CFO Spotlight: A Conversation with Jose Lopez

Jose Lopez, Chief Financial Officer, Frontieras North America

Jose Lopez was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Frontieras North America in June 2025. He brings over two decades of leadership experience in global finance, accounting, and capital markets, with a track record of supporting high-growth energy and infrastructure firms through IPO readiness, SEC compliance, and complex project finance transactions. Before joining Frontieras, Jose held senior roles at several publicly traded energy companies and began his career at PwC, where he worked across Houston, London, and The Hague in assurance services. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and Finance and is a licensed CPA.

Q1: What compelled you to join Frontieras at this inflection point in its commercialization journey?

A: Frontieras represents a rare convergence of breakthrough technology, strong leadership, and market timing. I saw an opportunity to apply my background in capital strategy to a company that's poised to redefine how energy is created, financed, and scaled.

Q2: How do you view Frontieras’ FASForm™ technology as a financial opportunity — not just a technological one?

A: FASForm is uniquely positioned to unlock trapped value from the world’s most abundant hydrocarbons. Its ability to generate revenue across multiple commodity streams — fuels, hydrogen, fertilizers — means diversified, resilient income potential. . This is not a bet on a lab-stage innovation, it’s a de-risked infrastructure-grade platform built to scale profitably.

Q3: From a capital markets perspective, how does Frontieras stand apart in today’s energy and industrial landscape?

A: Most clean energy plays are still speculative or subsidy-reliant. Frontieras is engineered to be margin-driven, market-ready, and profitable without government support. . It represents a rare convergence of necessity-market resilience, post-ESG capital momentum, and commodity driven upside.

Q4: What does Frontieras’ multi-product revenue model mean for margin stability and long-term financial resilience?

A: It gives us hedging capacity. Diesel, hydrogen, fertilizers — if one market tightens, others expand. That creates pricing power and balance across economic cycles.

Q5: Can you speak to the company’s unit economics — particularly the expected gross margins per ton of coal processed?

A: Our modeling shows gross margins in the 80% range per ton of input, depending on the market mix and feedstock price. That’s before offtake advantages and internal hydrogen utilization are factored in.

Q6: How does Frontieras plan to achieve sustainable free cash flow in the construction and ramp-up phase of its first FASForm plant?

A: By tightly managing capex through phased engineering milestones, leveraging structured finance supported by offtake contracts, and securing strong institutional backing like our $150M equity facility from GEM.

Q7: What are the most significant drivers of EBITDA growth in the company’s 3–5 year plan?

A: The commissioning of the West Virginia plant is step one. Additional drivers include additional North American projects, global expansion, and integration of co-located FASForm units with legacy coal infrastructure.

Q8: What role do offtake agreements play in Frontieras’ financial forecasting and ability to secure project finance?

A: Offtakes validate our revenue projections, improve debt service coverage, and lower our cost of capital. They're key to both financial modeling and institutional confidence.

Q9: How do you view the revenue diversity of Frontieras’ outputs — from diesel to fertilizers, technical carbon and industrial chemicals — in terms of risk mitigation?

A: Revenue diversity is our risk mitigation engine, enabled by FASForm™ which monetizes every molecule. It spreads risk across industrial, transportation, and agricultural sectors. That diversification is a strategic buffer in volatile markets. It transforms a single-source feedstock into a multi-market, multi-margin enterprise, and that’s how you build a high value energy business.

Q10: How does Frontieras’ “no subsidies” model position it competitively in an industry still reliant on tax credits and government support?

A: It makes us more adaptable, less politically exposed, and fundamentally more sustainable. We’re building a business, not a grant application.

Q11: Can you walk us through the capital deployment strategy for the Mason County facility and its anticipated ROI?

A: We’re deploying capital in structured tranches tied to engineering milestones. Modeled IRR for the facility is well over 100% based on conservative pricing assumptions and confirmed offtake volumes.

Q12: How are you approaching investor communications as the company scales toward IPO readiness?

A: We’re focused on transparency, clarity, and measurable milestones. Every investor touchpoint is an opportunity to show real progress, not just projections.

Q13: What are your key benchmarks or signals of financial health as Frontieras moves from engineering to operations?

A: Our transition to operations is defined by disciplined capital deployment, margin clarity, and early offtake traction. We’re measuring cash burn rate versus engineering progression, offtake momentum, contractor bidding outcomes, and capex alignment with modeled costs.

Q14: What excites you most about the financial story Frontieras is building — and what should investors be watching in the next 12 months?

A: Investors should watch for ground-breaking in West Virginia and the expansion of our offtake and institutional partnerships. I’m excited to be part of an American energy renaissance that we’re financing with market fundamentals.  Frontieras is that rare case where margin, market demand, and macro tailwinds are all moving in sync. The technology works. The products sell. The politics have shifted. This next year is when we start to prove it.