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OPAL Fuels Inc. (OPAL)

Q4 2025 Earnings Call· Mon, Mar 16, 2026

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day. And thank you for standing by. Welcome to the OPAL Fuels Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker for today, Todd M. Firestone, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Todd M. Firestone

Management

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the OPAL Fuels Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. With me today are our Co-CEOs, Adam J. Comora and Jonathan Gilbert Maurer, as well as Kazi Kamrul Hasan, OPAL Fuels Inc.’s Chief Financial Officer. OPAL Fuels Inc. released financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025 this morning, and those results are available on the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.opalfuels.com. The presentation and access to the webcast for this call are also available on the website. After completion of today’s call, a replay will be available for 90 days. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that our remarks and answers to your questions contain forward-looking statements, which involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of performance, and actual results could differ materially from what is contained in such statements. Several risk factors that could cause or contribute to such differences are described on slides 2 and 3 of our presentation. These forward-looking statements reflect our views as of the date of this call, and OPAL Fuels Inc. does not undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of this call. Additionally, this call will contain discussion of certain non-GAAP measures. A definition of non-GAAP measures used and a reconciliation of these measures to the nearest GAAP measures are included in the appendix of the release and presentation. Adam will begin today’s call by providing an overview of the quarter’s results and recent highlights. Jonathan will then give a commercial and business development update, after which Kazi will review financial results. We will then open the call for questions. I will now turn the call over to Adam J. Comora, Co-CEO of OPAL Fuels Inc.

Adam J. Comora

Management

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for participating in OPAL Fuels Inc.’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Call. We are pleased to be here today and look forward to discussing our 2025 results, our outlook and plans for 2026, and the current macro and regulatory environment. Starting with full-year and fourth-quarter results, we are pleased the year ended strongly and adjusted EBITDA finished at $90.2 million, within our guidance. On the surface, 2025 adjusted EBITDA was a flat year versus 2024; however, production grew 28%, which was masked in our financial results by several factors, including 22% lower RIN prices. Despite the macro headwinds faced by our Fuel Station Services segment throughout 2025, we are pleased we achieved strong growth in the segment. I will offer some high-level thoughts here at the top of the call regarding outlook for 2026, and Kazi will share more details later. For RNG production outlook in 2026, we continue to be encouraged by our improved operations team, new opportunities to improve gas collection, and greater efficiencies at our plants, all driving incremental production growth from our existing assets. For our Fuel Station Services segment, we are beginning to see improving macro conditions and other factors that could make 2026 an inflection point for new fleet adoption of CNG and RNG in heavy-duty trucking. It is important to note that these business development activities would not necessarily have a direct benefit to 2026 financial results. It typically takes us about a year to build a fueling station and begin selling fuel. So for 2026, this segment will still be feeling the effects of the sluggish 2025 business development activity, but we are hopeful new fleet deployments will begin setting the segment up for stronger growth in 2027 and beyond. I do want to…

Jonathan Gilbert Maurer

Management

Thank you, Adam, and good morning, everyone. 2025 and early 2026 were important periods for OPAL Fuels Inc. from an operational standpoint as well as in strengthening our capital structure and positioning the company for the next phase of growth. Recently, we successfully completed a $180 million Series A preferred facility, which allowed us to fully repay an existing $100 million preferred investment and further strengthen the company’s liquidity position. In addition, we drew approximately $128 million under our senior secured credit facility, which provides improved visibility to execute on our project portfolio. On the upstream side, our focus remains on improving performance across our existing operating assets while advancing the next wave of RNG projects currently in construction and development. Production from facilities commissioned late in 2024 significantly increased during 2025 and sets up a stronger 2026 operating position when compared to this time last year. I want to highlight that our upgraded operating teams have done well in bringing efficiencies to drive higher production. Despite an extraordinarily cold winter resulting in difficult operating conditions, same-facility sales growth has been meaningful, and we expect this trend to continue. Also contributing to our 2026 production growth is a full year of operations at our Atlantic facility, which came online in late 2025 and is performing well, ramping quicker compared with recent project experience, driven by higher gas flows at the landfill, allowing us to operate at higher production levels entering 2026. Looking ahead, we continue to progress our projects in construction, as we expect them to contribute to the next phase of growth for the company. On the downstream side, we continue to expand our Fuel Station Services platform, which supports RNG and CNG fueling infrastructure for heavy-duty trucking fleets. At year-end, we have grown to 61 OPAL Fuels Inc.-owned…

Kazi Kamrul Hasan

Management

Thank you, Jonathan, and good morning to everyone joining today’s call. This quarter showed continued operational progress across the platform. This morning, we issued our earnings press release, posted an updated investor presentation on our website, and filed our Form 10-Ks. Before walking through the details, I would frame our financial performance around three key points. First, the resilience of our earnings despite commodity headwinds in 2025. Second, continued operational growth across both our RNG and Fuel Station Services platforms. And third, the strengthening of our liquidity and capital position to support disciplined growth in 2026 and beyond. Our 2025 results demonstrate the strength of our platform. In the fourth quarter, revenue was $99.8 million and adjusted EBITDA was $34.2 million, compared with $80.0 million and $22.6 million in the same period last year, driven primarily by increased production and recognition of 45Z tax credits. For the full year, OPAL Fuels Inc. generated adjusted EBITDA of $90.2 million, essentially flat year over year despite declining environmental credit prices. D3 RIN pricing declined roughly $0.70—equivalent to approximately $33 million in adjusted EBITDA—with our realized RIN price averaging $2.45 in 2025 compared to $3.13 in 2024. This decline offset much of our operational progress achieved during the year. I would also remind listeners that the ISCC pathway, which expired in November 2024, contributed in excess of $10 million to adjusted EBITDA in 2024. Operational growth across the platform helped offset these headwinds. RNG production reached 4.9 million MMBtu in 2025, representing 28% growth year over year, with fourth-quarter production exceeding 1.3 million MMBtu, up approximately 24% from 2024. As recently commissioned facilities moved through their first full year of operation—including a full year of Atlantic in 2026—we began to see the benefits of scale and EBITDA flow-through embedded in the platform. Our…

Jonathan Gilbert Maurer

Management

In closing, we remain well positioned for continued disciplined execution of our strategic growth objectives and the expansion of OPAL Fuels Inc.’s vertically integrated platform. I will now turn the call over to the operator for Q&A. Thank you all for your interest in OPAL Fuels Inc.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press 11 on your telephone. You will hear that automated message advising your hand is raised. We also ask that you please wait for your name and company to be announced before proceeding with your question. Our first question for today will be coming from the line of Derrick Whitfield of Texas Capital. Your line is open.

Derrick Whitfield

Analyst

Good morning, all, and congrats on a strong year-end update.

Adam J. Comora

Management

Thanks, Derrick. Thanks, Derrick. Good morning.

Derrick Whitfield

Analyst

Starting with liquidity and your growth outlook on slide six. With the preferred financing behind you, could you speak to what the next phase of growth looks like for OPAL Fuels Inc. beyond the projects that are currently in your development queue? And if you could also just comment on how much CapEx is required to bring those projects in your development queue online.

Adam J. Comora

Management

Yes, thanks, Derrick. This is Adam here. I will maybe start, and then if Kazi or Jonathan want to fill in. I think most, or hopefully most, saw that we updated our liquidity position on March 10 and currently have about $160 million of liquidity available to complete the projects that we had noted that are in construction. It is about 2.8 million MMBtu of in-construction projects, and some Fuel Station Services fueling stations as well. In addition to that liquidity position to complete what we have announced, we have also got $60 million unused drawn capacity on the preferred facility, plus operating cash flows that continue to grow and are also available for new capital deployment. We have a number of robust project opportunities between new biogas rights, conversion projects on our renewable power, and what we are really getting excited about is allocating more capital to the Fuel Station Services business. If you just look at what is in construction today and what that could contribute to EBITDA and cash flow, we always talk about rough guidance of $20 per MMBtu of EBITDA and cash flow from RNG production. If you do the math on what we have in construction and earmarked with that $160 million of liquidity that is available today, based on how these things come out of the gates, that could be another 2.0 million of production in the early days of production. We think we are in a really good spot to grow our EBITDA and operating cash flow from what we have announced so far. We have a number of projects on the upstream side that we think are really good candidates to deploy and invest capital. We are always going to be mindful of our balance sheet and making sure that our liquidity and leverage ratios stay lockstep with the cash flow generation of the business. You should expect us to talk about some new projects on the RNG production side, and we are really hopeful and optimistic that a larger part of our capital will be getting deployed into fuel stations. I know there will be some questions later on fleet conversions and what our outlook is there. You should think about OPAL Fuels Inc. as a growth company. If you look at our four-year track record, we think we have the capital in place and operating cash flow to continue to grow in those sorts of fashions as you look at us over the next several years.

Derrick Whitfield

Analyst

Great. And then maybe perhaps for Jonathan. You have accomplished a nice increase in your inlet utilization levels in 4Q. Could you speak to some of the drivers and also highlight where you expect utilization levels to level out based on some of the capture opportunities Adam referenced in his prepared remarks.

Jonathan Gilbert Maurer

Management

Sure, and thanks for the question. We are really proud of the team that we have been building on the operations side. We have been growing our capabilities both on the upstream and downstream side, and I think this is reflected over the course of the year in terms of the operations of these projects, which we measure through the efficiency and availability of the projects, which has increased over the course of 2025 from the roughly 70% level closer to the 80% level now that we are seeing. So really strong kudos to the team for doing that. In terms of where we are headed with it and what the possibilities are, you really see the opportunity for continued improvement there, and we think about kind of an 85% to 86% utilization level as something that ought to be readily achievable. In certain instances, we are able to keep that as well. You combine that utilization with our open and growing landfills that our projects are located on, as well as the headroom for additional capacity—the projects are larger than the amount of gas coming out. As a result, we see growth not only from operating the projects better but also from the growth in the gas. That gives us a lot of optimism in 2026. You have hit on a focus of ours this year. We are going to be very focused on growing that utilization, growing the gas, and resulting in better output per project—for each of the projects and for the whole portfolio in total. We are looking forward to that. Thanks.

Derrick Whitfield

Analyst

That is great, guys. Sounds like it is very capital-efficient growth for you in 2026.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question is coming from the line of Matthew Blair of TPH. Your line is open.

Matthew Blair

Analyst

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Maybe just to stack on to the last question, are there any specific examples of things that you are changing going forward to help improve operations, and are there any specific assets where you are really looking to improve the overall utilization? And then also, I think there was a comment that most of the growth is coming from the existing asset base, but just want to check, are Cottonwood and Burlington still expected to start up in 2026? I guess the idea would be that due to the ramp process that probably would not help out too much on 2026; that would really help out more in later years. Is that the right way to think about it? Thank you.

Jonathan Gilbert Maurer

Management

Yep. Thank you very much. First off, most of the growth in output that we are looking forward to this year is coming from the same-store sales. We have really incorporated very little from those projects into our guidance. While we do continue to focus on those projects in construction and bringing them online, as I said, I think our focus really is on operating efficiencies and availabilities for our existing projects. In terms of some specific examples, some of our projects, for example, have no nitrogen rejection units associated with them. In projects like that, we are focused on tuning gas to a higher quality—higher methane and lower amounts of nitrogen and oxygen. For other ones with nitrogen rejection, we are focused on increasing the amounts of the gas there. In terms of the teams themselves, we are really focused on training across the platform in each of the units. These are process-driven projects, and the processes require a balance across the quality of the gas, the quantity of the gas, the membrane CO2 rejection, the nitrogen rejection, PSAs, etc. Balancing that has been a bit of a learning process for the team over the last couple of years. That is why we are seeing the continued improvement there. Other projects that are closer to, or at, their nameplate capacity, in terms of gas, we are focused on improving the quality of the inlet gas so that for every unit of gas that comes in, if you have more methane in that unit of gas, then you will have greater output. We are focused on those aspects as well, and we just see that focus continuing during the course of the year with our output increasing.

Adam J. Comora

Management

I would just add there, this is Adam. There are no significant delays in either of those two projects. We just think it is best to be conservative in terms of the exact timing and the exact ramp. So we have focused our guidance around just improving the operations at the existing facilities.

Matthew Blair

Analyst

Okay. Sounds good. Thanks for the color. And then could you talk about the relationship going forward with NextEra? They called the preferred, but I think they also have an equity ownership in OPAL Fuels Inc. and then a fairly extensive commercial relationship with you. Is anything changing on those fronts?

Adam J. Comora

Management

I will take that one. NextEra has been a terrific partner of ours for a long period of time, and we do still work with them quite closely on that environmental credit trading agreement that you referenced. They still are 50% owners in our Noble and Pine Bend projects. We continue to work with NextEra, continue to view them as a good partner. We advocate side by side with them on a lot of key issues and do not see anything really materially changing from that perspective at this point.

Matthew Blair

Analyst

Sounds good. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from the line of Ryan James Pfingst of B. Riley Securities. Your line is open.

Ryan James Pfingst

Analyst

Just curious about a KPI you have referenced in the past. Do you have a goal for how much MMBtu capacity you would like to place into construction in 2026?

Adam J. Comora

Management

This is Adam here, and I appreciate the question. We do see a significant, strong pipeline of new project opportunities to place into construction, both from new greenfield biogas rights that we have secured and also renewable power conversion projects, which we have a few sizable ones in our portfolio. As I was trying to reference in an earlier question, we also see other opportunities in our Fuel Station Services segment to invest in fuel stations. We also see opportunistic M&A opportunities, and we will continue to invest capital in our business, being mindful of our balance sheet strength and liquidity. We feel that as we are allocating capital across those different segments, different opportunities may not be all on the production side. They may be in these other areas of our business, which, by the way, there are so many reasons why we like the Fuel Station Services segment—diversity of earnings stream, open-ended growth opportunity where we think diesel-to-CNG could be a really interesting, large growth potential, and a little diversity away from some of the regulatory policy out there. We do not think it is wise just to talk about one segment for where we are investing capital. We do expect to put more RNG projects into construction. We have a large RNG production growth profile just from what we have announced already. That is how we are thinking about it, but you should expect us to continue to invest in production assets.

Ryan James Pfingst

Analyst

Appreciate that color. And it leads up to my follow-up, which is around CapEx, and that number for 2026 looks like $154 million this year. Curious if you could give us a sense of the breakdown between RNG projects and fuel stations there.

Kazi Kamrul Hasan

Management

Let me give you a bit of a carryover from what Adam just mentioned. The $154 million primarily includes most of the committed construction projects we have and a little bit of committed downstream dispensing station investments as well. So the lion’s share is production, and a smaller part is dispensing stations. I want to reiterate that, as you have heard from Adam, we would prefer not to provide guidance specifically around where we are going to make the most of our investments. Every investment will be competing for the dollar that is available from our capital, operating cash flow, and the future capital availability from the capital markets. We are going to be a little bit more judicious, so that is where I am going to end it.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for the next question, please. The next question will be coming from the line of Adam Samuel Bubes of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Adam Samuel Bubes

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. It sounds like you are seeing some green shoots in Fuel Station Services, but as you alluded to, because of the lag, it is maybe a 2027 story. What level of growth are you embedding in guidance for Fuel Station Services in 2026? And is low 20s the right way to think about margins in that segment on a sustained basis, or are there any levers for margin expansion?

Adam J. Comora

Management

Adam, this is Adam here. A couple of things. Yes, you are correct; there is always, just like on our RNG project investments that take 18 months or so on average, when you invest the capital and when you start recognizing revenues, EBITDA, and cash flow. Fuel Station Services has a slightly shorter cycle when we invest in new fuel stations, but we really think of 2026 as the business development activity that sets the stage for future growth. So in 2026, we are not anticipating the same levels of growth in Fuel Station Services that we have experienced after the next several, but we are really excited about some of those green shoots. We can go into what those macros are, where we see them alleviating, and some interesting market structure dynamics that we think we are breaking through there. As for margin expansion, from a margin perspective, it is a higher-margin business when we own fuel stations and dispense RNG at those stations versus typical construction and service margins. We do anticipate, as we own more fueling stations, that the margins will naturally move higher in that segment, and that is where we see a lot more of the growth coming.

Kazi Kamrul Hasan

Management

When we do the Fuel Station Services capital investments, we definitely rely on a base level of dispensing volume, but in more cases than not, we see embedded growth in fuel dispensing—similar to the growth we have in production on the upstream side. We also see the throughput going through these stations in the downstream side as well. There are similar types of growth embedded there, and we do expect that to be realized.

Adam J. Comora

Management

You should also understand that there is certain inter-segment tightening in the dispensing market, which also assists in margins on the Fuel Station Services side.

Adam Samuel Bubes

Analyst

And then maybe as the natural follow-up there, based on your conversations with customers and what you are seeing in the macro environment, what is giving you that underlying confidence and visibility for a potential inflection in 2027 and the potential rise in natural gas vehicle adoption?

Adam J. Comora

Management

I appreciate that question. It is something that I think about quite a bit as I look both to the U.S. market and what is happening overseas in places like China, which, by the way, I think is deploying about 30,000 natural gas engines, the X15, each year. China is on a path to have its heavy-duty trucking move up to 20% to 25% of its fuel mix. We have not gotten there yet in the U.S. We are at about 2%, which is really interesting when you think about it, given the position the U.S. has in natural gas as a commodity and the low cost and stable nature of that versus diesel and oil. Specifically in 2025, there were macro headwinds that were affecting some of our largest customers in the logistics and trucking space—tariffs, a continued freight recession, some overhang on combustion engines, and initial testing of the X15-liter engine. All of those factors delayed some investment decisions, either around deferred new truck purchases or new station purchases. As we are now moving into 2026, a lot of those fleets have started acclimating to the macro environment and started thinking about new truck purchases and reengaging. You have now moved through the X15 testing phase, so fleets are more comfortable with the technology and the performance. The volatility and absolute price that folks are starting to see in diesel and oil are really making natural gas a lot more attractive, and then you layer in the fact that it also assists those that are thinking about their sustainability metrics or emissions profiles. It is really setting up for what we think are investment decisions here in 2026 around this technology. CNG and RNG have proven themselves as something that works for fleets. Those are some of the things that have either alleviated or are new potential positive macros with what we have seen with diesel and oil prices. One thing that is interesting about the U.S. versus China is the market structure. Here in the U.S., you still have to work through not only the engine price, the OEMs, and the dealerships in order to get that product to market. We are encouraged that a lot of those things are starting to break through. One other interesting one here in the U.S. I will touch on is fuel surcharges, where the economics look good on paper, and then fleets have to think about how to deal with fuel surcharges and make sure that it does not disrupt how they are doing business. We are seeing movement across that whole spectrum of either macros or market structure here, and we are cautiously optimistic that the business development activity will accelerate in 2026 and then really provide some visibility into 2027 and beyond.

Adam Samuel Bubes

Analyst

Very interesting. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press 11 on your telephone. One moment for the next question. Our next question is coming from the line of Betty Zhang of Scotiabank. Your line is open.

Betty Zhang

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. In your opening remarks, you mentioned the RFS. I just wanted to get your take on the cellulosic side. Do you expect any impacts on D3 RINs, and what are your expectations there?

Adam J. Comora

Management

I appreciate that question. This is Adam again. As we had noted and people probably saw, the EPA did send their final rule over on 2026–2027 to OMB, and we hope that recent geopolitical events do not slow down the process, as we have seen a little bit of an oil price shock and that sort of thing. We hope that the EPA still sticks to ordinary course of business timing and it gets released pretty soon. What I would say about the cellulosic category is we feel really good about the bipartisan support that we have in Congress as it pertains to tax policy and how they view RNG in the spectrum of smart or pragmatic policy on where folks should invest. I would say it still feels like the cellulosic category is not getting the same level of attention as liquid agricultural biofuels, where it seems apparent there is clear focus to support those areas and really lean in. From the cellulosic category, it is not a lean-out; it is not a lean-in; it is business as usual. I do not think we are really expecting any real surprises there, and we think the cellulosic category remains stable. As I said in the prepared remarks, there could be an upward bias in the cellulosic category with the entire biofuels complex. It just does not feel like it is the area of focus, and there are other areas where the EPA may be trying to emphasize.

Betty Zhang

Analyst

Great. Appreciate the detailed answer. For my follow-up, I wanted to ask on 2026 EBITDA guidance. Would you be able to share a bit more color between your different segments?

Adam J. Comora

Management

I am going to pass it over to Kazi in a moment here. We are not giving specific segment guidance because that will also be driven by where we invest capital and that sort of thing. One thing I do want to caution folks about is the challenging operating environment that we have experienced so far in the first quarter. I know there is another wave of storms that is rolling through right now. It was factored into our guidance, but there was a challenging start to the year with the snowstorms, which impact production a little bit and impact operating costs a little bit. We do not give specific quarterly guidance; I just wanted to caution folks on the first quarter. I will pass it over to Kazi.

Kazi Kamrul Hasan

Management

Thanks, Adam. This is a great question. As Adam noted, we have had a hard winter. Obviously, it is going to have an impact on our upstream production and likely on how much we are dispensing through our dispensing network, too. For the year, think about the growth we have seen on upstream production—similar type of growth we can expect. Downstream, 2026, as Adam mentioned, is going to be a more pivoting year. Most likely, the growth would be more around 2027 or onwards. I will stay away from giving you specific guidance, but you can look at our existing breakdown; that should give you an understanding of what we are adding.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I am not showing any more questions in the queue. I would like to turn the call back over to Adam J. Comora for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Adam J. Comora

Management

We appreciate everybody logging in today for their interest in OPAL Fuels Inc., and we look forward to sharing more updates in the future.

Operator

Operator

This does conclude today’s programming. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.