Aemetis, Inc. (AMTX) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Hello, and welcome to the Aemetis, Inc. First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining us today are Eric McAfee, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Todd Waltz, Chief Financial Officer; and Andy Foster, President of Aemetis Advanced Fuels. I will now turn the call over to Todd Waltz.

Thank you, and welcome, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that during the call, we will make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risk and uncertainty that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. Please refer to our earnings release and SEC filings for a discussion of these risks. For 2026, revenue grew 27% to $54.6 million compared with $42.9 million in 2025, with growth across each of the three reportable operating segments. Gross profit was $2.8 million in the quarter, a year-over-year improvement of nearly $8 million from the gross loss of $5.1 million in 2025. Operating loss improved approximately 60% to $6.3 million compared with $15.6 million in the prior period. Net loss improved to $21.7 million compared to $24.5 million in 2025. Production tax credits under 45C contributed $4 million of operating income during the quarter, $1.4 million in dairy RNG and $2.6 million in California ethanol, representing our first quarter of ongoing credit generation tied to quarterly production since 45z eligibility was established in 2025. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was negative $1.3 million, reflecting typical winter seasonality with stronger revenue and margin performance later in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA and a reconciliation of EBITDA to net loss are described in our earnings release issued earlier today. Cash and cash equivalents at the end of the quarter were $4.8 million, comparable to year-end 2025. Capital investments in carbon intensity reduction and dairy digester construction totaled $6.5 million during the quarter. With that overview, I will turn the call over to Eric.

Thank you, Todd. I want to highlight three key takeaways from 2026. First, Q1 was a financial inflection point. We grew consolidated revenue 27% year-over-year, posted positive gross profit, and improved operating loss by more than $9 million. All three of our reportable operating segments contributed to this result. Second, we benefited from the California Air Resources Board approval of seven new Low Carbon Fuel Standard pathways for our renewable natural gas business at an average carbon intensity score of negative 380 compared with a negative 150 default, which has been providing additional revenue at the higher LCFS value each quarter since Q3 2025. Six additional biogas digester pathways are nearing approval. These LCFS pathway approvals substantially expand the LCFS credit generation per MMBtu of RNG produced and will continue to drive meaningful revenue increases as we scale production. Third, our capital projects are advancing. We received the initial deliveries of dairy biogas pretreatment skids in April under our $27 million fabrication contract. Major equipment for the $40 million mechanical vapor compression project at our Keyes, California ethanol plant has arrived on-site and construction has begun. In dairy RNG, we sold 110 thousand MMBtus in Q1, a 55% increase over the same quarter last year. With H2S cleanup and biogas compression equipment contracted for 15 additional digesters, and four of the equipment units already delivered by the vendor, we are on track to double our operating dairy network with construction into 2027. At our ethanol plant, the MBR project is on track for completion later this year. The system will use on-site solar and grid electricity to displace approximately 80% of the fossil natural gas consumption at the plant. We expect MBR commissioning later this year to add approximately $32 million in annual cash flow from operations, including additional 45z and LCFS uplift from the expected reduction in the carbon intensity of the ethanol produced by the plant and cost savings on natural gas. In India, biodiesel revenue rebounded to $10.5 million in Q1 with the resumption of Oil Marketing Company shipments under new contracts. This revenue growth supports our planned initial public offering of the India subsidiary, Universal Biofuels Private Limited, for which we have retained legal, accounting, and IPO advisers. Looking ahead, our focus for 2026 is scaling production, monetizing the stacked credit value of our renewable fuels platform, completing the India IPO, and the refinancing of existing debt into long-term financing. The principal catalysts we are tracking through the year include the publication of the updated 45z GREET model by the Department of Energy to significantly increase revenues and margins, commissioning the MVR at the Keyes Ethanol Plant, rising LCFS credit prices caused by continued quarterly credit deficits, and progress on the India IPO. Thank you to our shareholders, analysts, and partners for your continued support. Operator, let us take some questions.

We will now open the call for questions. Certainly. The floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press 1 on your phone at this time. We ask that while posing your question, you please pick up your handset if you are listening on a speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold for just a few moments while we poll for any questions. Your first question is coming from Matthew Blair with TPH. Please pose your question. Your line is live.

Thanks, and good morning, Eric. Certainly a lot of things going on at your company, but I was hoping you could talk about the possibility of the RD and SAF plant that has been on the table for a few years now, just in light of the very robust 2026 and 2027 RVO that materially increased the biomass-based diesel requirements. How are you thinking about that RD and SAF project? And maybe you could refresh us on how much it would cost and what kind of capacity it would provide. Thank you.

Thank you, Matt. The capacity is 80 million gallons a year of SAF, or if we run it only in renewable diesel mode, it is 90 million gallons. And as you know from previous reports, we have 10 different airlines we signed definitive agreements with, etc. We got full permitting approval for construction to begin in 2024. However, market conditions in renewable diesel and SAF were hampered by a new president being hired that, of course, happened in late 2024. That caused the financing markets to take a delay in looking at SAF and RD. You have done a very good job covering margins at renewable diesel producers. Just yesterday in California, Phillips 66 announced they are running above their nameplate capacity on their renewable diesel plant. And certainly, the events since March 1 have driven the price of the molecule up substantially. LA quotes SAF in neat form at $9.80 a gallon as of yesterday. So the market conditions have moved in our favor significantly compared to where we were in late 2024 with a new president being hired who certainly had a policy position that needs some clarification. We are definitely in a position right now in which there is frankly a lot of interest in new SAF production. I would say that the uncertainty in the last few months has given a new certainty to the need for domestic production of renewable fuel and a clarity that airplanes are not going to fly on hydrogen, batteries, nuclear power, or any other sort of energy source other than liquid fuels for the foreseeable number of decades. So we positioned this project specifically for the conditions we are in right now: high price of crude oil alternatives and, frankly, coalescing enthusiasm for the renewable version, which is sustainable aviation fuel. So we are definitely making progress on the financing; that is actually the only remaining part of this. We have the authority to construct permit in place for the facility, and market conditions continue to be in favor of that. That 80 million gallons, of course, if we are selling at $9.80 a gallon, is almost $800 million additional revenue. And I think the industry today is reporting roughly $1.60 a gallon of operating margin. So, obviously, a very positive improvement in our company’s overall revenue and EBITDA growth. But I am going to wrap this up by saying that there are actually four different sources of revenue for that plant, and 45z, the clean fuels provision, is still an unknown. We do not have the updated 45z. It is absolutely expected anytime soon, certainly before June, that the Republicans need to post it. And since there are four revenue streams—you sell the molecule, you sell the California credits, the federal credits, and then receive the 45z production tax credit—that is having an impact on the timing of our financing. Most lenders especially are interested in knowing what the 45z revenue is for this project. Federal law is passed. Treasury adopted their guidance in February 2026 for 45z, but the actual calculator on the Department of Energy website is going to be—that spreadsheet needs to be posted with the updated rules in the spreadsheet in order to finalize that fourth leg of the stool. I want to put that note on the table that that is having an impact. Of course, right now, the business works great without 45z, but people are curious to know what your total revenue is if we are doing a project of that size.

Sounds good. And then the India biodiesel operations—nice to see them restarted in the first quarter. It looks like profitability is essentially breakeven, maybe a little bit below. Could you talk about your expectations for the second quarter? Do you think volumes will be in a similar range as the first quarter? And I think we typically see some margin improvement in the second quarter as you are able to shift different feedstocks. Do you think that will happen in the second quarter this time around? Thank you.

Thanks, Matt. Let us talk about the overall trend in India, because it is very important for investors to understand that India is a socialist country, and they have elections that occurred in May. In order to support the existing government, a decision was taken by the government to set the price of diesel at the same price in March and in April as it was in January and February. There is no change in the price of diesel. I think most people on this call would understand that the price of diesel and crude oil dramatically increased in both March and April, but in India, it did not. So as of today, when you go to the pump in India, you do not know that the Iranian war happened from the price of the diesel at the pump. That means that the government is running a very large negative from their expected tax collections from diesel, and the Oil Marketing Companies are losing a very large amount of money every single day on selling diesel because they are buying crude oil at high prices and then selling it at prices below cost in India. That is about to change, and it should happen in the next few days that the price of diesel in India dramatically increases. The Oil Marketing Companies and the Ministry of Petroleum have known about this for two months and have been proactively meeting with the biodiesel and renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel producers—or to-be producers—in the country in order to come up with a much more solid program for us to be able to utilize all of our production capacity. We have an 80 million gallon plant that has been operating recently at 10% capacity. There has been a renewed focus on domestic renewable fuels in India. With the policies already in place, the National Biofuels Policy is 5% blended biodiesel in a 25 billion gallon market. That is about 1.25 billion gallons. Unfortunately, they are not at 5%; they are at a 0.5% blend right now, and that is rapidly changing. So you asked about second quarter. I would put it in the context of the trend of this year. We are seeing dramatic increases and, frankly, signing larger contracts and going back to the cost-plus contract model, which is what is in process right now in India. During the course of the next few months, I think you will see that kind of certainty come into play. Our IPO is really being built around us working on that reality that those policies need to be known and need to be adopted. We are setting up our IPO to be directly correlated with when those policies are adopted. I think it will have a very positive impact on not only the valuation of our business but how much money we raise. We are seeking for the IPO in India to be truly a breakout opportunity. We are looking to build the first global diversified renewable fuels business ever to go public in India and certainly anticipate that that will be the positioning we have and that the events of the last two months are having a very significant impact on India and focusing them on redirecting themselves to these policies that they have already got in the books but they have not been fully enforcing.

Sounds good. Thanks for your comments.

Sure. Thank you.

Your next question is coming from Nate Pendleton with Texas Capital. Please pose your question. Your line is live.

Morning. Do you provide more color around the financing commentary from the release? Just looking to better understand some of the options that are available to you on addressing the debt broadly. And then more specifically, what are you looking at with regard to Keyes and then the status of the refunding for the dairy RNG projects?

The improved margins and, frankly, now recovery of confidence in the need for domestic renewable fuels is directly expanding our refinancing opportunities. We have been funded and supported for the last 18 years by roughly a $3 billion fund out of Toronto that holds our senior debt, except for the $50 million of U.S. debt that we have, and our expectation is that we will continue to have very positive trends toward having municipal bond financings available to us. Municipal bonds have been used by the renewable fuels industry for a variety of basically greenfield projects. We, of course, are not greenfield; we are expansion. We are actively in the market right now working on a municipal bond type refinancing of our existing bridge financing we got from Third Eye Capital. The Renewable Energy for America Program at USDA is active, but they have slowed down their expansion in renewable fuels in a portfolio review process. The timing of that seems to be changing on a regular basis. As they make a review of their portfolio goals, they will be expanding or not expanding—it is really quite uncertain, to be frank with you. The rapid expansion of interest in the municipal bond and even commercial credit markets, certainly private credit markets, all of which we have had active discussions with, I think are going to overshadow our Renewable Energy for America Program funding. I think we will be seeing much larger financings and moving much quicker than what the USDA program currently looks like for our company.

Understood. Thanks, Eric. And then I just wanted to get your perspective on LCFS prices for a moment. While the market has flipped to deficit generation recently, prices have broadly remained quite muted. Can you talk about your expectations for that market going forward?

I think we are going to see a rapid price increase during the summer and early fall. What muted the deficit—that is, we had our second quarterly deficit on April 30, and that was for the fourth quarter of last year. So there is a trailing deficit announcement. It is literally four months after the end of the physical quarter when the announcement happens. But the price being muted was an expectation by traders that people would not drive as much with high gasoline prices. Interestingly enough, on a formulaic basis, gasoline currently represents roughly 2% of the income of the average American, and I think traders over-traded on this one. They were not anticipating that the Iranian war would actually not be as big of an impact on driving as what it has—or they thought it would have a bigger impact than what it really did. It did not have as big an impact, especially in California. LCFS credit deficits, however, are not driven just by consumption of gasoline. It is also driven by how many credits come from renewable diesel. Renewable diesel is the reason we got such a large 40 million credit bank, and renewable diesel has underperformed in Q4 last year and the first part of this year. I expect it to underperform in credit generation. So if you have fewer credits being generated, quite frankly, it was a lot more of a deficit than what was expected because there were fewer renewable diesel credits generated. We think the LCFS price trend is absolutely upwards. The question of pace has been impacted by the Iranian war. That play did not quite work out, and so we do expect increases to continue. There are plenty of credits in the market; it is not that issue. The issue is: do you want to pay $200 for it 18 months from now when there are very few in the credit bank? So it is a question of major oil company traders over the next 18 months at some point in time reaching a tipping point at which they decide they do not want to have to be buying $200 credits. They might as well get out there and buy whatever they can on the market. When that happens, you will see a very rapid price rise. I would not be surprised at all to see $150 in 2027 as traders see the cap as $268, and they want to get their book filled up as soon as possible.

Got it. Thanks for the color, Eric.

Sure. Thank you.

Your next question is coming from Sameer Joshi at H.C. Wainwright. Please pose your question. Your line is live.

Hey, good morning, good afternoon, Eric. Thanks for taking my questions. On the MBR, I understand it is going to be deployed before the end of the year. Are there any additional certifications or verifications needed to be done before you can start generating that $32 million annualized return from it? I know some of it will be immediate because of lower natural gas consumption, but for the other incentive-based cash flows, do you need to do anything?

Thank you for your question. No, there are no additional certifications necessary. We received an authority to construct from the air district, which is really the big number that we have to get crossed off before we can proceed with the project, and that was received last year. We have some local permits that are sort of ongoing as you do construction, but we do not have any requirements for additional permitting or authorization in order to proceed. Construction has begun. We have begun demolition on existing concrete structures. As Eric mentioned in his comments, we have received most of the major equipment stateside now. We received the turbofans from Germany last week. The main evaporator was received from PRASH in India about a week ago. It is currently in transit to the Keyes plant. All of the big-ticket items that take a long time to fabricate are either on-site or will be on-site within the next week or so.

Got it. Thanks for that, Andy. Moving to the India OMC activity there—thanks for the color that you provided, Eric, to the previous question. But in terms of pricing that will be available for you, do you expect it to be premium pricing relative to what you got in the last year, for example, or are getting currently?

Yes, there is definitely premium pricing, actually. The next contract is already being discussed. The structure of a cost-plus contract—which we did $112 million of revenue and about $14 million of positive cash flow last time we had a cost-plus contract—is being strongly considered as a replacement for what they have done in the last couple of years, which was this uncertain sort of pick-a-number-and-see-what-happens kind of structure. We covered this a couple of years ago with investors, but just a reminder: the cost-plus structure was after many years of working with the government to come up with something that was going to expand capacity utilization in India. It worked very well. Then the India government passed a 20% tariff on the feedstock that was being used by the industry, and therefore the price of the formula went up 20% after they had issued us a contract. The Oil Marketing Companies did not want to take a loss, so they just did not take delivery. That created confusion in the market. That confusion has now gotten more clarified because of the very high-cost diesel and the need for them to start getting utilization in the biodiesel industry, and that is the resolution that is being worked out right now. We do expect to return to better conditions for full capacity utilization. India imports over 90% of its crude oil and really needs to expand its domestic production of renewable fuels.

Understood. Thanks for that. And then just one last one. You did mention you got seven LCFS pathways approved for the negative 380. Six are being worked on. Should we expect those to occur in the first half, or is it a second-half event?

There is a strange delay in the process. We expect the approvals to occur, but then they are a look-back a couple of quarters. If we get an approval, for example, at the end of the fourth quarter, it is a look-back to the beginning of the third quarter. So an approval by December is actually effective July 1. Strange situation, but the reality is, yes, we do expect by the end of the year to see appropriate progress here with a look-back that looks like a six-month look-back because they do it the quarter after the closing of the quarter. We will keep the market apprised of progress here, and of course, we are focusing on moving it through the process as quickly as possible.

Understood. So that would potentially be a lump sum that you get if it is approved in the fourth quarter for the previous quarter?

Yes, there might be a one-quarter catch-up, but in essence, it is just the delayed approval for the previous quarter—the way the government looks at it.

Thanks a lot. Thanks for taking my questions.

Thank you, Sameer.

Your next question is from Dave Storms with Stonegate. Please pose your question. Your line is live.

Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I wanted to stick with the dairy digesters. I believe you mentioned on the call you are expecting another 15—doubling your digesters by 2027. Can you just remind us when you actually get the investment tax credits related to those investments, and maybe just your thoughts around the monetization of those net credits?

Good question. We get the tax credits upon the completion—the what they call in-service date—for each single digester. So we do not have to build all 15 of them and then add six months to that or anything. As we build each digester and it goes in service, we generate the section 48 investment tax credits. We have sold about $95 million of these tax credits. We tend to sell them in $5 million or higher increments, though that is not absolutely required, and we do expect to have a single party this year acquire each one of the investment tax credit projects that we generate. We will be seeking to do at least once a quarter. There is a potential to do it more than once a quarter depending on how many new units are completed. We expect this to be probably a third-quarter contribution but could be quicker than that. The market is moving quickly, and we have some refinancing activities going on that certainly are very positive for the business. We have already fully financed the construction of $27 million of H2S and compression skids. The process is going on; we have received four of them already and have more coming. We are rapidly executing on portions of this project right now. The investment tax credit delay is a month or so after the in-service date if we were doing it in the ordinary flow of business, so not a whole lot of delay between when the project is completed and when we get the cash.

Understood. That is very helpful. And then just sticking with those potential new digesters, do those come online at the negative 380 qualification status? Or how does that process look? If they do not come on at the negative 380, what do you think the current timeline is from the negative 150 to the negative 380?

Are you speaking about the new digesters that are not built? Correct. Given the temporary pathway score of negative 150, then once we go through the process with CARB—which hopefully now that they have moved to a Tier 1 approval process will be significantly shorter than what we have experienced in the last few years, which is this kind of 24- to 36-month approval process—it should be more like nine months. Then we would get the benefit of that higher—or lower, however you want to look at it—CI score. So initially it is a negative 150, and as you work your way through the approval process, then you go to the blended rate of the negative 380.

That is perfect. Thank you for taking my questions.

Thank you, David.

Your next question is coming from Ed Woo with Incendiant Capital. Please pose your question. Your line is live.

Yeah. Congratulations on all the progress, guys. My question is, as we are getting closer to the India IPO, what are your priorities, or what have you allocated in terms of what you are going to do with the capital raised?

The India IPO is primarily designed to support the expansion of the existing projects in India and in California. Our existing projects in California, specifically focused on dairy RNG, would be a use of some of the proceeds of our India business. That is one of the reasons why it will be the first global diversified—not just biodiesel, but multiple different fuels—company to go public in India that offers the India investor access to a very well-established incentive environment here in California called the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The federal government support of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard in California is matched by the Renewable Fuel Standard at the federal level and the 45z production tax credit and the value of the molecule. So the Indian investor has access to arguably one of the best markets in the world for renewable fuels, and that is a diversification of the growth in the India business. Another point we have made publicly is that as the largest biodiesel producer in India, we happen to be very well-positioned to build the conversion of a biodiesel facility into sustainable aviation fuel. So our India IPO not only is biodiesel and dairy renewable natural gas, but also a conversion into a SAF producer in India in addition to expanding biodiesel. It is a diversified business. The India market is very deep and wide and right now is about to have the shock of its diesel life with an incredible percentage increase in diesel costs as a result of what has been going on in the world. It is a perfect storm in favor of us as a producer in India who has been there for 18 years to open our opportunity to the public markets. We are making excellent progress, and certainly market conditions will determine the actual timing of what we do, but market conditions are trending in our direction.

Great. Well, thanks for answering my questions, and I wish you guys good luck.

Thank you, Ed.

There are no further questions in queue at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Eric McAfee for closing remarks.

Thank you to Aemetis, Inc. stockholders, analysts, and others for joining us today. We look forward to talking with you about participating in the growth opportunities at Aemetis, Inc.

Thank you for attending today’s Aemetis, Inc. earnings conference call. A written and audio version of this earnings review will be posted to the Investors section of the Aemetis, Inc. website.

Thank you. This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.