Ann: Fluence March 2019 Quarterly Report Business Update, page-26

Why would you want to cut costs if it directly leads to more work/revenue?
The Ivory Coast project would be fully funded by the Israel Discount Bank, so as work commences there will be disbursements at certain points in the project.

Fluence have a high cost base stemming from 300+ staff, 10+ offices and factories, R&D.
They have reduced expenditure on certain business units depending on market conditions/opportunities in each region.

The largest driver in quarterly cash reduction will actually be finishing the PDVSA Agrigola project in Venezuela, which should either be complete Q2 or Q3. Basically most of the cash that RWL Water were holding at the time of merger was reserved to complete this project, as RWL had received the funds in advance. Each quarter as they did work on this project, we have seen high quarterly cash burn, but we have not seen associated cash collections (as Fluence already had the funds). Therefore Fluence had the appearance of having a higher quarterly cash burn than you would expect. When this project has been completed, it will be easier to get to break-even, as most other projects will have a direct correlation between work being done, and cash being received, with likely higher margins than the PDVSA project had.

Unfortunately Fluence is always going to be a company that uses a lot of cash. For profitability they will always need to be completing at minimum $40 million USD in work each quarter. A shift in focus to the highest margin projects in SUBRE/MABR and Nirobox will allow them to create higher gross margins, and a focus on building their recurring revenue projects & O&M work will give them a more consistent revenue stream.