Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ:CLNE) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Andrew Littlefair: Jason, it’s a good question. That as you point out, that — the production tax credit has not been promulgated. It hasn’t been adopted by the treasury department by the Treasury Secretary. And I’ve been told our folks here, let’s be careful. We don’t know how that’s going to come out. And we don’t know — it appears on its face as the law has suggested that it would — it could be a rather big credit based on the carbon intensity. And I’ve seen estimates between $5 to $6. But I also know that’s a big number. And Jason is the first time we really heard anybody ask us maybe because you and I talked about it before something, but whether that it could be capped. But stranger things have happened. So I don’t know how to handicap that yet.

I know that this incentive was designed to get really low carbon fuels produced. And so you want to be careful how much you cap it because then it works against what it was designed to do. But could it be? Do I think it will? I don’t know that. I’m not sure it would be, but it could be. Have you heard something, Jason?

Jason Gabelman: No, no. I was saying if you did. I have not heard anything

Andrew Littlefair: I also know politicians, someone says, oh, that’s pretty big that. But, there are a lot of big numbers associated with all this stuff. So I’m not so sure that it would be and I don’t know how fair that would be just to cap it. And because it’s so low carbon, so. So we’ll see how that goes.

Jason Gabelman: Yes.

Robert Vreeland: Jason, on your second question, by the, by the numbers that you’re giving to me, I can tell that and I’m not saying right or wrong at all. But I think you’re you just you’re taking like the fuel sales value that we report that has the Amazon, non-cash incentive netted down in there. And then you’re kind of, figuring out the product cost of sales and coming out to your $0.04. I will say that there’s a couple, probably a couple of things. I mean, one, the number can be influenced by how, what the value of the Amazon incentive number is. Right, because that that nets that it nets down the revenue, and then your cost is kind of the same. And so, your margin gets a little skinnier as a result of the value of that.

And if and whether you want to have that in there or not, is up to you. But I can say that, the value of that charge was the largest it’s been in any quarter and it was larger than Q3. So it was like 7 million in Q3 and 8.8 million. So that’s netted in your revenue number. But then I will say, yes, there, Q4 was impacted, certainly by the doubling of natural gas costs in California. And because it’s such a big market, and we’re going to see a little pressure on that in the first quarter. I would like to say that dissipated, we’ve kind of righted itself. But I already know in January that cost went from $15 and then to $50. I don’t know if any of you heard on the news about I mean, it’s all the way down into residence. And I mean, it’s a complete debacle, in my opinion, my own humble opinion there.

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