Betolar, a leading provider of low-carbon and waste-free solutions, held its first quarter 2025 business review, highlighting a groundbreaking innovation in metal separation and green cement production. The company announced a new patented method that combines the extraction of critical and strategic metals from waste materials and the production of green cement, a significant breakthrough in sustainable construction and mining solutions.
Metal Extraction and Green Cement Production
Betolar has developed an innovative method that utilizes unutilized industrial side streams to extract critical and strategic metals while simultaneously producing a low-carbon, green cement. This process involves extracting up to 99% of the metals from waste materials that would otherwise end up in landfills, improving metal yield and enhancing local supply security. The resulting green cement can be used as a cost-efficient and low-carbon alternative in Betolar's geoprime solutions, potentially reducing construction costs and environmental impact.
Other Highlights and Growth Opportunities
Betolar also announced the launch of the world's lowest emission holocrete labs in partnership with Consolis Parma, marking a significant milestone in sustainable construction practices. Additionally, the company entered the Canadian market by securing a cementless rock fill solution project with Canadian Royalties Inc., aimed at reducing CO2 emissions and costs in mining operations.
Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, Betolar reported significant year-over-year net sales growth in the first quarter, driven by strong interest in its low-carbon and waste-free solutions, particularly in the mining sector. The company expressed confidence in achieving further growth, fueled by the newly announced metal extraction and green cement innovation, as well as ongoing projects in shotcrete and cementless rock fill applications.
With a focus on innovation, sustainability, and cost-effective solutions, Betolar is poised to make a significant impact in the construction and mining industries, addressing environmental concerns while driving economic benefits for its customers.
This summary was written by our AI Analyst Tim! If you find something that does not seem right let us know and we will correct him
Hello everyone, welcome to Petollar's first quarter 2025 business review. Happy to have you listening our webcast. So I'm Tuija Kalpala, I'm the president and CEO of Petalar. And firstly just briefly about the disclaimer about the forward looking statements, then about our agenda. So I will be briefly talking about the main events and the highlights in first quarter and then we have the financial review and last we have the questions and answers. And please if you have any questions please use the chat box online and ask any questions you may have. So we will address those at the end of the session. Then let's get started. So during the first quarter our main events and after the period actions that have happened, so couple of them highlighted here. So firstly we announced the Holocaust Labs production very early this year. So together with Gonzolis Parma. So we are entering now the production phase on the world lowest emission Holocaust Labs. Then Site Prime Service Siteprime is the service that we launched at the end of last year. It's a new service where we are analyzing the potential of different kind of waste and citrine materials. And we announced earlier this year that we have been doing some work together with Alava Utjut and we have been analyzing their side streams and their potential to be used as a substitute for cement for our geoprime solutions. We also announced a new patent, we were granted a new patent on a climate cabinet that is standardizing the storage conditions for test samples. And this is something that that we have developed primarily for our own use in our laboratory. But of course thinking about that this is something really useful that others could benefit also from then I would say that the biggest news and the biggest highlight during the period beginning of this year was this metal separation and production of green cement. And I will be spending some time today talking about this in more detail. But in short, so we have developed this new innovative method that is combining the separation of metal from waste materials and the production of green cement. Very interesting, very interesting case. And this is also something that we will be also opening more during our capital markets day that will take place in May. Then as another highlight, we have now officially entered the Canadian market and we announced yesterday that we have a new cooperation with the Canadian Royalties Inc. In Canada and we're developing a cementless rock fill solution for them. And I will talk about that also in a bit later. Our management team also is growing. So we have been so far we have been three people in the management team. We are happy that Yuri Talia Is now joining the management team in the company. He has been with us about six months and he is our new chief growth officer. Yes. Then the highlights. So the market situation, as we have discussed before, we see very strong interest in our low carbon and waste free solution, especially within the mining sector. And this is, this is good. Of course the development of this is taking some time. It's not very fast to enter to new deals in the mining sector. It takes some time to get this. But we are definitely getting some momentum in the mining sector with our solutions. As discussed earlier, we still see that the construction market is slow and it's very limited in the momentum at the moment due to the market market conditions. If we are looking at our sales in first quarter, it showed significant growth compared to the previous year, but fell short of our own expectations. And this is mainly due to the challenging macroeconomic conditions and to the extent implementation time for mining solutions. As I just mentioned that a lot of these things, it takes time to get these mining solutions implemented, get these things going. But we're working very hard every day on getting more traction on the mining site. And to that point we were able to get the first cementless rock fill project launched. Well, this is the first public announcement. We have a couple of projects related to cementless rock fill at the moment ongoing. And also we have this fully cement free shotcrete that we have been piloting. This is the Otokumpu case. And those things are also going as planned. And now of course the big thing also for us is that we were able to open the Canadian market with this cementless rock fill project that we announced yesterday. So we are really looking forward now the opportunities that we we have in also Canadian market. Then the innovation side is this breakthrough in metal separation technology and green cement production. And for that we have filed seven new patent applications in addition to those that we have filed also earlier. So there's a lot of new patents that have been filed related to this metal separation. Then about this opportunity that we have now in Canada. So this is our first reference for developing this cementless rock fill solution. And this is a 100% customized solution that we're developing for Canadian royalties and their Nunavik nickel project. We are targeting to commercialize the solution in early 2026 and it will be based now on this techno commercial study and the piloting that we are starting doing right now. And this solution is very innovative. It replaces cement with industrial side streams in these rock fill applications and offers cost competitive and also very effective way of reducing CO2 emission in mining and it's really quite interesting opportunity for us because it's not only helping to reduce the CO2 emissions for the mines, but it's also very cost effective solution and reducing the cost. Then the holocaust labs that we have together developed together with Consolis Parma. So we talked about this also last time, but this is something that happened in the first quarter. So we have now been working together with Consolis Parma for some time now to develop these world's lowest emission holocaust labs. And we have agreement with Parma for this to make it actually go into production phase. We have a three year contract that covers all consulate countries and we're really looking forward to it. And the situation for this is that we're right now looking for the first project where we can implement these holocaust labs. Then I would like to talk about little bit our new innovative method for recovering these critical and strategic metals and producing the Korean cement and little bit about the background of this new development and why we have been developing something, something that is really related to critical and strategic metals. So as you know we have been since the beginning we have been really focusing on utilizing industrial side streams and developing low carbon and cement free technologies for construction, mining and metal industries. And also we have AI based data platform that we have been created to bring value from industrial side streams and to really accelerate our solution development. And we have been really focusing quite a lot on this geoprime product so how we can replace cement in different kind of concrete products and really bring down the CO2 emission and reduce the use of virgin resources. So this has been really the core and understanding the opportunity with different side streams and how this side stream can be utilized. And lately we have put quite a lot of focus on thinking about these unutilized so unused side streams. We know that there are side streams that are already commoditized like ggbfs. So the slack, typical slack that is used as a replacement for cement. But we have been really put quite a lot of R and D effort on understanding can we use these kind of waste materials and can we turn them into value. And now we had the big breakthrough on this development and we were able to identify these kind of side streams that are not utilized today and they are ending up in the landfill and how we can take the metals, the strategic and critical metals out of these waste materials and have value for those and at the same time create this kind of binder material that is a green and this is really the core and what we have been wanting to do is to find the own kind of binder that we can use that lowers the CO2 emission. And it's also at the same time like a circular product. And this is really the background for that. Why we are now talking about these critical and strategic metals and what is it has to do with us. So for us it's really that we are really interested ourselves in the green cement. And this metal side is something that will bring a lot of value to our customers. So in briefly what does it mean? So it means that we will be utilizing these unutilized industrial side streams. So several or in this picture you can see that we would be using two different site streams for this. And with this process then we are able to extract the metals, the critical and strategic metals out of this kind of waste material. And there will be two different products as a result of this process. So one is of course these metals and the other part is this green cement. We will be talking about more technical details about what is this actual method during our capital market markets day. So I'm inviting you to come and join that event. So we will tell more about these technical aspects. What does it mean and of course more about the opportunity for petal. What does it mean like money wise, what is it going to bring to our top line, this technology? But then as lastly I want to talk about a little bit about what is the impact and what is the benefit of this, this new innovation that we have. And we're now moving to a commercial phase of this technology as we have now filed all the patents and we have done excessive tests related to this and all the tests are looking extremely positive for this technology. So we will get out these critical and strategic pedals out from this waste material. And based on our test a couple of weeks ago, so we can get up to 99% of these metals out, which is a very significant number. And it really improves the yield of the metal extraction for the metal companies. And of course this is related to the security of supply locally because we are able to extract more of these materials out from the waste material that would otherwise end up in a landfill. Then as a result we will get this green cement which can be then utilized as a low carbon green cement in our own projects that we have for this geoprime product that we have been developing and selling over the several years. And this is really a cost efficient alternative and it can potentially also lower the cost of construction. And we are really excited about this opportunity and the possibilities that this will bring globally to our customers. Then the Big thing is also is a zero waste that as a result of us utilizing these different kind of unused waste and side stream materials, there will be no waste left after this process. So we are just converting these waste materials into valuable materials and of course reducing the fact that these materials doesn't have to be landfilled. And we will reduce the cause of negative environmental impact as well. But again, as I said, we will be talking more about the monetary impact of this to Petollar and to our customers during our capital markets day. But then let's move on to our next topic. So our CFO Mikkovirkala will talk about that financial review. So go ahead Mik. Thank you, Tuja. Let's have a look then our financial figures and start from the net sales and our net sales was €164,000 and this was roughly 100,000 more than last year despite high growth numbers in percentages. So we are not satisfied with the levels so far internally that as Tuja mentioned already. But we are then looking for more growth and as we have said in our guidance that we are expecting our full year net sales to exceed the level of 2024. Our EBITDA then was roughly minus 1 million euros. And that's already already 1 million euro improvement from the previous year. And here the main driver has been the cost saving actions what we performed last year and that's explaining the majority of the improvement. But also we have the grants what have been booked in other operating income which is not visible here. That is also affecting affecting our ebitda, our cash and cash equivalence and short term fund investments. So that at the end of the period was 10 million euros. And we have also added a new financial indicator to the presentation and that's called liquidity and unrolled grants. And that's typically that what we have been presenting later on that where we combine our cash investments and undrawn loans and also undrawn grants. So we have added it here to reflect then the Runway how much we have cash and also liquid funds available in our company. If we then move to our operational indicators, our order intake was €90,000. And this is also a level that where we are not internally satisfied and we are below the last year's numbers and last year numbers that it's worth noting that there we had one big single project order what we got in during the first quarter there. And this is also reflecting our current situation that where we have projects and one single order can be rather, rather large. And then it's depending on that when one Deal actually realizes or when the order is coming in. So that is also affecting our numbers there. And as it's clearly visible in the numbers, our order intake was only 90,000 in the first quarter. And one new research project or non recurring engineering project was initiated during the quarter. Our Number of personnel 34 Average during the quarter compared to previous year. So it's much lower. And here the cost saving measures are clearly visible visible that what we have been achieving during the last year. Then moving on looking at the more detailed our cash balance, cash balance and the liquidity. So as mentioned already earlier, our cash balance was roughly 10 million euros at the end of quarter. And access what we have done during the quarter. So we were raising the last installment of of the loan from Climate fund and the number was 2.5 million euros. And that was increasing our cash balance during the quarter. And then we have still 2.1 million remaining from business Finland and also other grants, what we have from other institutions and combining all of these. So our new new financial indicator liquidity and undrawn grants that amounts to 12.4 million euros. And as I mentioned already earlier, our guidance for the full year remains unchanged. We are still expecting our net sales for 2025 to increase from the previous year levels. So these were the first quarter financial figures in a very nutshell. And next we will move on then the questions and answers. And here I also invite Soila on stage. Thank you, Nico. All right, we have received a lot of questions. So the first one is that what is the main business driving your growth in 25 and 26? Is it a shotcrete, a concrete paste, backfilling or metal extraction? Very good question. 2025, 2026. So this year and next year. So we had just published this metal separation or extraction technology that's something that we are now commercializing. So we're starting and we're thinking and doing all the strategies and sales plans as we speak. So that's something that we are moving forward now, right now. And then of course the baseback filling that that I mentioned about that we have now the first public reference in Canada for that. So that's something that where we see growth opportunities definitely in that solution because it's not only reducing the CO2 emissions, but it can potentially also reduce the cost for the mine mining company. So that's definitely another area. And then of course we have the shotcrete and there's been a lot of interest in this kind of shotcrete that is low emission and even cement free. So we of Course see that that's also something that is interesting in the market and a lot of customers are asking about it. But I would say that definitely those are the areas where we see growth. But of course we're also working with the construction industry and we have also solutions, other solutions to. To these industries or this industry. But typically these are quite a little bit smaller. So typically these are NREs and pilot ply the things. Of course we have several customers who are already using our geoprime solution. So that's of course an area that we're also working on and looking at growth. But as mentioned the market situation in the construction side is a bit challenging right now and there's not a lot of new projects ongoing. That's of course affecting that market and it's a little bit slower than we would like at the moment. Okay, then to the metal extraction again about the next steps you described some of those just that we are starting to commercialize the metal extraction and the green cement. But are there some other concrete steps that we are taking? Number one is now commercializing it and we have done, we have done tests in our own laboratory and we have done pilots in external, external testing facility and we will of course also continue as a parallel doing more test and further developing but it's really more about now commercializing this and finding the new customers for this. Very good. Okay. And then have you seen any pickup in order activity in April after the period? Yeah, this is good. So we can't really give any forward statements but what I can say that if we look at for example last year quarter one and quarter two, typically at least in our side we see that typically the first quarter is much lower than the rest of them months. And and of course the market situation is very tough right now because of quite many things ongoing. But. But we have seen that there's a lot of more discussions and things are. Things are picking up so so to say so so let's, let's see how this, the market conditions will. Will move forward. But we're very happy for example now that we announced yesterday about this Canadian Royalties Inc. Our first reference in Canada and we can, we can move and at also now growing our footprint in Canadian market. Thank you. And are you planning to recruit more people in the coming quarters? Yeah, that's also very good question. And we have been recruiting not, not a lot but. But few people. And and now with this metal extraction that we have, we just announced Euritalia is joining the management team and he's really taking a lead on commercializing this metal extraction side. And we see a lot of growth opportunities. So that's something that we are now doing the strategies and really now thinking what do we need in order to move forward? And what I can also say that these recruitments that we have been doing and might be doing, they are really related, more on the sales side and also the technical side of this technology. But in general, also, we have been looking at improving our sales and sales personnel and our capabilities in increasing the sales, because it's, of course, everything is about sales. Thank you. That was it. That was all the questions that we have received. Thank you for listening. And hopefully we will see you at our Capital Markets Day that is coming on 14th of May. So in a couple of weeks, see you there.
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