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Transcript Summary

Clean Energy Fuels Corp.'s Q1 2026 earnings call highlighted a transition in leadership to CEO Clay Corbus and a macro environment where high diesel volatility is enhancing the RNG value proposition. Revenue grew to $117.6 million, supported by 67 million gallons of RNG delivered. While GAAP net losses narrowed to $12 million, Adjusted EBITDA was essentially flat at $16.6 million. The company is navigating a complex landscape where the Cummins X15N engine—a primary growth driver—is seeing slower adoption than expected due to high upfront costs and freight market headwinds. On the upstream side, eight dairy RNG projects are operational, though Q1 production was hampered by severe winter weather. Regulatory progress was noted with a negative 300 CI score for the Del Rio Dairy. Analysts questioned the pace of trucking fleet conversions and accounting changes related to Amazon warrants. Management expressed confidence in their 'targeted' strategy, focusing on fleets where RNG offers the clearest economic advantage. The company maintains a solid liquidity position with $126 million in cash, aiming to leverage its infrastructure as fleets look for domestic, low-carbon alternatives to increasingly expensive diesel fuel.

5-year share-count history (top 10 holders by peak, incl. exited) + price

Revenue Segments

Filing Risk Scores

Clean Energy Fuels Corp: Burning Cash in the Green Transition While Warrants Cannibalize Equity

Full Earnings Call Transcript — Q1 • 2026-05-07

Operator: Please standby. Your meeting is about to begin. Hello, and welcome, everyone, joining today's Clean Energy Fuels Corp. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Note this call is being recorded. We are standing by should you need any assistance. It is now my pleasure to turn the meeting over to Tom Driscoll, Vice President, Strategic Development and Sustainability. Please go ahead.
Tom Driscoll: Thank you, Dana. Earlier this afternoon, Clean Energy Fuels Corp. released financial results for the first quarter ending 03/31/2026. If you did not receive the release, it is available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website, where the call is also being webcast. There will be a replay available on the website for 30 days. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that some of the information contained in the news release and on this conference call contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Such forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance and the company's actual results could differ materially from those contained in such statements. Several factors that could cause or contribute to such differences are described in detail in the Risk Factors section of Clean Energy Fuels Corp.'s Form 10-Q filed today. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this release. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements or supply new information regarding the circumstances after the date of this release. The company's non-GAAP EPS and Adjusted EBITDA will be reviewed on this call and exclude certain expenses that the company's management does not believe are indicative of the company's core business operating results. Non-GAAP financial measures should be considered in addition to results prepared in accordance with GAAP and should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to GAAP results. The directly comparable GAAP information, reasons why management uses non-GAAP information, a definition of non-GAAP EPS and Adjusted EBITDA, and a reconciliation between these non-GAAP and GAAP figures is provided in the company's press release, which has been furnished to the SEC on Form 8-K today. With that, I will turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Clay Corbus.
Clay Corbus: Alright. Thank you, Tom. I want to start by saying that I am honored to be named CEO of Clean Energy Fuels Corp. I have been part of this company for 19 years and have been involved in every major chapter of our evolution, from our days building out the fueling network to our initial investments in RNG in 2008, to the integrated platform we operate today. I have a huge amount of confidence in our team and the foundation we have built, and I am very excited about the opportunity ahead of us. Now as CEO, I plan to focus on growth, strengthen execution and operating discipline, and fully leverage the assets, infrastructure, and people we have in place. We have a strong balance sheet, recurring cash flow, and a very capable team. I also see opportunity to be more technology-forward, using data and software to improve efficiency across operations, corporate functions, RNG, and how we identify new customers and serve existing customers. All of this supports the same objective: deliver value for our customers and stakeholders. At its core, I believe deeply in this business and our product. RNG is domestically produced, lowers fuel costs, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and uses existing infrastructure. Those fundamentals have always mattered, but they are especially relevant today. Beginning in early March, the conflict with Iran caused a sharp rise in crude oil prices, which quickly flowed through to diesel across the U.S. Diesel prices increased by roughly $1.50 to $2 per gallon or more, a 50% increase almost overnight. Fuel is a meaningful component of cost per mile, and this level of volatility strains fleets, carriers, and shippers, and ultimately leads to higher costs for consumers. This environment reinforces why Clean Energy Fuels Corp. exists. Compared to diesel, natural gas is cheaper, cleaner, domestic, and less exposed to geopolitical events abroad. As you have heard many times before, nearly 100% of the fuel delivered to our stations today is renewable natural gas, which captures all the benefits I just mentioned and helps our customers advance their sustainability goals. Now turning to the quarter, we delivered 67 million gallons of RNG, we generated $16.6 million of Adjusted EBITDA, and we ended the quarter with $126 million of cash on the balance sheet. In our downstream business, performance across core markets remained steady. Our transit and refuse sectors continue to be consistent contributors, supported by long-standing customer relationships and the reliability of RNG. We also see underappreciated growth potential in these segments. Over the past five years, battery-electric and hydrogen solutions have proven costly and challenging to deploy in many locations. As those realities become clearer for transit and refuse fleets, RNG offers a practical, cleaner, and lower-cost alternative to diesel, and many of these fleets already have firsthand experience with RNG. In trucking, the recent diesel price hikes and volatility have brought total cost of ownership back into focus. Heavy-duty trucking remains our largest growth opportunity. Class 8 trucks with the Cummins X15N engine allow fleets to capture RNG's economic and environmental benefits without sacrificing range or performance. The technology works, the infrastructure is in place, the fuel is available today, and it is cheap and less volatile. Quite simply, the case for switching from diesel to RNG has never been stronger. At the same time, adoption of the X15N has been slower than we originally expected. Diesel is the incumbent fuel for the vast majority of fleets. In the last two years, the sector has faced challenging freight fundamentals, federal and state regulatory uncertainty, particularly in California, and frankly, ESG whiplash as companies balance long-term sustainability goals with fluid policies and near-term stakeholder expectations. Even though RNG delivers a lower total cost of ownership, natural gas tractors still carry a higher upfront cost than diesel. In that environment, many fleets have chosen to delay change and stick with the status quo. Our strategy is to be targeted, focusing on applications and fleets where RNG delivers the clearest economic and low-carbon advantages. In our upstream RNG production business, we now have eight projects operating and three under construction. The first quarter reflected continued ramp-up at our South Fork project in Texas and our East Valley project in Ohio. The first quarter also had extreme winter weather, which impacted production, particularly in the Upper Midwest. We were able to get our projects back on track and anticipate production and financial results to improve as the year progresses. I would also like to highlight a positive regulatory milestone. In March, CARB approved the pathway for our Del Rio Dairy project in Texas with a carbon intensity of approximately negative 300. We also continue to await an upgraded GREET model from the Department of Energy for determining 45Z credit values, which is expected to better reflect the negative carbon intensity of dairy RNG. As we scale our RNG production business, projects have taken longer to develop and ramp up than initially expected, and some have faced operational challenges. We have responded by taking a more hands-on approach to operations, strengthening internal oversight, and replacing vendors where performance fell short. These improvements and transitions take time, but we are making progress. We remain focused on improving performance at our operating sites and executing projects under construction. It remains true that Clean Energy Fuels Corp. is an advantaged owner of dairy RNG production. Customer demand for low-CI RNG remains strong, particularly in California, where we have the largest RNG station network. Now, in concluding, I want to take a moment to recognize Andrew J. Littlefair. Andrew J. Littlefair founded this company, led it for three decades, and built Clean Energy Fuels Corp. into the platform that it is today. I have had the privilege of working alongside Andrew J. Littlefair and learning from him. We are fortunate that he remains actively involved by continuing his work on policy matters in Washington and serving on our board. On behalf of the entire company, I want to thank him for his contributions and continued commitment to Clean Energy Fuels Corp. With that, I will hand the call to our CFO, Robert Vreeland, to walk through the financials.
Robert Vreeland: Thank you, Clay, and good afternoon to everyone. Overall, our financial performance was in line with our expectations with normal variations within our integrated businesses. For example, while extreme cold weather impacted upstream RNG production, we were able to monetize a larger-than-expected amount of RIN and LCFS credits from our East Valley dairy in Idaho, which was placed into service in March. Increased RNG volumes delivered by our fuel distribution business drove higher RIN revenues, and we were able to optimize our gas costs in this volatile commodities market. To a lesser degree in the quarter, but still ongoing today, we enjoy the dynamics of higher retail fuel prices while our natural gas commodity costs did not increase proportionally at the same level as oil and diesel prices. In fact, despite increases in our natural gas costs and retail prices, we maintained a large discount on our fuel price compared to diesel. Consequently, one of the effects we see of elevated commodity and retail prices is higher revenue. Coupled with higher fuel volumes, which drive both base fuel sales revenue as well as RIN and LCFS revenues, we reported $117.6 million in revenue for 2026 compared to $103.8 million last year. RNG volumes delivered in 2026 were strong. In addition to our normal recurring volumes, we saw higher demand from customers outside our network of stations needing RNG for transportation. We have seen this before, and it is nice to have the supply to accommodate those deliveries. We believe we will come off the first-quarter RNG volumes by a few million gallons or so as we look forward, but remain confident in achieving our annual guidance of delivering 250 million gallons or more given the first quarter of RNG for the year. GAAP net loss was $12 million for 2026. Certainly, there was a return in 2026 to more normal operations versus a year ago in the first quarter, where we reported a GAAP net loss of $135 million, which included a couple of large non-cash charges totaling $115 million. Adjusted EBITDA of $16.6 million in 2026 compares to $17.1 million of Adjusted EBITDA a year ago. In addition to the normal variations I mentioned for 2026, we also saw lower, albeit still very adequate, base fuel margins, which we anticipated in our outlook for 2026. And, as well and also anticipated in our 2026 outlook, we lowered SG&A expenses in 2026. One reporting comment I will make is a change in where the non-cash Amazon warrant charge is recorded in our financial statements. You will notice in 2026, a portion of the warrant charge is included as a charge against our O&M service revenue, whereas previously, 100% of the charge was in our products revenue. There is more detail on the Amazon warrant charge—it is just a different place in the income statement that you are seeing it this year. There is more disclosed in our 10-Q. In addition to the $126 million in cash and investments on our balance sheet, there is another $46 million in cash off balance sheet at our dairy RNG joint ventures. And during the first quarter, we contributed $12 million to our MAS Energy Works JV, with another $12 million that was contributed in April. MAS Energy Works continues to make good progress toward completing the three dairy projects under construction. And with that, operator, please open the call to questions.
Operator: Thank you. To leave the queue at any time, press 2. Once again, that is 1 to ask a question, and we will pause for just one moment to allow everyone a chance to join the queue. Our first question comes from Eric Stine with Craig Hallum. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Eric Stine: Hi, Clay. Hi, Bob. Clay, you touched on it a little bit, just with the X15N. I mean, I know that now there are two OEMs in the market and prior to Freightliner's entry, pricing was an issue, so incremental cost has come down some. And obviously we have all read the glowing feedback of fleets that have been testing this. But the market conditions, as you said, you have a more difficult environment, but obviously it highlights the price benefit. Do you view this as just going to make it more likely that it is going to be the large fleets rather than the small one-off adoption stories? Or how do you view that? I mean, is this the kind of thing that, if it persists, could be what actually jumpstarts this market? Because as you have said, although Cummins' view of it has not changed in terms of the overall opportunity, it is well behind schedule.
Clay Corbus: Yeah. Well, Eric, it is what we spend a lot of time thinking about and focused on. I do not think anybody really thinks that diesel is going to stay at these prices forever. But I do think that this run-up in diesel has really heightened the awareness of the volatility. You know, we were at the ACT conference the last few days, and what a lot of people are talking about is, if you just take the last five years and do a regression analysis on what the price of diesel has been, and then you compare that to the price of natural gas, it is just higher overall. And when fleets are trying to plan going forward what their fuel costs are going to be and their total cost of ownership, they are factoring that into those decisions. So it certainly helps us because it helps us with the total cost of ownership and the payback period for that incremental cost. I would also say that I do not know that it changes the types of fleets we are looking at, whether they are large fleets or small fleets. Because even with the large fleets, they are not going to change 2,000 trucks overnight. I think what we are seeing is that—as we heard from some of the fleets—they are going to start out with five trucks, start out with 10 trucks, dip their toe in the water, get their mechanics used to it, get their drivers used to it, get their routes used to it, and then from there, expand it into larger numbers within the fleet. I think that, combined with the advantages that we are seeing now in the total cost of ownership, will result in incremental adoption as we go forward. But it is a long sales cycle. It takes a long time to get trucks ordered, and it takes a long time to get them on the road. So it is not something where people can see high diesel prices and say they are going to order a truck tomorrow. It is a longer decision process than that. But certainly, the fundamentals behind it are reopening a lot of discussions that we are excited to take part in.
Eric Stine: Got it. That is very helpful. And then maybe just my second one for Bob. So you mentioned lower base fuel margins and something that was kind of the expectation. Was that commentary for Q1 or early in the year? Because if I think about, especially in trucking, when you have got high diesel prices, you can still offer a pretty healthy discount, and it is a pretty good margin environment for you. So just maybe clarify that statement and how you are thinking about that for the remainder of the year?
Robert Vreeland: Yeah, Eric, that comment is looking at the full year. When we gave our guidance back in February, we talked about some of the dynamics that could impact our guidance for 2026, and the possibility of lower margins from a variety of reasons was in the mix, and it is really throughout the year. But I will say, to the point you are making, we have numerous levers. So while the margin gets impacted from one area, the fact that we are enjoying higher prices with our costs remaining pretty stable helps offset some of that. But it is a go-forward look and certainly in our plan.
Eric Stine: Okay. Thanks a lot.
Clay Corbus: Great. Thanks, Eric.
Operator: Thank you. We will now go to Rob Brown with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Rob Brown: Hi, Clay and Bob. Thanks for taking my call. On the RNG volume you talked about in the quarter from kind of third parties, could you just clarify how that works and maybe sort of visibility on that?
Clay Corbus: Yeah. You know, it was a strong growth quarter, particularly when you compare it against last year. But I think we want to be careful on that because part of that growth was that the first quarter of last year, we did see our volumes trend down. If you remember, we had the biogas reform that pushed a lot of our volume into 2024, so 2025 was lower. And then, of course, we always have bad weather in the first quarter, but last year it was really spread throughout the country, and so we had less RNG from our third parties, in addition to our own production that was down. So while we are very pleased with the first quarter, a lot of it really was that we were comparing against a very easy comp in 2025.
Rob Brown: Okay. Thank you. And just to clarify, given the CARB pathway certification right now, it sounds like that is great. How does that flow through into the ability to get credits?
Clay Corbus: Well, it basically almost doubles the number of LCFS credits we can generate. When you are at a negative 150 versus negative 300, you are able to generate more credits off the same fuel that is coming through.
Rob Brown: Okay. Thank you. I will turn it over.
Clay Corbus: Yeah. Thanks, Rob.
Operator: Thank you. We will now go to Matthew Blair with TPH. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Matthew Blair: Thanks, and good afternoon, Clay and Bob. Could you talk a little bit more about the comment where you mentioned higher demand from customers outside of your network? Could you unpack that a little bit? Do you think you were taking share from some of your competitors? Or was it just a situation that these customers were utilizing their existing CNG trucks a little bit more and just needed more fuel given rising diesel prices? And could you also talk about what end markets you saw increased demand from? And then on the fuel distribution guide for 2026—it looks like you did not change it, still 67 to approximately 70 million despite the good result in the first quarter of 19 million. I think you mentioned that you would expect things to roll off a little bit in Q2. Are you already seeing softer conditions so far in the second quarter, or is that just your general expectation?
Clay Corbus: Yeah. So, Matthew, there are other folks out there with CNG fueling stations, and there are instances where, based on supply availability and that sort of thing, we will flow our RNG into those stations. It is really a supply-demand dynamic, and I could not necessarily tell you what is going on with their demand, but I know that they need the supply, and we are able to move it. We have done it before. It is not necessarily routine, but that is what that looks like because we have the RNG and we can flow it to other places. It is the beauty of the distribution model. As for the fuel distribution guide, I will not comment on what I am seeing intra-quarter. Second quarter is not really softer or consistent; it is more a comment relative to the volatility and the strength that we saw in the first quarter, and knowing that we may not see that level of strength as we go forward. We had some unique opportunities to sell some RNG to some of our customers that are probably not going to be repeated. So while it was a good result, it was an easy comp against last year, and you should not just multiply it by four for the full year because there were some unique opportunities in Q1 that we took advantage of.
Matthew Blair: Sounds good. Thanks for your comments.
Clay Corbus: Yeah. Thank you, Matthew.
Operator: We will go next to Betty Zhang with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Betty Zhang: Thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to ask about Amazon and that relationship. Earlier, Amazon announced its logistics services. Do you think there would be an opportunity to leverage that existing relationship and maybe increase some RNG volumes to them? And then for my follow-up, also related to Amazon, on those warrant charges, you mentioned it is now shared between the fuel and services. Is this a change in the contract with Amazon, or how would you describe that change? Thank you.
Clay Corbus: Betty, I will take the first comment. We do not comment specifically on Amazon. We want to be very careful—that is not something we can, or will, do. Across our customers, though, every single customer with existing trucks—whether they are 12-liter, 9-liter, wherever they are—we work with all of our customers to try to increase the penetration into their fleet with the X15N. So I am not going to speak specific to Amazon, but it is just good business sense to work with customers that you already have and see if you can continue your growth with them. As far as the Amazon warrant charge, I will let Bob take that one.
Robert Vreeland: Yeah. And Betty, I really cannot say that much, but it was not an arbitrary change. Any change like that is typically going to be driven contractually. We are just doing the appropriate accounting based on the contract that we have.
Betty Zhang: Thank you.
Operator: At this time, there are no further questions in the queue. I will now turn the meeting back over to Clay Corbus.
Clay Corbus: Alright, Dana. Thanks very much. And thank everybody else for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you next quarter.
Unknown Speaker: Thank you.
Operator: This brings us to the end of today's meeting. We appreciate your time and participation. You may now disconnect.