Is Origin’s PET useable in all fossil-based PET applications?

Yes. The PET produced from our CMF/paraxylene is chemically identical to fossil-based PET, and hence it has all the same performance characteristics and drops directly into the existing PET supply and recycling chains without any modifications or additional capital expenditures.

Is Origin’s PET recyclable or biodegradable? What are your customers’ views on these characteristics?

Our PET is chemically identical to fossil-based PET, which is recyclable but not biodegradable. Our customers generally prioritize carbon footprint reduction as their most immediate goal and we believe they view recyclability as their top priority to drive a closed-loop life cycle. While single-use plastics have received significant press attention, large amounts of PET go into long-lasting goods such as automotive, carpets, and electronics casings where biodegradability is generally not desirable or required.

If our customers shift priority to degradability, we currently have the technology to produce PEF. We believe that PEF has many superior performance characteristics to PET. PEF can be recycled by the same mechanical methods used for PET, although currently there are no independent PEF recycling streams or U.S. guidelines for blending PEF and PET streams. And PEF is degradable, although further study is needed to determine its behavior under all conditions. Our current technology enables PEF to be manufactured at unit economics we expect to be similar to or better than those for PET. We have not assumed near-term adoption of PEF in our financial forecast because this would require modifications of our customers’ products and processes, which are entirely customer driven events. We believe that we would be able to quickly adapt our operations to meet demand for PEF in the future.

Are there sustainability issues with using wood as a feedstock?

We don’t believe so. Our technology is highly flexible in terms of the type of ‘wood’ that we use. It can range from wastepaper and cardboard, agricultural waste, scrap wood from other processes, etc. We may also use wood residues from sustainably managed forests, which are grown and farmed specifically to serve the kraft pulp mills. In any feedstock scenario, we believe that our approach will be entirely sustainable.

Are you concerned about the availability or price stability of wood feedstock?

No. Our technology is highly flexible and can use many different feedstocks, including most cellulosic biomasses, wastepaper and cardboard, construction waste, and agricultural waste. We anticipate consuming a negligible portion of the North American or world wood supply, even before taking into account the availability of these other possible feedstocks and the anticipated supply response from sustainably managed timber farms. The sustainably managed timber that we can use is plentiful and commonly used by kraft pulp mills.    It is ‘low value’ wood in that fiber length, size and height aren’t concerns for us and it isn’t timber that would be used for higher value, structural lumber. This type of timber is too low value to transport beyond a couple hundred-mile radius and is often captive to a small number of facilities providing long term price stability. As a result, what happens in a particular geographic region doesn’t have a strong impact on any other region, and construction of new facilities generally considers feedstock supply and availability in that region.

Have you assumed a “Green Premium” in your financial models?

Our base case financial forecast assumes pricing consistent with projected fossil-based PET pricing found in leading market research publications and with the prices we have in our existing

How does Origin’s PET achieve a lower carbon footprint than fossil-based PET?

Conceptually, fossil-based PET extracts and releases carbon trapped in the ground as oil. Our sustainable, carbon-negative PET uses trees to capture CO2 in the air, which we then convert into products that keep that CO2 trapped. Our zero or negative carbon material claims have been substantiated by an independent Life Cycle Assessment (“LCA”) report from Deloitte that is available on our website. The LCA report tallied up the cradle-to-gate carbon footprint from feedstock material, chemicals, catalysts and production processes.

Are Origin 1 and 2 capacity sold out?

Given current customer demand, we believe we could sell out Origin 1 and 2 if that were our strategy. However, we have decided to reserve capacity to sell to new customers in different industries who have higher margin applications for our materials. We believe this strategy will allow us to achieve a customer diversification that can drive higher growth in the medium and long term. In addition, we expect the market price for low and negative carbon materials is likely to rise over time given the increasing demand for low or zero carbon materials as major companies make “net zero” pledges.

What exactly goes into and comes out of Origin’s facilities? What are customers contracting to buy?

We use wood residues, which are chipped (cut down to pieces around the size of a playing card) and then digested in our chemical process, which subsequently produces both CMF and HTC. CMF will be converted into paraxylene, which will then be tolled through an existing PET producer and sent to our customers as PET pellets. This is how our customers currently receive their fossil-based PET from the same PET producers, making our solution truly drop-in ready. In the case of PET, we plan to sell the PET directly to the customer and take responsibility for the manufacturing of PET, including any third-party tolling arrangements from paraxylene to PET. For HTC, we have the technology and equipment to convert it into HTC fuel pellets, activated carbon, carbon black, etc., which we plan to sell directly to the customers.

In general, we work and contract directly with corporate brands like Danone, Pepsi, Nestle, etc. for our products. We envision continuing to do so in future as we engage with new customers in different industries. In addition, we are also pursuing relationships with materials and chemicals companies that may use our products as input for their products, which can be sold to their branded customers.

Will Origin’s commercial plants create hazardous or dangerous waste products that will add regulatory or environmental risk?

We don’t expect to produce any hazardous or dangerous by-products that cannot be safely disposed.

How key is the Eastman patent Origin has licensed? How much of the IP was developed in-house?

The Eastman licensed patent is not a core part of our technology and our platform is not dependent to a material extent on any licensed intellectual property. We acquired a license to the Eastman patent because we thought that it may be valuable to our customers if PEF is widely adopted. The technology around our core process has been developed in-house over the last 10+ years and is protected by both our strong patent portfolio and by proprietary intellectual property, including trade secrets. That core technology belongs to us. Over the years, we have

What is the payback for your plants (Origin 2 and onwards)?

We estimate that the payback period (the ratio of capex to annual EBITDA) will be approximately 2-3 years, depending on the plant.

Do you intend to raise further equity capital?

The proceeds from this transaction, in combination with additional project financing and government incentives, are expected to fully fund our business plan until positive EBITDA in 2025.

Does Origin intend to license its technology?

While our current projections assume build-own-operate economics, we are open to entering into licensing agreements if we think this would add value to the company and shareholders. Given the size of our TAM and increasing customer demand, we anticipate that technology licensing will be a topic frequently raised by both our customers and traditional chemical companies.

Why did you choose to go public via a SPAC versus an IPO?

We choose to go public via a SPAC because we believe it will provide us the fastest and highest certainty of raising the required capital to build our plants. We believe that our technology is proven and ready to scale. We have substantial demand from customers and were seeking the financing path that would most quickly and efficiently fund us to commercial scale.

We choose Artius Acquisition Inc. as our SPAC partner because of the experience of its sponsor and directors with raising capital in the financial markets, expertise in operating public companies and a shared long-term vision for a decarbonized world.