Plug Power Inc (PLUG)

[WeTheMarket]

JB, the following is the relevant question and answer excerpt from the conference call transcripts on Plug Power cash situation. Paul's response sounds good to me, and seems to portray a not so dire cash situation for Plug Power, and the analyst seemed satisfied with the answer. What am I missing? Can you clarify what you find questionable and/or concerning to you?

Link to transcripts https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2023/11/09/plug-power-plug-q3-2023-earnings-call-transcript/

Andrew Percoco -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Evening. Thanks for taking the question. Hey, Andy. How are you? I did want to just come back to the balance sheet and financing line of questioning because I do think it's important here.

So, in the quarter, it looks like you burned $400 million of free cash flow, which leaves you with about $550 million of unrestricted cash and available-for-sale securities on the balance sheet. And Paul, I know you laid out DOE timing late this year, but it sounds like that project milestone based, and you also announced the Fortescue potential financing at the project level, but it still sounds like that's early stages. So, it's leading me to think that you'll probably need to do something at the parent level to manage working capital within the next few weeks. One, is that correct? Two, are you still confident that you can do it with debt? Is there a potential need for a convert or equity here? And three, can you just give us a sense for size in terms of what you'll need to manage working capital and the profitability drag over the next few quarters? Thank you.

Andy Marsh -- Chief Executive Officer

Paul, do you want to take that one?

Paul Middleton -- Chief Financial Officer

Sure. So, a couple of things. Fortunately, we're kind of in this period where we've spent largely what we need to for Georgia to turn that on. We've also -- the balance for that's left for the Louisiana plant is not all in context, is not very big.

Wnd we're -- Texas is really kind of more middle of the year and on into the back of the year when the big chunks of money gets spent. So, I think we have a little bit of latitude on capex this quarter, next quarter in that regard. And then on top of that, given the scale of sales that we have this quarter, that obviously, as we convert that into cash, that helps. And then thirdly, we're laser-focused on reducing our inventory levels.

We've built that up substantially to kind of help launch these broad platforms, but there's a substantial amount of capacity there that we can tap into that we'll see. You'll start to see some of those benefits happen in Q4 and on into Q1 as we start leveraging that liquidity pool. So, -- but you're right. I look at it as fungible, right, to fund our plans, and we've talked about what our focus is.

And we're certainly focused on a range of solutions and some of the more near-term ones could include things like the ABL or restricted cash advance facility like we had with Generate before or some of those other structures. But I think we're in a good position given the positive effect of that working capital between receivable conversions and inventory, as well as that low period of capex that allows us to be a little bit more thoughtful as we move through this quarter and into next quarter about what we do and when we do it and picking the best solutions for Plug. Hopefully, that helps, Andrew.

Andrew Percoco -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst

Yeah, that's helpful.