Andrew Littlefair
Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Please proceed with your question
Thank you, Tony. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us. On our last call I told you about several important strategic actions that we were undertaking, which we believe will enhance our competitive position and drive improved financial performance in 2018. I’m pleased to report that we completed those initiatives and we are already seeing positive results. The first action we took was to rationalize some of our low volume legacy stations. This has produced the intended result that contributed to our margin per gallon improving by 13% or $0.03 over last quarter. Additionally, even with shuttering these unprofitable stations we increased our volumes by 7% annually. The second action we took was to identify and initiate SG&A reductions which will result in approximately $20 million of savings annually or close to 21% compared to 2017. The last significant action we took was announcing and completing the combination of our compressor manufacturing business with Landi Renzo's European compressor subsidiary, SAFE to establish a new global power house in the natural gas compressor business. Clean Energy compression is well established in North American and South American and SAFE has a strong presence in Europe and Asia. The combined companies have complementary product lines with limited geographic overlap and will benefit for manufacturing economies of scale. We will maintain a 49% ownership, but it will no longer be consolidated on our balance sheet and it is now properly capitalized for success in the future. This move also allows Clean Energy to better focus on our core strength delivering more natural gas fuel to our customers. Now on to results: In the fourth quarter the company delivered 86.3 million gallons, a 3% increase over the fourth quarter of 2016. For the full year we delivered, 351 million gallons, a 7% increase over 2016. Our revenue for the fourth quarter was $89 million and for the full year 2017 revenue was $342 million. The difference from 2016 was almost entirely due to the sale of our upstream biomethane assets to BP for $155 million and no alternative fuel tax in 2017. Speaking of the alternative fuel tax credit, last month congress passed a one year extension, retroactive for 2017. We look forward to receiving the tax credit payments next quarter which net to us should be approximately $25 million. When added to our existing cash position of $178 million, we will have over $200 million of cash and investments on our balance sheet. Our core markets continue to experience healthy growth. The refuse sector added new customers and expanded capacity with existing customs with refuse volume increasing 18% in 2017. Overall, the refuse industry continues to adopt CNG as their fuel choice. Leading the way are our long time customers Waste Management and Republic Services. In fact, Waste Management recently opened their 104th refuse station to fuel their growing fleet of over 6,000 CNG refuse trucks and have said they will continue to aggressively increase their CNG fleet. Today we own and operator over 280 Refuse stations and fuel over 13,000 Refuse trucks daily, all across the U.S. and in Canada. In our transit market we increased volumes 7% in 2017 over 2016 and since our last report we have signed new or extended customer contracts for close to 12 million gallons with fleets such as Phoenix Public Transit, and The City of Santa Fe. On our construction carpet, in 2017 we completed 39 station projects. For customer construction projects revenue was $52 million. Looking out to 2018 we believe we will complete a similar amount of station projects for the year, both for our own network and for our customers. Our Redeem branded Renewable Natural Gas or RNG offering continued to accelerate in 2017. We delivered 78.5 million gallons of Redeem, a 33% increase year-over-year which represents 22% of our total fuel mix and a 100% of our fuel delivery in California. As part of California Statewide Green House Gas reduction initiatives, Clean Energy is well position to benefit from the ultra low carbon intensity RNG production in the state, some of which we have recently contracted from dairy digester projects. Remember that in order to monetize the RNG fuel gallons, the fuel must be delivered through a downstream station network and ours is unmatched. As an example, the fourth quarter is one of our strongest Redeem volume quarters. This is because our robust station infrastructure was the only downstream distribution network with the capacity to flow with the excess amount of RNG inventory that it had built up industry wide. We currently flow close to half of all the RNG delivered to vehicles in the United States. We announced a deal with Dallas, Fort Worth’s International airport to supply the DFW vehicle fleets with Redeem. This makes DFW the first airport outside of California to operate their fleet with Redeem RNG. DFW is the only airport in the United States to be certified as carbon neutral and is the largest airport it in the world with that distinction. We applaud our long time DFW partners for their commitment to lowering their fuel emissions. I’d like to highlight our recent partnership announcement with the LA and Long Beach Harbor Trucking Association. We are now the exclusive clean transportation fuel provider to more than 100 member companies represented by HTA. These member companies’ operator more than 8,000 trucks across the West Coast ports in the United States. As part of this partnership, we’ll provide specialized clean fuel programs to HTA members in preparation for the implementation of the Clean Air action plan in the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. As a reminder, the Clean Air action plan adopts far reaching strategies to further reduce air emission and support California’s vision for more sustainable fright movement. The plan calls for the introduction of near zero engines in 2020 and also places a fee on diesel that same year. This should dramatically change the makeup of the 16,000 heavy duty trucks that move in and out of the ports every day. Commercial production of the new Cummins Westport heavy duty near zero 12 liter engines began last month. Kenworth and Peterbilt expect to begin shipments in 2Q and Freightliner in Q3. Trucks with these new engines will be delivered to the port next month. The realization by trucking companies that they need to do something to meet stricter emission requirements in California is beginning to settle in. For instance, PAC9 Transportation recently purchased 24 Natural Gas Trucks for their port operation. While broadly the U.S. postal service continues to implement aggressive mandatory carbon reduction programs with a dozens of its contract haulers. We recently signed contracts with Sheehy Mail Contractors based in Kansas City and Thunder Ridge Transport, which is now operating 20 heavy duty CNG trucks on behalf of the USPS. This brings the total number of heavy duty CNG trucks operating on behalf of the postal service to over 300. Moving on to our capital structure, as I previously mentioned, we have a $178 million of cash and investments on the balance sheet at the end of the fourth quarter and expect an additional $25 million revenue contribution from the alternative fuel tax credit in the upcoming quarter. Looking out to our debt maturities of $135 million in the back half of the year, we will have more than enough cash to comfortably pay down our debt. CapEx for our core business was $18.4 million in 2017, with an additional $18 million for NG Advantages, virtual pipeline business. However most of NG Advantage CapEx is financed. For 2018 we anticipate our CapEx for the core business to be approximately $15 million. We remain on track to achieve positive operating cash flow in 2018 and we believe we’ll be close to $55 million to $60 million of adjusted EBITDA for the year. We are expecting to increase our volumes in the high single digits and continue to reduce SG&A where we can. Before I turn the call over to Bob, I would like to take a moment to review some of our accomplishments for 2017. While it has been a disappointing year for our stock price, we had a good year strategically and significantly improved the financial wealth of the company. Specifically these accomplishments include the sale of our upstream biomethane production and supply contracts to BP for $155 million, plus the assumption of $10 million of debt, plus a $25 million earn-out. We added 22 million new gallons. We strengthened our relationship with BP to secure long term biomethane supplies for us and our customers. We increased our renewal Redeem biomethane sales by 33%. We strengthened our balance sheet by reducing our convertible debt from high in 2016 of $545 million down to $235 million today. We also improved our cash position, so that we will have ample resources to repay the $135 million debt due in the second half of 2018. And by the end of the year our convertible debt, will be down to a $100 million. We secured the alternative fuel tax credit for 2017. We shuttered unprofitable stations. We reduced our SG&A by $20 million and we combined our compressor subsidiary. Finally I’d like to take a moment to address our stock price. It’s been a rough time for our stock price and our shareholders. Our friends on Wall Street tell us there are three principal reasons which I want to address. The first is the fervor around the perceived potential mass adoption of heavy duty electric trucks. Electric may work for passenger light duty vehicles, however as the dust begins to settle on the hype around the electric heavy duty trucks, we are starting to see industry experts that are highly skeptical of the feasibility of the battery range and the weight, the cost of charging stations and the ability to scale commercially to meet the demands of heavy duty truck market. Our Natural Gas offering meets the demanding duty cycle of heavy duty trucking. It is green or greener than electric and is available today for significantly less. The second concern is about how we might handle our debt. As I stated several times, we have adequate resources to pay-off our upcoming maturities. Our debt is manageable, and will be not an issue for this company. The third and last concern is Boone Pickens. There has been some misinformation stemming from Boone’s recent retirement announcement. Some have questions Boone’s envelopment in ownership position in the company. Boone remains our largest shareholder, a Director on our Broad and is deeply committed to the continued growth of our company and the advancement of the Natural Gas Fueling Industry. In fact, we just got back from a two day Board Meeting with Boone in his Dallas office. In summary, while our stock price has been under severe pressure, our underline business is strong and improving and I’m optimistic about the future. And with that, I will turn the call over to Bob.