Aemetis (NASDAQ:AMTX) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Hello, and welcome to the Aemetis First Quarter twenty twenty six 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'd like to remind you that during the call we'll make forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks 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.

0:47 For the first quarter of twenty twenty six, revenue grew 27% to $54,600,000 compared with $42,900,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five, with growth across each of the three reportable operating segments. Gross profit was $2,800,000 in the quarter, a year over year improvement of nearly $8,000,000 from the gross loss of $5,100,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Operating loss improved approximately 60% to $6,300,000 compared with $15,600,000 in the prior period. Net loss improved to $21,700,000 compared to $24,500,000 in the first quarter twenty twenty five.

1:38 Production tax credits under Section 45Z contributed $4,000,000 of operating income during the quarter. Dollars 1,400,000 in dairy RNG and $2,600,000 in California ethanol, representing our first quarter of ongoing credit generation tied to quarterly production since 45Z eligibility was established in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty five. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was negative $1,300,000 reflecting typical winter seasonality with stronger revenue and margin performance later in the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA and reconciliation of EBITDA to net loss is described in our earnings release issued earlier today. Cash and cash equivalent at the end of the quarter were $4,800,000 compared to year end 2025 sorry, comparable to year end 2025.

2:34 Capital investments in carbon intensity reduction and dairy digester construction totaled $6,500,000 during the quarter. With that overview, I'll turn the call over to Eric. Thank you, Todd. I want to highlight three key takeaways from the first quarter of twenty twenty six. 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 $9,000,000 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 three eighty compared with a negative 150 default, which has been providing additional revenue at the higher LCFS value each quarter since Q3 twenty twenty five.

3:37 Six additional biogas digester pathways are nearing approval. These LCFS pathways approvals substantially expand the LCFS credit generation per MMBtu of RNG produced and will continue to drive meaningful revenue increases as we scale production. And third, our capital projects are advancing. We received the initial deliveries of dairy biogas pretreatment skids in April under our $27,000,000 fabrication contract. Major equipment for the 40,000,000 mechanical vapor compression project at our Keys, California ethanol plant has arrived on-site and construction has begun. In dairy RNG, we sold 110,000 MMBTUs in Q1, a 55% increase over the same quarter last year.

4:31 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 MVR 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 MDR commissioning later this year to add approximately $32,000,000 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.

5:23 In India, biodiesel revenue rebounded to $10,500,000 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 advisors. 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 CF GREET model by the Department of Energy to significantly increase revenues and margins, commissioning the MBR at the Keys ethanol plant, rising LCFS credit prices caused by continued quarterly credit deficits and progress on the India IPO.

6:30 Thank you to our shareholders, analysts and partners for your continued support. Operator, let's take some 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, please pick up your handset as 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 lot of things going on at your company, but I certainly could talk about the possibility of the RD and staff 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.

7:29 How are you thinking about that RD and staff 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 80,000,000 gallons a year of SAF or if we run it only in renewable diesel mode, it's 90,000,000 gallons. And as you know from previous reports, we have 10 different airlines we signed definitive agreements with, etcetera. 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 twenty twenty four. That caused the financing markets to take a delay in looking at SAF and RD.

8:22 You've done a very good job covering margins at renewable diesel producers. Just yesterday in California, Phillips sixty six announced that they're 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 twenty twenty four with a new president being hired who had certainly had a policy position that needs some clarification. So we are definitely in a position right now in which there is frankly a lot of interest in USAF production.

9:13 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 position this project specifically for the conditions we're in right now, high prices 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 80,000,000 gallons, of course, if we're selling at $9.80 a gallon is almost $800,000,000 additional revenue.

10:15 And I think the industry today is reporting roughly 1 point dollars 6 a gallon of operating margin. So obviously, a very positive improvement in our company's overall revenue and EBITDA growth. But I'm going to wrap this up by saying that there are actually four different sources of revenue from that plant. And 45Z, the clean fuels provision is still an unknown. We don't 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, then receive the 45Z production tax credit.

11:02 That is having an impact on the timing of our financing. And that, most lenders especially are interested in knowing what the 45Z revenue is for this project. Federal laws passed, Treasury adopted their guidance in February 2026 for 45Z, but the actual calculator in the Department of Energy website is going to be necessary. That spreadsheet needs to posted with the updated rules in the spreadsheet in order to finalize that fourth leg of the stool. So I want to put that note on the table that that's having an impact. Of course, now the business works great without 45Z, but people are curious to know what your total revenue is if we're doing a project of that size. Sounds good. And then the India biodiesel operations, nice to see them restarted in the first quarter.

11:56 It looks like profitability is essentially breakeven, maybe a little bit below. Can 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're able to shift to different feedstocks. Do you think that'll happen in the second quarter this time around? Thank you. Thanks, Matt. Let's talk about the overall trend in India, because it's very important for investors to understand that India is a country that's a socialist country, and they have elections that occurred in the first week of May. And 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.

12:44 There's 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 don't know that the Iranian war happened from the price of the diesel at the pump. Now 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're 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.

13:35 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 irrigation 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 80,000,000 gallon plant that's been operating at, you know, recently at 10% capacity. And so there's been a renewed focus on domestic renewable fuels in India with the policies already in place, national biofuels policies at 5% blended biodiesel in a 25,000,000,000 gallon market. That's about 1,250,000,000 gallons.

14:20 And they're unfortunately not at 5%. They're at 0.5 blend right now. And that is rapidly changing. So you asked about second quarter, would put in the context of during the trend of this year, we're seeing dramatic increases. And so frankly, signing larger contracts and frankly, back to the cost plus contract model is what is in process right now in India. And during the course of next few months, I think you'll see that kind of certainty come into play. And our IPO is really being built around us working on that reality that those policies need to be known and need to be adopted. And so we're 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. And we're seeking it for the IPO in India to be truly a breakout opportunity. We're 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.

15:30 And the events in the last few months are having a very significant impact on India and focusing them on redirect themselves to these policies that they've already got the books, but they haven't 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. Good morning. Can 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 keys and then the status of the refunding for the dairy RNG projects?

16:20 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 eighteen years by roughly a $3,000,000,000 fund out Fronto that holds our senior debt except for the $50,000,000 of USDA 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 or expansion. And so we are actively in the market right now actually working on a municipal bond type refinancing of our existing bridge financing we got from Third Eye Capital.

17:17 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, and it seems to be changing on a regular basis. So as they make a review of their portfolio goals, they'll be expanding or not expanding. It's really quite uncertain to be quite frankly, frank with you. So the rapid expansion of interest in the municipal bond and even commercial credit markets, certainly private credit markets, all of which we've had active discussions with, I think are going to overshadow our Renewable Energy for America program funding. I think we'll be seeing a much larger financings and moving much quicker than what the USDA REAP program currently looks like for our company.

18:15 Understood. Thanks, Eric. And then I just wanted to get your perspective on LCFS prices for a moment. While the market has slipped to deficit generation recently, prices have broadly remained quite muted. Can you talk about your expectations for that market going forward? I think we're going to see a rapid price increase during the summer and early fall. What muted the deficit that's with our second quarterly deficit announced on April 30, and that was for the fourth quarter of last year. So there's a trailing deficit announcement. It will be forty four months after the end of the physical quarter is when the announcement happens. But the price being muted was an expectation by traders that people wouldn't drive as much with high gasoline prices.

19:07 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. They thought it had a bigger impact than what it really did, did not have as big an impact, especially in California. So LCFS credit deficits, however, are not driven just by consumption of gasoline. It's also driven by how many credits come from renewable diesel. Renewable diesel is the reason we got such a large $40,000,000 credit bank and renewable diesel has underperformed in Q4 last year and the first part of Q1 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 was fewer renewable diesel credits generated. So we think the LCFS price trend is absolutely upwards.

20:16 The question of pace has been impacted by the Iranian war. That play didn't quite work out. And so we do expect increases to continue. There are plenty of credits in the market. It's not that issue. The issue is, do you want to pay $200 for it eighteen months from now when there's very few in the credit bank? So it's a question of major oil company traders over the next eighteen months at some point in time reaching a tipping point, 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 in the market. When that happens, you'll see a very rapid price rise. And so I wouldn't be surprised at all to see $150 in 2027, as traders see the cap is $268 and they want to get their book filled up as soon as possible.

21:07 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. So on the MVR, I understand it's going to be deployed before the end of the year. Are there any additional certifications, verifications needed to be done before you can start generating that $32,000,000 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?

21:54 Andy, you want to take that? Yeah, 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. So, we have some local permits that, you know, are sort of ongoing as you do construction. But we don't have any requirements for additional permitting or authorization in order to proceed. So construction has begun. We've begun demolition on existing concrete structures. As Eric mentioned in his comments, we've received most of the major equipment is stateside now. We received the turbo fans from Germany last week.

22:43 The main evaporator was received by from Prague in India about a week ago. It's actually currently in transit to the Keyes plant. So, 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 ONC activity there. Thanks for the color that you provided, Eric, to the previous question. But in terms of pricing for that will be available for you, do you expect it to be a premium pricing relative to what you got in the last year, for example, or are getting currently? Yes, there's definitely premium pricing actually. The next contracts are being discussed.

23:34 But the structure of a cost plus contract, which we did $112,000,000 of revenue and about $14,000,000 of positive cash flow last time we had a cost plus contract. That structure is being strongly considered as a replacement for what they've done in the last couple of years, which was this uncertain sort of pick a number and see what happens kind of a structure. And we covered this, I guess, a couple of years ago with investors, but just a reminder, the cost plus structure was after many, many years of working with the government to come up with something that was going to expand capacity utilization in India. It worked very, very well.

24:21 And then the India government passed a 20% tax, 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'd issued us a contract. The oil marketing companies did not want to take a loss, so they just didn't take delivery. That created confusion in the market. That confusion's 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's the resolution that's being worked out right now. So, 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.

25:12 Understood. Thanks for that. And then just one last one. You did mention you got seven annual CFS pathways approved for the negative three eighty. Six are being worked on. Do we should we expect those to occur before in the first half or the second half event? There's a strange delay in the process. So we expect the approvals to occur, but then they are a look back a couple quarters. So if we get an approval, for example, at the end of the fourth quarter, it's a look back to the beginning of the third quarter. So an approval by the end of December is actually effective in July 1. So strange situation, but the reality is, yes, we do expect by the end of year seats to be 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. So we will keep the market apprised of progress here. And of course, we're focusing on moving it through the process as quickly as possible.

26:16 Understood. So that would potentially sort of be a lump sum that you get if it is approved in the fourth quarter for the previous two quarters, and then it will be on an ongoing basis. It's look back process, which basically just starts July 1, if you're approved December 30. And then and then you yes, there might be a one quarter catch up. But in essence, it's just the delayed approval for the previous quarters the way government looks at it. Understood. 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. Morning and thank you for taking my questions.

27:06 I wanted to stick with the dairy digesters. I believe you mentioned on the call, you're expecting another 15, you know, doubling your digesters by 2027. Can you just remind us when you actually get the investment tax credits related to those investments? And, you know, maybe just your thoughts around the monetization of those tax credits? Good question. We get the tax credits upon the completion, the what they call in service date for each single digester. So we don't 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 45 Section 48, I'm sorry, investment tax credits.

27:55 We have sold about $95,000,000 of these tax credits. We tend to sell them in $5,000,000 or higher increments, so 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. So we will be seeking to do at least once a quarter. There is a potential of doing it more than once a quarter, depending on how many new units are completed. So we expect this to be probably a third quarter contribution, but could be quicker than that. And I say it could be as in the markets moving quickly. And we have some refinancing activities going on that certainly are very positive for the business. We've already fully financed the construction of $27,000,000 of these hydrosulfide compression skids.

28:50 The process is going on, we've received for them already have more coming. So that we're rapidly executing on portions of this project right now. And 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's completed and when we get the cash. Understood. That's very helpful. And then just sticking with those potential new digesters, do those come online at the negative three eighty qualification status? Or I guess how does that process look? And if they don't come on at the negative three eighty, you know, what do you think the current timeline is from the negative 150 to negative three eighty?

29:36 Andy, you want take that? Are you speaking about the new digesters that are not That are not still known, given the temporary pathway score of negative 150. And then once we go through the process with CARB, which hopefully, now that they've moved to a tier one approval process, will be significantly shorter than what we've experienced in the last few years, which is this kind of twenty four month to thirty six month approval process. It should be more like nine months. And then we would get the benefit of that higher or lower, however you want to look at it, CI score. So initially, it's a negative 150. And as you work your way through the approval process, and then you go to the blended rate of, you know, the negative three eighty. That's perfect. Thank you for taking my questions.

30:24 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, you know, as we are getting closer to the India IPO, what are your priorities or what have you allocated in terms of what you're 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. So our existing projects in California specifically focused on dairy RNG would be a use of some of the proceeds of our India business. That's one of the reasons why it will be the first global diversified, so not just biodiesel, but multiple different fuels company that 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.

31:26 The federal government support the low carbon fuel standard in California is matched by the renewable fuel standard federal level, and the 45Z production tax credit and the value of the molecule. So the Indian investor has an access to arguably one of the best markets in the world for renewable fuels. And that's a diversification of the growth in the India business. Another point we've 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. And 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.

32:17 So it's a diversified business. The India market is very deep and wide. And right now, it's about to have the shock of its diesel life with the increase of just an incredible percentage increase in diesel costs as a result of what's been going on in the world. So it's a perfect storm for us in favor of us as a producer in India who's been there for eighteen years to open our opportunity to the public markets. And so we're making excellent progress. And certainly market conditions will determine the actual timing of what we do. But market conditions are certainly trending in our direction. Great. Well, thanks for answering my questions, and I wish you guys good luck. Thank you.

33:03 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 stockholders, analysts and others for joining us today. We look forward to talking with you about participating in the growth opportunities at Aemetis. Todd? Thank you for attending today's Aemetis earnings conference call. A written and audio version of this earnings review will be posted to the Investors section of the Aemetis website. Thank you. This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.