Greetings and welcome to the Clean Energy Fuels first quarter 2018 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Robert Vreeland, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you, Mr. Vreeland. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Earlier this afternoon, Clean Energy released financial results for the first quarter ending March 31, 2018. If you did not receive the release, it is available on the Investor Relations section of the company's website at www.cleanenergyfuels.com where the call is also being webcast. There will be a replay available on the website for 30 days. Before we begin, we'd 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 risk, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Words of expression reflecting optimism, satisfaction with current prospects, as well as words such as believe, intend, expect, plan, should, anticipate and similar variations identify forward-looking statements, but their absence does not mean that the statement is not forward-looking. 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 the Clean Energy's Form 10-Q that was filed today. These forward-looking statements speak only as 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, Andrew Littlefair.

Thank you, Bob. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before I jump into our report on the company's performance for Q1, I'd like to spend a little time discussing the announcement we made this morning. I hope everyone read the press release about Total agreeing to make a sizable investment in Clean Energy. The companies will also partner on a new truck financing program designed to drive deployment of natural gas heavy-duty trucks. I can't overemphasize the importance of this new partnership with Clean Energy as well as for the entire natural gas fueling market in North America. Total is the fourth largest energy company in the world and already operates over 450 natural gas stations globally with plans on adding another 350 by 2020. What Total is bringing to the strategic relationship is not only its size, but it will be a true partner that has deep experience in giving millions of customers options for cleaner burning alternatives. As Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman and CEO, told us, Total is looking forward to helping accelerate the shift to natural gas vehicles. Subject to approval of Clean Energy shareholders, Total will purchase 50.8 million shares of Clean Energy's common stock for $83.4 million. This purchase will make Total Clean Energy's single largest shareholder. And after the purchase is complete, it will own 25% of Clean Energy. Total will also have two board seats. Clean Energy's board, including cofounder Boone Pickens, has already approved the transaction and believe the shareholders will recognize the potential of the strategic partnership. That vote will take place at our annual shareholders meeting, which has been pushed back to June 8 to give us time to distribute the updated proxy materials. Along with its investment, as I mentioned, Total is expected to play a vital…

Thank you, Andrew. Our financial results for the first quarter of 2018 were in line with our expectations and we maintain our financial outlook for the full year 2018, which we provided during our year-end 2017 earnings call. Volume of 85.1 million gallons was slightly ahead of last year when considering last year had 600,000 gallons attributed to our biomethane plants we sold to BP. We continue to see volume growth in CNG, mainly from the refuse sector. Our LNG volume was down principally due to a couple of LNG contracts that were not renewed. One contract was bulk fuel delivery and the other was a maintenance service contract. The first quarter is generally the lowest for volume, so we expect to see a normal ramp up as we move through the year. Redeem volume for the first quarter was 18.5 million gallons, which was 26% growth over a year ago. Our revenue for the first quarter of 2018 was $102.4 million compared to $89.5 million in 2017. There are a number of items impacting the comparability between years, namely the alternative fuel tax credit recognized in 2018 for $25.5 million where 2017 had none. And also, the fact that 2017 included a total of approximately $13 million of revenues from our former compressor subsidiary and revenues associated with the assets sold to BP, both of which did not exist in the first quarter of 2018. Looking at our volume-related revenue of $67.2 million versus $73.6 million for 2017, this reduction of $6.4 million was all related to reduction in environmental credits as a result of our BP sale transaction at the end of the first quarter of 2017 for $155 million. Station construction revenue was down compared to a year ago, which is timing related. We continue to have…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes in line of Rob Brown with Lake Street Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Good afternoon.

Hi, Rob.

Just wanted to follow-up on the Total deal a little bit in terms of sort of secondary impacts in the OEM market and, I guess, the activity with the big fleets. Sort of your sense of what this partnership can bring in those bigger markets in terms of maybe new truck rollouts and new signups for rollouts of trucks themselves.

No, it's a good question. I think we're not altogether sure how the Total involvement will resonate. But let's just look at it kind of broadly. They're very big in Europe. They work closely with Volvo. Volvo has introduced new natural gas truck there. We've heard rumors, frankly, that Volvo is as beginning to look at introducing natural gas heavy-duty truck here in the United States. Total has OEM relationships really across the board. Sometimes, those focus on lubricants and other things. They have a relationship with Navistar. Navistar, as you know, hasn't come to the market yet with natural gas. So, we think these kinds of relationships, it's early to tell exactly how they'll manifest themselves, but we think it's very good having such a big partner, one with these long-standing relationships on the fuel side and on the OEM side. Now, on the fleet side, Total has relationships with some national fleets and national Fortune 500 companies. We plan to use them and work with them as we go to some of our biggest shipping customers and also – and some of the nation's big carriers that we with that work for those shippers. Having Total in and guaranteeing the portion of the truck lease gives great comfort to these shippers and to these big national fleets and also to the leasing companies, to the banks. So, I think it's just very positive with the OEMs, with our customers, with the shipping customers and the banks. I think it's just something that – we'll see how it all pans out, Rob, but I am thinking it's going to a very – a real shot in the arm. It just validates – the whole idea here is it – as I said this morning, here you have one of the largest oil companies in the world with 16,000 gasoline/diesel stations, saying that they really see the future is going be natural gas for heavy-duty transportation. The world has come a long way when you have that happening. And I think we just don't know how important that's going to be as other oil companies and others look to see – look at their leadership.

Okay, great. That's a good overview. And then, on the leasing company side, do you need to develop partners there or are you comfortable with the financial backer that they'll sort of come along?

We're pretty comfortable. We worked with some – our customers, obviously, have worked with some. We've talked to a couple of the largest international banks and leasing companies already about this idea. They're all very – as you can imagine, having Total as a partner helps in that. They're used to financing thousands of trucks. So, this is not new to them. This partnership helps them. We have really good partners that lease trucks with our OEMs, right? Some of the OEMs have their own finance companies. And some of our dealers do too. So, I think this is something that's – as I said, we're going to be developing the final touches of this program with some of the banks and leasing companies here in the next summer, the early part of the summer. But I feel like we've done a lot of spade work already and have really good receptivity by the leasing – the banks already.

Okay, good. And then, I guess, just wanted to get a sense of the demand environment now with diesel prices ramping and oil prices ramping. How do you sort of see that playing out in terms of the demand an interest in, I guess, organic growth going into the rest of the year?

Rob, I think I maybe said it on the last call. We were beginning to feel a little bit of an uptick. It wasn't too long ago, right? It was almost a year-and-a-half ago, we were beginning to have these discussions with fleet purchasing, fuel purchasing officers in these big companies that were telling us that, well, their charts show that they were going to have $40 oil for the next five years. And when that was going on, it made our value presentation a little tougher. And, of course, we don't have that right now. So, we see diesel prices that are in the high $3 here in Southern California and it's come up a full – nationwide, it's come up almost a full dollar here in the last year or so. So, at the same time, natural gas, it's gone down. The spread is almost – I may get corrected on this – I don't know that's ever quite this high. It's significant, the spread is like 25 to 1 or something right now. So, this helps us and it gives a lot of room to help on the incremental. It gives a lot of room to give nice savings to our customers and a good margin for us. So, we're seeing the interest of – beginning with some of the shippers and some of the fleet. It's noticeably different today at $70, $71 oil than it was six months ago.

Okay, great. Thank you. I'll turn it over.

Okay. Thanks, Rob.

Thanks, Rob.

Our next question comes from line of Eric Stine with Craig-Hallum. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, Andrew. Hi, Bob.

Hi, Eric.

Hey. So, just wanted to touch on Redeem, obviously – thanks for the volume number in the quarter. Great progress there. I know California, that's, what, 80% plus of all the volumes are Redeem, but just curious what the volume trends are like outside of California. I know you've had a few contracts. You've expanded to a number of states with Republic. But just curious how that's going. But then also, are your new customers or new Redeem volumes, would you characterize those as new customers altogether or are those customers that are upgrading to Redeem?

Yeah. Rob, so the interest is – yeah. No, I would say the interest is absolutely growing outside of California. We have some big transit customers that are looking at it and wanted to fuel. So, percentage-wise, you're right. The bulk of it goes into California right now, but we're moving out. We've got Republic Services in Dallas, DFW, a number of customers. Everybody really loves that fuel. That's a very big bright spot in the volume for us.

Eric, until recently, we were little bottlenecked on some of the fuel availability that we had that precluded us from getting the Redeem to everywhere where we wanted it. as you know, that's beginning to break down and we're sending Redeem to Republic sites in the East. The DFW was one of our largest here recently, out-of-state. We're seeing some in the Western states. I know we've got bids out right now in Nevada and a couple of other places. So, it's beginning to blossom across the country. And it looks to us like there is just an awful lot of projects coming online here for the remainder of 2018 and early 2019. We're beginning to see some production and supply coming on with very low carbon intensity fuel. What that means is this is being done from a manure and digesters with very much lower – I guess, four or five times lower than trash depots, landfills. And so, that makes this stuff very valuable. And so, there's a lot of projects coming on. And it bodes well for the expansion of the biomethane.

Absolutely. Can you remind me – and you may have touched on this this morning, but just how Total potentially helps that. Obviously, you've got the partnership with BP, but whether Total, if that helps in any way?

Total, in our discussions with the CEO on down, they're very interested in biomethane. They're familiar with it in Europe. They have a different credit structure in Europe. So, they're learning from us on our situation here. They don't have the RINs and the low carbon fuel standard there. They have some different economics. They're very interested in it. They know it works. Obviously, they're big gas producers. And they know that blending the biomethane gives them an advantage and it's something that they see that is very valuable as they displace diesel. I don't know right now that I can tell you that Total here in the US is going to be – I don't think that's the first order of business, though they have expressed an interest to better understand and see how they might get involved with us. You're right. We have a good relationship with – one that's growing – with BP and we're trying to do things to make that partnership even stronger and align better as it grows. But, I guess, right now, let's just say that Total is interested in how the biomethane work, but I don't see that that's going to be the first order of business with them.

Right. now, I understand. Okay. Then maybe just turning to California, and I can certainly agree with you on ACT Expo that a lot of technologies getting a lot of the press, but, clearly, natural gas is the one that – where the activity is happening. And I know you've had a good foothold at the ports. But with all the incentive money in California, I know it's kind of a continual battle between whether it's hydrogen or battery or some other technology or natural gas where you've got the near zero technology available today. So, just curious, what kind of progress you're making there or how you feel outside of the ports because you're in there, but just some of the progress you're making in other parts of California?

Well, Rob – for those on the call that don't know what the ACT Expo, it's the advanced clean transportation show that goes on – conference that goes on here that's probably the premier show in the United States. And you're right. Here in California, there's a lot of grant money available. And I would say there's a frustration – I've been pretty open about this. There's a frustration and has been in at least the natural gas vehicle industry that we believe that the Air Resources Board has shown a bias toward putting a lot of the dollars. For instance, the VW fine money, an awful lot of that found its way going to electric programs. And, of course, as you know, they don't have anything even commercial in the heavy duty space. And yet, a big slice of this grant money finds its way going there because that's frankly – that's kind of the dream of – ARB is wanting to push something that's not commercially ready today. However, having said that, there is hundreds of millions of dollars available as well for natural gas. I was looking at – and these are very complicated – they're not that complicated, but there are many different markets, but they break down somewhere between $40,000 and $100,000 per vehicle. And kind of depending if you retire a truck or if you get a new truck and this and that, you get different piles of money. I looked at a list the other day that looked like there was – and this would be one of the bigger numbers we've seen. About 475 vehicles that have applied and are in the queue for various grant programs here in California. So, these are heavy-duty trucks using anywhere between 12,000 to 20,000 gallons…

Right. Okay, thanks a lot.

Our question comes from the line of Pavel Molchanov with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks for taking the questions second time today. Since we've covered the Total deal earlier in the morning, I wanted to get back to kind of a recurring theme since the end of last year, which is the AFTC. Three months ago, there was some movement in Congress to kind of marry that with the biodiesel credits, few other things, pass extenders. That has not happened yet. I'm curious kind of what your read is and whether anything is remotely possible before the midterms.

Yeah. As you and I talk about this each quarter, our team and the people that are working with us and in the industry association as well, we feel fairly optimistic in talking to senior members of Congress that there appears to be bipartisan support to move the extenders, which the alternative fuel tax is part of, sometime this year. Now, there was sort of talk, Pavel, maybe it's finding its way under the FAA reauthorization bill, that didn't happen. There are a couple of other trains leaving the station, if you will, later here in the next couple of months. We're working with members of Congress if those might be appropriate vehicles for that. There is also a talk that it might just be – with all the different things happening in Washington that it may be that you just wait till the lame-duck and that's when the extender backups will go. Kind of feel like there's been more and more understanding and push for alternative fuel technologies with this rising oil price that I think the extenders will get adopted and the alternative fuel tax will get done for 2018. I've said this before. I'm not sure that it goes on much longer than that, but I think I think you'll see it get adopted for 2018.

Perfect. That's it for me, guys.

Okay. Thanks.

Thank you.

There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back to management for closing comments.

Sure. Operator, thank you. I'd like to close the call by reiterating our enthusiasm about having a new partner in Total and expanding the use of natural gas fuel to help take on the world's issues with emissions and carbon. As I mentioned, the transaction will be going before shareholders at our June 8 annual meeting. And for those of you that our shareholders, I highly encourage you to follow the lead of our board of directors and vote for this. Every director, including the man who started this company with me and has had the biggest stake in it to this point, Boone Pickens, believes this is a great opportunity and has committed to vote all their shares in favor of it. We are eager to get to work on the new heavy-duty truck leasing program and other ways to partner with such a visionary leader like Total to grow our business. And with that, I'd like to thank you for participating in today's call.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.