the issuance of future shares. We We currently are disputing with the vendor many of these liabilities, and so our position with the vendor is is that we will not have to pay these and we will not have to issue the shares.

This is not final yet, and so they continue to be shown in the balance sheet. It gives you a good sense of that, with current assets of $87 million and current liabilities of $106 million, but if we were to take out the ones that are that are not settled in cash and, in fact, may not get paid at all, there's another $44 $44 million, and that that relates I should also divide a little bit more than half of that is related to PX acquisition, and then the other part is the contract sales or the the future sales of the inventory that was lifted but not not taken.

If you take that out, you see that we've actually got a substantial working capital surplus. Then below, we've now also segmented out the the purchase of PX Energy was in one sense a bit of a no-money-down deal that we bought it by assuming debts.

We so we've now separated out here the liabilities that are ring-fenced and that the parent company has no legal obligation for, and so we'll see here that the the current assets or the $51 million of deficit in Brazil, but if you take out the $44 million, that comes down to actually a relatively small working capital deficit of $10 million, and that in Canada, we've actually running a substantial working capital surplus of over $30 million. Hopefully that will help our shareholders understand much better, one, that there has been a significant improvement in cash and working capital over the quarter, and also that, we do have a ring-fence in that PX platform, which, we purchased primarily to as a as a as a path to commercialization of a new technology, but is is well on its way to being a positive cash flow asset itself.

Next, Jason. This helps also.

This is the other debts, the liabilities that we assumed in this acquisition. We should we should be clear that the that there is there are some disputes with the vendor and and and over the the thing we our, as I said, our position is that the sale is a legal sale, and and that we that we do not owe the vendor the the final amounts because of the working capital situation not being as disclosed in the agreement, but the vendor is is is taking another another position on that.

This is a reconciliation of the bonds, and you'll see that what we're carrying them for on the balance sheet after a number of adjustments for IFRS, and those are a fair market value adjustment because the underlying interest rate was lower than market, and then also because the underlying interest rate is variable with the price of Brent, there's also a embedded derivative adjustment. Both of these are in one sense non-cash items intended to try to fair value what the debt is, and that's the number on the top, $112 million Canadian or $79 million US.

If we take out those adjustments plus accrue for the interest that we have paid that we're paying in kind during this fiscal year, you'll see that we'll get to the face value of the bonds, which is $80 million, the amount that we truly, nominally owe, and then the accrued interest of $6 million. The in that sense, in the IFRS fair value accounting underreports the the face value of the of the debt.

Next slide, Jason. Just a quick update.

We we've found that we had some deteriorating production in the retort refinery really starting in January, February. There was some there's some signs of it.

It it became worse in second quarter, and and we finally got to the point that in in in in July and August, we were down by maybe 30% from the output from the from the refinery. The this in the end we've discovered related to a failure in the furnace, that the furnace was not delivering not not generating and delivering the heat in in in in an efficient manner at all.

We elected to or in in in fact, I think there we we were we wasn't really an election, we were forced to do a an emergency shutdown of the of the retort refinery for a turnaround. The net cost of this we expect to be 3 weeks of lost production.

The actual repair costs we think will be under maybe quite a bit under $1 million, the main loss here will be 3 months of production, which could be in the neighborhood of $7 million US. It's quite an expensive cost from that point of view, but we also expect that on the return to production that we'll see a recovery of that 30% of lost production.

In fact, we're hopeful that it could be even more, and so the payout on this turnaround we think could be quite quick and allow us to generate all of the oil we need to meet our future sales obligations, as well as to pay out the cost or the the law of lost production in maybe as little as 3 months, but we're estimating in 3 to 6 months that we will be able to pay out that cost. The planned turnaround in May of next year it will continue will go ahead anyways in spite of us being able to do a lot of the things that will be done for that turnaround because there are critical parts, especially in the gas plant compressors, etc., that have time regulatory and engineering time limitations and will have timed out by then.

These are very long-lead items that are planned to arrive in first quarter of next year for the turnaround in second quarter of next year. This even though so this turnaround will be an extra turnaround.

As I said, we think it will pay out before we get to the next turnaround. That's next slide, Jason.

In Quebec, this is this continues the the we're seeing this in other countries like Germany and and and other countries in Europe that that had very aggressive climate policies, and I don't think that the Province of Quebec is backing away from its its view that climate policy is important, that emissions reduction is still important, but we are we are seeing a clear, unequivocal change that any transition is going to take a lot longer. The a key report that came out prepared by the Quebec government to inventory its energy supply, and this was this was this exercise was taken under a new law requiring the Quebec government to create an inventory of its energy supply relative to demand every year to make sure it doesn't run into a crisis like it did a couple of years ago on not being able to supply new industry that was looking to locate to Quebec, but unfortunately wasn't able to secure long-term electricity contracts because of the electricity supply problem in Quebec.

This report has now come out and said that natural gas is a strategic part of the energy supply and will be for a for the for a long time, and they did not speak to local gas specifically, but I can say that the really the only argument that has been presented against moving forward with local gas, in spite of its substantial emissions reduction compared global emissions reduction compared to importing gas, was that Quebec would had a very short-term need for it. The The projections were all that Quebec would be fully transitioned off of natural gas by 2030.

It's now clear that there is no that the plan to transition is going to be slow and gradual, and that has really eliminated the last and only, main reason other than, I guess, there might be some NIMBY, not-in-my-backyard objections. There's been there's no strategic objection to local gas once Quebec has acknowledged that it will need it for the foreseeable future, which it now has.

This is an ongoing progression of the change in political and macroeconomic situation in Quebec, as is happening in other places in the world, and we think very favorable for our project. The election is in October, and we don't expect other than that there was a public announcement by the existing government that looking again, not not saying that Quebec should or shouldn't, but saying that Quebec should look again at the use of local gas was a public announcement by this government.

We there'd be nothing that will happen on this as we're already in August, the election officially starts already on unofficially has already started, officially starts in the last week of August, and we and will result in a new government in in the in the middle of October. There's The speculation is whether the new government will be a minority government or a majority government.

In any In either case, we expect that the government will have to address or at least look at addressing the energy shortages in Quebec. The other thing I would say is that because we've already had 30 well dril- 30 wells drilled, 16 wells drilled on our acreage, these wells are suspended, they've been tested, they're ready to produce.

We we have a project that we can be in production very quickly. Really, the main constraint will be regulatory and government approvals on the basis that it was allowed to go forward.

In terms of major projects or major projects in Canada, we think our project is the one that could deliver jobs faster than any alternatives. Next slide, Jason.

Just in terms of the near-term outlook, what's our goal at PX? The The main goal here is to commercialize billions of barrels for Questerre.

The oil shales around the world contain trillions of barrels. Conventional resources, like we see in the North Sea, like we see in the in shale gas and shale oil in in North America, all measured in the billions of barrels.

Oil shale is a resource that's measured in the trillions of barrels, and the challenge, of course, has been nobody's really found a way to efficiently refine it. We think our approach, which instead of using a mining solution of continuously processing rock like you would do in most mines, we've instead come up with a process that refines solid rock with organic material in it.

Instead basically using very similar ideas as are used in in refining of liquid crude oil, we are using very similar principles to refine a solid rock, and we think it makes the process 50% more efficient both from a capital point of view, much simpler to build these these drums without a lot of moving parts in them, and also much lower operating costs. We we expect 50% lower cost, and something that will commercialize a resource that is an order of magnitude bigger than than existing conventional resources.

We're excited that we've been able to show that this platform has already been able to save us tens of millions of dollars in in testing costs. For Quebec, we continue to advocate.

We're true believers that, local gas is a significant environmental benefit that, local tomatoes have less trucking and less emissions than imported tomatoes. The same is true for gas.

If you produce it locally, you save all of the transmission and processing costs. It's a it's a we estimate 1.7 megatonnes of emissions reduction per year by going ahead with it, and of course, it's a significant economic and benefit, as well as a strategic energy benefit for the economy of Quebec.

It's on tidewater, very very well-positioned to be able to export that gas as whether liquid natural gas or as we saw when the Straits of Hormuz closed, gas is also a strategic resource for making fertilizer and other products, there's lots of ways for that gas to get exported to international markets. We continue to advance the legal action, but our priority is to reach a business and political solution with the Government of Quebec that should they decide that they want a strategic solution to the energy crisis in Quebec, we'd we'd like to be there to to help provide that.

Next slide, Jason. I think we're at the end here.

Yeah. The rest is warning you that investing in stocks is very risky, you can lose money, recognize that a lot of things we're telling you is forward-oriented information.

With that, hopefully that was reasonably clear along with the materials that we've released. Our plan is to continue to have this as standard practice for us every quarter or for every financial release, regular financial release.

Maybe now, Jason, if you want to see if if there's any comments or questions that we can try to address.

We have a couple questions. I'll maybe start with the one that most of the investors have.

Just give me 1 second. One of the questions relates to the acquisition of PX Energy, and it is, when we bought PX Energy, the oil price was much lower.

When do you expect to see a recovery in the cash flow and production of PX? Then related to that is, will we be looking for a new partner for PX Energy?

Right. The first point, I guess, to understand is that historically, PX has not made money.

They did have some years with positive EBITDA, but negative net income, and when we took it over, it was about breakeven. As I mentioned, the principal consideration we gave for buying the asset was to assume the debts that the company had accumulated, but we were taking over an operation that let's just call it was negative cash flow, breakeven to maybe slightly positive EBITDA.

In terms of the turnaround of the asset, we think we've made dramatic progress, and much faster than we had originally planned. We certainly expected that by the end of the first year, so that's by the end of this year, that we would have seen the turnaround delivering the results, but in fact, we started to see those results in the first quarter of this year with the positive EBITDA consolidated was about $20 million, but we were maybe $13 million or so million in PX.

I guess the answer to the question is we'd say that we think we're already seeing a significant turnaround in the cash flow, and we're probably ahead of what our original plan was for that. I think delivering a second quarter, in spite of the deteriorating production at the plant, of positive cash flow again is showing that the cost reductions that we've been able to implement and that we continue to implement are delivering sustainable results as opposed to one-time results.

I think that's part one answer to the question. Now we're hoping to take this from we're in Canadian dollars now, but let's call it $15 million or so a quarter.

We're hoping to take that to something like maybe up towards $30 million US $30 million US a year. I guess that would be 7, well, that's not far off what we're doing now then, we're hoping to take it up to $30 million-plus per year of EBITDA cash flow from PX, which means we need to sustain what we have now even at lower oil prices.

To do that, we need to increase our volumes. We expect that the plant turnaround will show that we can bring our volumes up by 30% or more in hopefully in Q4 compared to Q2 and Q3.

Q1 was a lot Q1 and Q2 have been a lot constrained by we had a lot of demand destruction from customers. In Q3, we're seeing that come back.

Both the distributors are lifting their minimums and, in fact, are asking for more than their minimums. Of course, right now we can't deliver it due to the plant turnaround, but we expect that demand destruction that we saw in Q1 and Q2 was partly permanent, but largely temporary as people were running down inventories hoping for a quick reduction in the prices.

We also are seeing new customer opportunities. The one that we're most excited about is the oil that we produce, which we market against heavy fuel oil in Brazil, is, in fact, on a specifications basis, a marine gas oil in terms of its flash point viscosity.

It's more of a marine gas oil. Its sulfur is too high, a bit over 1%, to sell directly into international markets for marine gas oil, but we are working now on blending with lower sulfur marine gas oils, and other local markets in Latin America with different sulfur restrictions.

We're hopeful that we could develop a premium market for our product in as I said, as a marine gas oil and expand our demand. Those, I guess if you were to look at that, the second part of the question is that even with let's call it back to $70 Brent, we think we can continue to deliver these kinds of cash flows by having higher volumes and increasing our market.

What was oh, partner. Final part of that question was partners.

We had looked for a partner to help us with the CapEx and exposure on this asset. We've already taken that exposure, and we've been able to absorb it.

As I said, the cash flow turned around a lot faster than we had planned, I think, in one sense, we just don't need the partner for that purpose anymore. The other benefits, in terms of local market access, we've now established relationships that we didn't have before with major distributors.

We have Vibra and RodOil, our existing distributors. We've been making inroads with Petrobras, who is a supplier to us, and a purchaser of our naphtha, but we've been talking to them about marine gas oil, which they have some interest in.

We've talked to Ipiranga, which is another $20 million, $25 million US billion-dollar US company. We're also looking with the south part of Brazil, we're also now looking at markets in Uruguay and Paraguay with new distributor relationships.

Both Uruguay and Paraguay are closer to our plant than some places in Mato Grosso do Sul or São Paulo from a trucking point of view. I think we're finding that we've been able to develop some of those relationships ourselves in a fairly short period of time, and also we like the idea now that we're not tied to one distributor, which we would have been under the original plan.

We think it's actually worked out quite well for us that we now have multiple distributors that we're developing relationships with as opposed to one. I think the answer is we're now looking for partnerships on rather than a comprehensive basis, on a project-by-project basis.

We're looking at a partnership for fertilizer and limestone, which we co-mine with the shale and would make a material difference to our operating costs. We're looking at separate partnerships in the marine gas oil, and I think we'll continue We're also looking at condensate opportunities, gasoline opportunities.

These different opportunities we're all looking at with different entities and on a project-by-project basis as opposed to a partnership on the overall asset. I think the end answer to the question is we're not looking for a partner to be 50-50 on the overall operation anymore.

We are looking for strategic partners on specific projects and product lines.

Okay. There are a couple of questions just relating to the breakeven pricing.

Can you give some indication of what the underlying cash breakeven price would be at sort of normalized oil prices?

If we could speak to both normalized prices and volumes, and this is something that we've learned the hard way is that our overall costs of operating the plant are largely fixed. We don't see a big difference in monthly costs at 10,000 tonnes of fuel oil per month versus 13,000 tonnes fuel oil per month.

Critical to the operation is this increase in markets and volume, and because the extra 3,000 tonnes ends up being mostly all profit because the variable costs are so low. At normalized prices and volumes, our target have been able to bring operating costs down to $45 a barrel.

I think we achieved in the first quarter based on some of the volumes something close to $55 a barrel in some months. We're still targeting the $45 a barrel as a breakeven cost with let's call it $70 Brent, and let's call it 12,500, 13,000 tonnes a month in volumes.

Hopefully that answers the question. The key point being is that the $45 is dependent not as much on pricing as it is on volumes.

We've just got one more question on Brazil just relating to the turnaround. What do we expect the cost to be for the shutdown that's underway right now, and also the lack of production beyond the million dollars that you mentioned for the repair?

Just to mention, we're anticipating 3 weeks of lost production, which on a revenue basis would be, let's call on our minimum sales about $7 million US, and we're expecting less than $1 million US of direct costs. We're about halfway through the turnaround.

There's still inspections going on. It's not impossible that could be surprises that would cause it to go longer or to cost more money, but at least to this point, there have been no material surprises having got 50% through the turnaround.

The short answer to the question is we're budgeting that the plant turnaround cost both from direct cost and loss of business revenue would be about $8 million US, and as I said, we think out of the extra production that we can pay that out in 3 to 6 months.

The next questions are relating to Quebec, just wondering what the milestones are for the next 12 months for shareholders to look for, and then also what's being done to preserve the value of the asset in Quebec as we wait for the legal process to move forward? Specifically, have we seen any feedback from other parties on local gas production in Quebec?

That's a multi- multipoint question. Let's see if I can unpack those.

In terms of preserving the value, we we continue to have a responsibility for the physical assets, the wells. We have a a permanent person on on contract.

We do regular inspections of the wells. We maintain security over them, and we maintain we maintain certainly responsibility in spite of contested ownership.

In in terms of the physical assets, we continue to maintain them and have continued to maintain them, and those costs are sitting in in the operating costs of of Questerre in our so that that that sits in our in the results that we've that we've released to you. That that's that answers that narrow question.

Relative to the preservation of the overall asset, the gas in the ground, that's that that's maintaining our legal position that the government bill certainly as enacted did not have constitutional authority to cancel our contracts, in in, indirectly or in a de facto way expropriate our discovery without fair market value consideration. That's what our legal claim is about, that that should the government, decide that or change its mind about its contracts, that it has an obligation to compensate people on a fair market value basis, and our lawsuit is to protect those protect that for on behalf of our shareholders.

As far as milestones go, we're we're finding that the the big issue now is that we had a breakthrough in terms of the overall time by, one, allowing Questerre's case, and also Utica Resources, a private company with in a similar situation to us, that we've been allowed to go forward as a demonstration case, called a test case, but it's actually to demonstrate the legal principles. Any other claimants will stand to the side in suspension, and their cases will depend on whatever happens in our case.

That that has a significant benefit of having the overall hearing be much faster because we won't have, close to 10 different claimants all with slightly different fact cases and, more importantly, all with different ability to see the case through. We think that will overall speed up the the hearing the overall hearing quite a bit.

The other part of that is it will hear both the merits of the case and also damages in one hearing, something that will also overall speed things up. In the short term, it's caused a delay because while Questerre had done the work in advance on a damages report, which has been done on the basis not really of damages, but of the economic loss that our shareholders suffered through the through the purported cancellation of the contracts, and we've had that ready for 2 years.

Neither Utica Resources nor the government had prepared a official third-party expert opinion on their economic losses, and or in the case of the government, windfall gains. They're now in the process of doing that.

We We expect, in terms of milestones, to see hopefully see this expert opinion report from Utica Resources before the end of this year. The government is suggesting that it's going to take them longer to do theirs.

We have a case management hearing in November that will settle the deadline for the government to have its expert opinion report done, as well as addressing a series of objections that the government has made to our questioning of key witnesses like ministers where they're claiming cabinet confidentiality and cabinet privilege for some of the testimony. We don't think that cabinet privilege or confidentiality applies to all of those questions, the the justice will rule on those issues as well.

Getting to milestones, I would say the expert opinion reports is one milestone, the the the case management decisions on objections to witnesses' testimony is another milestone. I think but I think relative to our real goal, just to sort of switch that our real goal is to have a political and business solution.

We think the value to our shareholders and, frankly, the value to Quebec of the asset being developed is orders of magnitude bigger than the than the value in the expert opinion. Just to remind people, our expert opinion shows a low value of $700 million, so, do the math on that compared to the number of, 47 million shares preferred shares outstanding.

It's a it's a drama- even a low value would give quite a good return to our preferred shareholders, but it has a high value of $4.8 billion, which is what the expert opinion expert witness or our expert says is the best value case, or the the the the most valid value case is the $4.8 billion, but we think that the value under development is much higher. We're we're working to get that result if we can, and as I said, we think that result is a much better result for the people and of Quebec, both from an environmental, economic, and energy security point of view.

We have one final question just regarding the HCCO test at the Petrosix refinery. What results would we need to see before we would consider the technology commercially proven for implementation?

We're we're just updating that now. There's another test that was announced earlier around and and we've been talking to people about how the existing Petrosix technology has an issue with agglomeration, which is basically that the shale gets to a gets in in in it gets over time starts to smear and agglomerate and create blockages inside the the retort for the for the rock to move and and ultimately can sometimes lead to heat flow uneven heat flow inside the retort.

This is an ongoing issue and normal issue in the operation of the Petrosix tech technology, but if you operate the plant outside of its specifications, agglomeration can get worse, and that's exactly one of the things that happened in the last plant turnaround that we're now finding as we get into the very minutiae of it, that it was operated outside of spec several several times, and this resulted in a few different problems that has ultimately led it to this extra shutdown. We did a test in the 2x12 that showed that the processing of the shale on a static basis eliminates virtually eliminates, not completely eliminates this agglomeration problem.

That was a key technology risk that was dealt with with a test that we spent about $1.5 million on, maybe $1.5 million to $2 million on last year, and so that was a significant breakthrough from an engineering point of view on technology readiness level. Then this one, to be able to test the working gas homogeneous charge and continuous oxidization parameters in a full-sized vessel was another I think big technical breakthrough.

We're in the process of having Hatch, a worldwide engineering company, update our technology readiness level. We think we've addressed two if not the main two technology risks that were have were identified before, we think it's going to make a material difference.

What I can say, will will that allow us to go straight to a full-sized twinning of the retort in Brazil without the need to do a 1/10th scale pilot? I'm not sure about that yet, but it's possible.

What we what we do plan as a next step is we will buy the equipment to be able to operate the HCCO process inside the Petrosix retort on a continuous basis and on a commercial basis. We We anticipate to get that done within the next 12 months.

This will depend in part on bureaucracy and regulatory approvals in Brazil, we we can't promise that timeline, but that's our goal, subject to those parameters regulatory parameters, and that we will then have a continuous operation showing that the HCCO process is working not in the optimal retort design, but nonetheless in a continuous way that, 24/7. We expect it to operate with a relatively quick payout in terms of the extra thermal efficiency that we will bring to the to the old technology.

I guess the answer to the question is, one, we're updating the technology readiness level with external, independent engineers. We are we are planning to implement the process in a not not our optimized design, but in a in a 40, 50-year-old design to show that it can operate continuously, I think that'll be a a major commercial step.

I so I think that hopefully that is a a good answer to that to that question. I will tell you, though, from a from, from a financial point of view, from an investor point of view, I think the the implementation of the process on a continuous commercial basis that allows us to make more cash flow at PX is a very significant milestone.

I can tell you for the engineers, these last two tests are breakthrough tests.

I think that's it for the investor questions that we've received.

I guess we'll close off now. I wouldn't mind if there's feedback you guys want to give to us directly or through whatever forums on whether this call is useful, if people have suggestions for improvement.

I think we've already made the commitment that we'll continue it, but if people have suggestions for improvement, we are happy to take those. This was our first time as a quarterly update, and happy to hear your feedback.

Thank you for your time and attention today.