$150 Million More for Clean Energy Fuels

Aggressive investment in infrastructure prevents present-day profits, but the money continues to flow into natural gas vehicle fueling leader Clean Energy Fuels: another $150 million in backing was revealed last week, right on the heels of an earnings report showing continuing bottom-line losses but significantly increased sales.
The $150-million investment is in the form of 7.50% convertible notes due in 2016. The investors are Springleaf Investments, a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings and Lionfish Investments-Seatown Holdings, both based in Singapore, and Greenwich Asset Holding, a subsidiary of RRJ Capital Master Fund I.
“This investment by Temasek, Seatown and RRJ demonstrates their confidence in the opportunity for fueling natural gas vehicles as well as in Clean Energy’s position as the leader in growing this market,” Clean Energy president and CEO Andrew Littlefair said in a release on Thursday. “Our development program for fueling station-building is expanding rapidly and we welcome the support.”
Two weeks prior, Clean Energy (NASDAQ:CLNE) reported a net loss of nearly $15.4 million for the first six months of 2011, but saw a revenues gain of 62%, to $134.5 million. Gasoline gallon equivalents sold totaled 74.7 million gallons, up from 59.7 million GGEs for the six months ended June 30, a gain of more than 25%.

Separately, Clean Energy opened the first liquefied natural gas fueling station built via its partnership with Pilot Flying J: a 15,000-gallon, single dispenser LNG facility in Baytown, Texas, near Houston. Trimac Transportation will use the station to fuel a fleet of 14 Kenworth LNG trucks, Clean Energy says. Clean Energy earlier reported investment of $150 million by Chesapeake Energy targeting more than 150 LNG stations along major interstate trucking corridors (F&F, July 18).

Tagged $150 million, Baytown, Clean Energy Fuels, CLNE, investment, liquefied natural gas, LNG, natural gas vehicles, NGVs, Pilot Flying J, RRJ, Seatown, Temasek, Trimac