Earnings Labs

Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (CLNE)

Q2 2018 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 7, 2018

$2.21

+0.14%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-10.55%

1 Week

-2.55%

1 Month

-3.27%

vs S&P

-3.98%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Clean Energy Fuels’ Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Conference Call. [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, Robert. You may begin.

Robert Vreeland

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Earlier this afternoon, Clean Energy released financial results for the quarter ending June 30, 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 risks, 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 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 excludes 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.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Thank you, Bob. Good afternoon everyone. And thank you for joining us. At the risk of sounding dramatic, what I truly believe is the case, the second quarter of this year was probably the most historic of Clean Energy’s history, at least since we took the company public in 2007. As we announced on May 10, Total, the French energy giant, with the motto that it wants to become “the Responsible Energy Major” and purchased a 25% stake in Clean Energy, making it our single largest shareholder. Total, with large holdings on virtually every continent and which has made significant investments in a variety of alternative energy ventures, sent a strong signal that it believes in the future of natural gas fueling in North America, particularly in heavy-duty vehicles. The transaction was approved with overwhelming support of Clean Energy shareholders and closed in June. And since then Patrick Pouyanné, Total’s Chairman and CEO, has continued to demonstrate Total’s commitment to the new partnership. I was invited to participate in a joint press conference with Patrick during the World Gas Conference in Washington later in the month. And at that event, he repeated several times the reasons for Total’s investment, that the U.S. is blessed with an abundance of natural gas, which Total is also in the business of extracting. It’s been proven as a reliable transportation fuel, it brings cleaner than the incumbent fuel, diesel and is cost efficient. And with the announcements by many cities in Europe that they will be banning the use of diesel, Total knows all too well the need to find a viable fuel alternative. Total’s investment in clean energy alone sent a positive message about the use of natural gas as a fuel. But what will have an even greater impact to the overall…

Robert Vreeland

Analyst

Thank you, Andrew. Our financial results for the second quarter of 2018 were in line with our expectations and we maintain our financial outlook for the full year. Volume of 89.4 million gallons was 1% above last year. We continue to see volume growth in CNG mainly from the refuse sector, but also from NG Advantage. Our LNG volume was down principally due to two LNG contracts that were not renewed in the refuse and transit sectors. Redeem volume grew 22% for the second quarter to 24.1 million gallons versus 19.7 million gallons a year ago. Our revenue for the second quarter of 2018 was $70.5 million, compared to $81 million in the second quarter of 2017. Revenue for the second quarter of 2017, included $5.2 million of revenue from our former compressor subsidiary that is now in equity method investment. Also 2017 construction revenues were $6.5 million higher which we anticipated going into 2018, knowing that 2017 was a strong year for fuel station sales. We continue to have a steady backlog in station construction activity for 2018, albeit at a lower sales value compared to 2017. Looking at our volume related revenue of $62.6 million versus $63.4 million for 2017, this slight reduction in revenue was due to a lower effective price per gallon, compared to last year. We also saw a lower effective cost per gallon which contributed to an improvement of $1.6 million or 7% in our volume gross profit margin compared to 2017. Our effective margin per gallon increased $1.05 to $26.05 versus $25.00 in 2017. So despite lower volume related revenue, our volume related gross profit margin dollars improved. Our overall gross margin of $24.8 million versus $23.7 million a year ago, improved because of the improvement in our volume margin as I just…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Eric Stine of Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Hi Andrew and Bob.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Hi, Eric.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Hey, maybe just starting with the ports, it's been a couple of quarters since you've had the agreement in place with the Harbor Trucking Association and just would love to hear kind of how that's played out, the importance of that and maybe the visibility it gives you and what the members of that association are going to do with the ports, and you eventually getting the fueling volumes when it happens?

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Right, well Eric, I think, kind of the proof is in the pudding. We have a good relationship with the Harbor Trucking Association as, I think, you know but others may not, we have a relationship with them to be really their fuel provider of choice for their member companies. I think that's why Eric we’ve been very pleased with the 500 grant applications in for the 500 trucks that are now in queue to be funded for the port. I think if we go back over the last couple of quarters as the Clean Air Action Plan got unveiled, we said that we thought we'd be doing a good job if we got a few 100 new Cummins Westport 12 liter trucks put into the port this year, because remember we're about a year and a half before the fee goes into effect, and they have to do this. And so I like the way the uptakes have been going. You'll see those first trucks come in the latter part of the third quarter. I think it's also a result of our fuel program that we have down there that’s why we've had the uptick. We have more – we haven't stopped there are more trucks, more grant applications going in. So we're feeling pretty good about the way that that program is beginning to rollout. And I’m very looking to having these new trucks get into the hands of our customers. The early 20 or so 25 trucks that are now rolling around the port and half for the last, I don’t know, 90 days or so have really done well as people tried them out. Now I just know that as they begin to look at facing 2020 and knowing that they have to have either pay a very large fee for every movement of a truck in the port, or they can get an electric truck which isn't available today, or they can get a natural gas truck, that could save them a $1 or $1.50 a gallon perhaps, that does the work that they need to do. I just know that we're going to compare very well on that. So I'm looking forward to it and I feel like we're making good progress.

Eric Stine

Analyst

And you kind of just touched on as I know it's kind of been a battle to get natural gas in place versus some of the other technologies, which like electric, which is much more expensive, I mean do you feel like that's kind of turned or that will turn once you get trucks on the road?

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Well I've long believed that and of course as you sit here and you read the stories about the futuristic offerings of hydrogen, and one test fuel cell truck and the magical electric truck offering that might be built sometime in 2019. And frankly the regulators wanting to push this and tilting some of the grants toward paying up for astronomical costs of an electric offering, in sort of the reality is, there isn't a heavy duty truck that works today that you could buy. And I know that we're going to compare favorably to it when it comes out because, look, we also know that these truckers operate on very thin mark certainly in the ports, they really do. And this idea somehow that it's just the same to use electric truck that carries with it a two times price tag, versus what we're offering and magical multimillion dollar fueling stations are going to be built by the public through public utilities, I just think that as that really begins rollout and people can’t really look at that, we're going to do it very well.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Yes.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

So it's been a little frustrating and it’s little frustrating probably for our shareholders and it’s certainly as you read about this, I will say Eric and I think you and I probably read some of the same material, have you noticed some of the recent stories about how the rollout of some of the electric transit buses have been going?

Eric Stine

Analyst

Yes.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

There’s every reason to believe that some of those challenges that you're seeing in these places, where these buses are parked, and not operating as they've really been proposed. Those are the same challenges – that – look an electric vehicle is a very elegant solution for a light-duty vehicle, I think, it poses a lot of other challenges when it gets to heavy duty.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Right. Maybe just on Total, I mean obviously very significant in a lot of levels at the financing program but I am just curious now that you've been in this for a few months, spent time with them, are there areas that you think it will impact your business that maybe you didn't think of a couple months ago when this started?

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Well, we've been very pleased in working with them at many different levels. And we're beginning to work more closely with our American – you know they – Total has 7,000 U.S. employees. And so we're beginning to work with some of our friends based in Houston. We're certainly working very closely with them with the fuel offering that we're getting ready to make. By the way, I think, that's very significant to note that as part of this Zero Now program on the trucks, we're going to be offering a fixed fuel contract to our customers that really runs the term of that lease, never really done – been done before at a significant discount to diesel. And that's being done in coordination with our friends at Total. So that's just one example. We're working closely with our compressor subsidiary that now headquartered in Italy. Total is ruling out fueling stations across Europe. We know we have a very good compressor and so we're working closely with them to see if that would make sense as well. So we've talked to them, it turns out that Total now represents 10% [indiscernible] 10% of all the LNG around the world. They have great experience, the recent deal they just announced on LNG bunker barging. We've been talking to them about that potential here, as we’re beginning to see some marine applications of LNG in the Port of L.A. You know we have the only LNG plant really in California, that's small in comparison to the – well it does – can do 180,000 gallons a day, and can be actually brought up to 270,000 gallons a day. That's small in terms of world scale LNG. But the bunkering aspect that Total could bring to bear could be very important. So, yes, I think that it’s going to be lots of ways to work with them. And what's really happened Eric is as we talk to our customers, we have a lot of the customers that we're beginning to reach out to in this truck program are very large significant companies in their own right. Having one of the largest companies in the world working with us does not go unnoticed. And so it's been very helpful.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Great. Maybe just last one from Bob just bookkeeping the two non-renewals for LNG anyway you can quantify that for us?

Bob Vreeland

Analyst

They are fairly concentrated and they were about 1.5 million gallons in a quarter.

Eric Stine

Analyst

In a quarter? Okay.

Bob Vreeland

Analyst

Yes.

Eric Stine

Analyst

Got it. Thank you very much.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Thanks Eric.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Rob Brown of Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Rob Brown

Analyst

Hi good afternoon.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Hey Rob.

Rob Brown

Analyst

On the Zero Now program, lease program, could you update us the timeline and how you expect that to rollout in terms of sort of truck kind of volumes and then maybe the size of the fleet you're targeting for customers?

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Sure. We announced that program as you know a couple of weeks ago. And we have to announce it before we could really start peddling, right. So we've just now begun to – we've turned our sales force loose here in the last week or so. As you could imagine we've targeted four higher carriers and company-owned fleets. They tend to be large fleets, many of whom have had experience with natural gas, some of them are current customers, some are not, they tend to be customers that buy a lot of vehicles that have perhaps as many as thousands of heavy duty trucks. That profile would be Fleets that – they burn between 15,000 gallons and 20,000 gallons a year, they have good credit, they have fixed routes that tend to overlap on our station network, which is fairly easy to do, because we have such good coverage. We've broken that list, I'm not going to get into gory details, because I don't want to turn over my playbook, but we've broken that list down to the first set of a couple hundred targets. And we're making those meetings now. I think the early return is we're asking people to make a significant investment, right. So this isn't about reservations, this is about buying trucks that are $100,000, $110,000 a piece and they are entering into fuel contracts. And so this is something where you have to get the senior management of these large companies, and purchasing people involved and have to make a deal with the truck company, and work with the OEM. So it takes a little bit of complication, but we've made it fairly simple where a fleet customer can purchase a truck at a diesel like price, and enter into a fuel contract that we think would be very reasonable and significant savings for the length of the deal. So we've really taken a lot of the objections and list out and the early returns, as I was going to say, has been that people really find our fuel price and fuel offering very compelling. And so I'm optimistic, it's more in the early days of it and we're in really the first week of customer meetings, we've met with some very large fleets. And knock on wood, so far, so good. And we hope to begin to make some of those announcements over the here in next quarter or so and we will see how we do.

Rob Brown

Analyst

Okay great, thank you for that overview. Switching to Redeem how is the RNG supply market? Do you feel there's any constraints there, or is that developing pretty well?

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Well, there are constraints as we sit here in the middle of 2018. However, there is a lot of supply, and low or high carbon intensity supply coming on stream. The EPA set those new compliance for next year at, I think, about 35% increase over where it is today. I think the industry will meet that. And I think we believe that that will be the case you'll see that kind of growth or even a little bit more than that Rob over the next couple years. So over the next few years you will see that volume continue to grow significantly. But as we sit here today, we need a little bit more supply, we work very closely with our partner at BP. For that supply, as I mentioned in my remarks, we've lined up some additional supply that will come on later in 2018 or in early 2019 – with good carbon intensity numbers. So our customers really seem to like it, like this is fuel, they really do understand that it's a very compelling tool in sustainability. And so we're doing well with it, the RIN pricing and low carbon fuel pricing is doing well. So that’s a bright spot in our business right now.

Rob Brown

Analyst

Great, thank you. I will turn it over.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Pavel Molchanov of Raymond James. Please go ahead Pavel.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst

Thanks for taking the question guys. First, on service revenue, $9.3 million, you mentioned that was low, I actually think historically that may be the lowest in about six years. What's it going to take for that line item to recover?

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Well, a fair amount of that related to our compression entity. A good amount of that decline was the fact that – the prior year number has our compressor company in it. So the volume related our core business number actually is performing as it always has. We just took out mainly the compressor company. That's why you're seeing that dynamic.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst

Okay.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

On the P&L, because we’ve got last year as almost $5 million or so of services related to the compressor business.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst

Okay, fair enough.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

And this quarter does not.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst

Right. Okay. And then a kind of more macro we're 90 days from the midterms, obviously Congress has not taken up tax extenders yet, is there any hope that they will do so before the election or is it going to be in the lame duck?

Bob Vreeland

Analyst

I'm going to stick with what I've been telling you the last few quarters. I think there's a good chance that will get addressed, and the problem will be in the lame duck.

Pavel Molchanov

Analyst

Okay. Let’s see what happens. Thank you guys.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

There are no more questions at this time. I’d like turn the floor back over to Andrew Littlefair for closing comments.

Andrew Littlefair

Analyst

Good, thank you operator. I want to thank everyone for listening in the call this afternoon. And we look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter.

Operator

Operator

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