Frontieras North America Rises Above the Noise
Written by Matthew McKean, CEO and co-founder of Frontieras North America (LinkedIn)
As the CEO and Co-founder of Frontieras North America, I engage in every facet of the company’s growth. Frontieras, preparing to break ground on the construction of our first FASForm plant in West Virginia is focused on raising capital through various platforms, financial institutions, and investment groups. This stage, driven by Chief Commercial Officer Andrea Moran, has been an interesting ride and provided the impetus of today’s article.
Frontieras competes within the global energy market. The state of the energy market has been deteriorating over the past two decades as it has been underfunded and blocked by pro-green policies. While politicians like to point to the conflict in Ukraine or the limiting of oil production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) for the current global energy crisis, I believe that it is the combination of underfunding and poor policies that have hampered the investment in developing innovative and clean technology by energy companies. The result is clear and is only going to get worse as more companies and individuals face outages.
My overall assessment is that many of today’s financial institutions and individuals have lost their way in understanding the value and impact of an organization before they invest. In a quest to extract exorbitant returns, today’s investors are placing management teams in precarious positions of balancing growth and profits, while associating with the latest trends (i.e. green movement). Additionally, I believe the lack of broad regulatory compliance amongst emerging industries has created a platform that is susceptible to widespread fraud. Collectively, these factors have led to a vulnerable investment market that has the debt markets tightening on large scale non ESG projects.
This myopic view and “follow the crowd" mentality around investing have led us down a path to witness the epic rise and fall of companies, including Theranos and more recently FTX. Both organizations capitalized on introducing breakthrough technology and charismatic leadership. The combination of these two factors created a fear of missing out (FOMO) mentality amongst the investment community (institutional and individual) that secured billions in financing with little to no compliance. Ironically, both of these organizations, which are now insolvent, were not exposed by government watch dogs, but rather by investigative journalism.
Theranos – Two years after being brought down by an investigative journalist, Theranos’ co-founder Elizabeth Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. This ruling sent shockwaves throughout the Silicon Valley as founders were now personally responsible for their actions.
FTX - Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), who is being referred to as the Bernie Madoff of the crypto market, may have deceived investors, customers, journalists, celebrities and politicians. In the period of less than 10 days, FTX went from a market leader to shutting down and filing for bankruptcy because of deceptive business practices. The demise of FTX not only hurt both individual and institutional investors, it also placed the entire crypto market in question.
When it comes to investment, I tend to lean into the core principles of Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha. These include: 1.) Only buy stocks that you understand 2.) Never compromise on business quality 3.) Most news is noise, not news. While simple in their methodology, these core principles have proven successful for creating wealth and building successful organizations that drive our economy forward. Below I correlated below how Frontieras fits squarely within each of these principles.
1) Only buy stocks that you understand: Frontieras operates within what I refer to as a necessities market, specifically focused on delivering abundant, available and affordable energy. The energy market is the driving industry that allows all other businesses to move forward.
2) Never compromise on business quality: Frontieras’ introduction of innovation to a mature energy market allows it to sell directly into an established channel. Specifically, Frontieras advanced technology manipulates coal to produce a net-new purified solid carbon product known as FASCarbon™. FASCarbon is superior to current metallurgical coke used in the production of steel and unprocessed petroleum coke (Petcoke) that is used in the production of cement. The production of FASCarbon allows Frontieras to produce several other high value gas and intermediate liquid fuels including methane, naphtha, kerosene, jet fuel and diesel. Frontieras also captures and repurposes key coal constituents– methane, hydrogen, and ammonia. Frontieras’ ability to produce valuable liquid, gas and solid solutions allows it to address the current energy crisis, deliver a superior product and be highly profitable.
3) Most news is noise, not news. This statement rings true in today’s world that is so focused on pandering to the pressure that is associated with the global climate. Worse than influencing the news cycle, this mentality has skewed the way that organizations are evaluated and viewed in today’s current market.
Frontieras is closely aligned to the investment tenets shared by Warren Buffett and believes that our company’s offerings will have a substantial impact on the energy market and those industries that rely on the plethora of liquid, gas and solid solutions that is produced by the FASForm plant’s processing of coal.
Frontieras’ clean technology is built around a zero-waste approach that repurposes the captured volatiles, lowers the carbon footprint, and reduces CO2 emissions. In addition to the environmental benefits, this allows the production of FASCarbon to comply too changing regulatory demands and create more efficient fuels.
Frontieras’ clean technology and use of coal as a feedstock is poised to play a critical role in every aspect of our lives. Instead of creating policies to eliminate the use of coal, today’s governments need to evolve their thinking about how innovation, technology and collaboration allow us to harness the ubiquitous supply of coal here in the U.S. and in other coal-rich countries.
To learn more about Frontieras North America and its patented energy solution or to invest in the company, please visit www.Frontieras.com.