Dive Brief:

• Clean Energy Fuels announced it inked 15 local contracts during the first quarter of this year to serve fleets around the country. The biogas company expects to service about 1,000 vehicles through the deals.
• A majority of the new contracts include waste collection vehicles, with others including transit buses and other government fleets. Two contracts, with Suburban Disposal in New York and Water Resources in California, are with private waste companies.
• “What we are now observing is that municipalities which are eager to meet their environmental and fiscal goals can do this with renewable natural gas (RNG) easily, immediately and cost-effectively," Chad Lindholm, senior vice president at Clean Energy Fuels, said in a statement last week.

Dive Insight:

The new contracts are spread across Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, New York and Washington. The terms vary, with some including station maintenance or operations. In Arcadia, California, Clean Energy Fuels is also designing and building a new station to service transit buses and utility trucks.

The deals add to Clean Energy Fuels' growing book of business as it works to recover from financial headwinds related to the supply chain and inflation. In its first quarter 2024 financial filings, the public company reported that revenues were down year over year, in part due to lower natural gas prices.

Nevertheless, President and CEO Andrew Littlefair said the company's financial situation was improving thanks to newly opened fleet stations and progress on the company's growing dairy digester portfolio.

"2024 will be transformational on a variety of fronts," Littlefair said in a statement announcing the earnings results. "A solid first quarter helps to position us to come out well through this transition as we continue to steadily improve RNG fuel volumes and financial results.”

By the end of the first quarter, Clean Energy Fuels reported owning, operating or supplying 579 fueling stations in the U.S. and 24 in Canada, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. The company supplies both compressed natural gas and liquefied natural gas to contracted fleets. While Clean Energy Fuels does supply fossil-derived gas, it has also grown its volume of RNG sold by 8.6% year over year to 58 million gallons in Q1 2024.

In its quarterly filing with the SEC, the company reported confidence in the transportation market for RNG, noting: "We believe the most attractive market for RNG is U.S. heavy-duty Class 8 trucking."

Clean Energy Fuels plans to continue serving the sector, eventually branching out into hydrogen and possibly electric power generation for vehicles as both technologies advance.