Accrued Expenses

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2020

NOTE I – ACCRUED EXPENSES

Accrued expenses consist of the following:


	2020		2019
Compensation and incentives	$	1,136,754	$	2,821,349
Professional services		243,995		422,130
Deposit		450,000		450,000
Interest		15,800,317		9,494,391
Accrued insurance obligations		355,814		221,504
Other operating		985,056		13,341

Total accrued expenses	$	18,971,936	$	13,422,715

Professional fees are mainly attributable to legal fees and other professional services in support of operations. Compensation and incentives at December 31, 2020 includes $0.8 million accrued incentive awards for the company employees at December 31, 2019 and prior and $0.3 million additional for 2020. The Board of Directors will only approve incentives to be paid when and if there is sufficient excess cash above and beyond normal operating requirements. Other operating at December 31, 2020 contains general expense items resulting from general operations. The primary expense in Other operating $0.9 million is for accrued exploration permits. Accrued interest is due to several lenders per debt agreements described in NOTE H. During the quarter ended September 30, 2019, we received an earnest money deposit of $450,000 from a company controlled by Greg Stemm, our past Chairman of the Board (see NOTE J for further information). The earnest money deposit relates to a draft agreement related to potential sale of a stake of our equity in CIC. This transaction has not yet been consummated. Accrued insurance obligations for the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019 primarily consisted of directors and officers insurance obligations.