Earnings call transcript: Aemetis Q3 2025 sees revenue miss, stock dips

Aemetis Inc. (AMTX) reported its financial results for the third quarter of 2025, revealing a significant earnings miss and a subsequent drop in stock price. The company posted an earnings per share (EPS) of -$0.37, falling short of the forecasted -$0.19, with a revenue of $59.2 million, below the expected $87.44 million. The market reacted unfavorably, with Aemetis shares dropping 10.34% to $1.55 in pre-market trading.

Key Takeaways

• Aemetis reported a wider-than-expected loss in Q3 2025.
• Revenue fell short of forecasts, driven by lower-than-expected performance in key segments.
• Stock price dropped over 24% in pre-market trading following the earnings release.
• The company highlighted significant progress in its renewable natural gas and ethanol operations.

Company Performance

Aemetis showed mixed results in Q3 2025. While revenues increased by $7 million compared to Q2 2025, the company faced challenges in meeting its revenue forecast. Key revenue streams included biodiesel orders in India and stronger ethanol production, but these were not enough to meet expectations. The company also reported an operating loss improvement from the previous quarter, indicating some operational efficiencies.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $59.2 million, up from $52.2 million in Q2 2025.
• Earnings per share: -$0.37, compared to -$0.19 forecasted.
• Cash at quarter-end: $5.6 million.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Aemetis posted an EPS of -$0.37 against a forecast of -$0.19, marking a significant earnings miss with a 94.74% surprise. Revenue was $59.19 million, missing the forecast by 32.31%. This performance highlights ongoing challenges in achieving projected financial targets.

Market Reaction

The market reacted negatively to Aemetis’ earnings report, with the stock price dropping 10.34% in pre-market trading. The stock’s current price of $1.55 is approaching its 52-week low of $1.22, reflecting investor concerns about the company’s ability to meet financial expectations.

Outlook & Guidance

Aemetis is optimistic about its future, with plans to expand its renewable natural gas and ethanol production. The company targets a 500,000 MMBTU RNG production by year-end and aims for a 1 million MMBTU annual run rate by the end of 2026. Additionally, Aemetis plans to IPO its India subsidiary in early 2026, with a potential valuation of $100-$300 million.

Executive Commentary

• "We expect multiple income streams from India, LCFS credits, and federal tax incentives to ramp up during the fourth quarter," said Todd Waltz, CFO.
• "The legislative approval of 15% ethanol blending in California last month is expected to increase demand for ethanol by more than 600 million gallons per year," noted Eric McAfee, CEO.
• "We are targeting an IPO of our India subsidiary in early 2026," added Eric McAfee, CEO.

Risks and Challenges

• Continued financial underperformance may deter investor confidence.
• Regulatory changes in key markets could impact revenue streams.
• Operational challenges in scaling renewable natural gas production.
• Dependence on volatile LCFS credit prices for revenue growth.
• Execution risks associated with planned IPO and expansion strategies.

Q&A

Analysts inquired about the challenges in 45(z) tax credit calculations and the dynamics of corn basis pricing. Aemetis also discussed potential changes in Renewable Volume Obligation policies and detailed its business expansion strategy in India.

Full transcript - Aemetis Inc (AMTX) Q3 2025:

Matthew, Conference Call Operator: Welcome to the Aemetis Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Review Conference Call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Joining us on today’s call are Eric McAfee, the Chairman and CEO of Aemetis; Andy Foster, the President of Aemetis Advanced Fuels; and Todd Waltz, the Chief Financial Officer of Aemetis. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Todd Waltz, the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Aemetis. Mr. Waltz, you may begin.

Todd Waltz, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Aemetis: Thank you, Matthew, and welcome everyone. Before we begin, I’d like to remind everyone that during this call we’ll be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on our current expectations and beliefs and involve risk and uncertainty that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors discussed in our earnings release issued today and in our most recent Form 10-K and 10-Q filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the caption "Risk Factors" and management discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations, as well as in our other filings with the SEC.

We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future developments, or otherwise, except as required by law. Please refer to our earnings release and our SEC filings for more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties. Full financial details can be found in our third quarter 2025 earnings release and the Form 10-Q available on the Aemetis website and EdGov. I’ll briefly highlight the key items. Revenues were $59.2 million, up by approximately $7 million from the second quarter of 2025. Primarily due to the fulfillment of biodiesel orders with oil marketing companies in India and stronger performance from ethanol production and sales pricing. In California, we saw a production rate of 14.7 million gallons as margins allowed for higher grind rates.

California Dairy Natural Gas recognized $4 million of revenue from 12 operating digesters during Q3 using the CARB-approved LCFS pathway for seven of the digesters. As we’ll discuss later, Section 45(c) tax credits from the production of dairy renewable natural gas were not included in the third quarter since our recognition is based upon when credits are sold. India Biofuels posted $14.5 million of revenues. A new India CFO with IPO experience joined the company during the third quarter, continuing to build out the management team to target a public listing in 2026. Operating loss improved sequentially on higher volumes and lower SG&A. Interest expense remained steady at around $13 million during the quarter. Cash at quarter end was $5.6 million after making $4.1 million of investments into carbon intensity reduction and dairy renewable natural gas production expansion during the quarter.

We expect multiple income streams from India, LCFS credits, and federal tax incentives to ramp up during the fourth quarter, positioning us for a strong exit to the year 2025 and increasing 45(z) income streams during 2026 as new projects are completed. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Eric McAfee, Chairman and CEO of Aemetis. Eric.

Eric McAfee, Chairman and CEO, Aemetis: Thank you, Todd. I’ll start with the business segment update, followed by updates on future projects and a regulatory update. In our dairy RNG business, we significantly increased biogas production capacity at the end of the third quarter with a new multi-dairy digester coming online in September that increased RNG production capacity by more than 30%. As planned, we expect to reach more than 500,000 MMBTU of renewable natural gas production capacity by the end of this year and grow to a 1 million MMBTU annual run rate by the end of 2026. We are now operating or building digesters to process waste from 18 dairies funded by $50 million of USDA-guaranteed financing with 20-year repayment terms and attractive interest rates, as well as equity and revenues from operations.

Seven of our dairy digester Low Carbon Fuel Standard pathways were approved by the California Air Resources Board during the second quarter of this year at an average negative 384 carbon intensity score. These pathway approvals increased our LCFS credit revenue by 160% for these dairies starting in the third quarter of this year, compared to dairy digesters with the negative 150 default pathway score while pathways are pending approval. Four more LCFS pathways are currently under review at CARB and are expected to be approved under the FASTER Tier 1 pathway process that was adopted by CARB in the July 2025 extension of the LCFS program. Additionally, these dairy RNG facilities qualify for federal Section 48 investment tax credits. To date, we have sold $83 million in investment tax credits related to our RNG facilities and received more than $70 million in cash.

Since January 1, 2025, we’ve been generating transferable Section 45(z) production tax credits, but we do not show the cash received from these credits in our financial reports until the 45(z) credits are sold. Currently, we have $12 million of investment tax credits and $10 million of 45(z) production tax credits in the sale process. Please note a significant upside. The Department of Energy has not issued the updated 45(z) spreadsheet that allows the correct calculation for dairy RNG, so the amount of 45(z) income is expected to increase significantly when the DOE issues the updated calculation. This DOE update could occur at any time but is definitely expected for the implementation of the one big beautiful bill in January 2026, allowing us to generate and sell additional 45(z) production tax credits for year 2025 if the calculation correctly utilizes the greenhouse reduction model to comply with law.

Collectively, molecule revenues, LCFS credit sales, D3 RIN sales, and the sale of 45(z) production tax credits are expected to generate strong positive cash flow from operations in the fourth quarter of this year and expanding operating cash flow in 2026 as new dairy RNG production comes online, 45(z) calculations are issued by the Department of Energy, and LCFS credit prices continue to rise. At our ethanol plant, our fully financed $30 million mechanical vapor recompression system is completing equipment fabrication and is planned to begin on-site construction in Q4 of this year for completion in Q2 of 2026. We are very pleased with the professionalism and expertise of the team at the NPL subsidiary of Century that is providing construction management and other support for the project. We have been awarded about $20 million in grants and federal Section 48(c) tax credits to fund the MVR system.

The MVR project is expected to reduce natural gas use by 80% and add an estimated $32 million in annual cash flow starting in mid-2026. Ethanol pricing has improved since earlier this year as lower corn prices improved margins. The legislative approval of 15% ethanol blending in California last month is expected to increase demand for ethanol by more than 600 million gallons per year, equal to about 10 of our ethanol plants, which is expected to support pricing and drive demand for more ethanol production nationwide. We had decreased production during the spring of 2025 in order to optimize ethanol margins, but increased ethanol production during Q3 and continued in Q4 to support ethanol demand and to participate in higher margins. In India, we resumed biodiesel deliveries to government oil marketing companies in April of this year, following a six-month pause in OMC purchasing.

We are targeting an IPO of our India subsidiary in early 2026 and recently appointed a new Chief Financial Officer at our India subsidiary to lead the process. We are also actively seeking to expand into biogas and ethanol production in India, which are strongly supported by government policies and pricing. Let’s look at our future projects. For our sustainable aviation fuel and renewable diesel project, we have received the authority to construct air permits and conditional use permit for our 90 million gallon per year SAF renewable diesel facility at the Riverbank site in California. When operated solely for SAF, capacity will be approximately 78 million gallons per year. We are in active discussions on financing structures and are awaiting further clarity on the 45(z) production tax credit and biofuels mandates to support project financing.

For our carbon capture project at our Riverbank site, we have completed initial site work and conductor installation for our geologic characterization well. The data we obtain from the next phase of drilling will support our Class 6 CO2 sequestration permit application. Once permitted, the site is expected to sequester up to 1.4 million tons of CO2 per year. Our Riverbank, California, site near Modesto is a 125-acre former U.S. Army ammunition production facility with 710,000 sq ft of existing buildings, including seven production lines that are more than 600 ft long, 45 ft wide, and about 30 ft tall. A 20-megawatt on-site power substation connected by an on-site high-capacity power line to the 350-megawatt Hech Hetchy hydroelectric power station, an on-site high-capacity natural gas pipeline, and two fiber data links already at the site.

The CO2 sequestration well at the Riverbank site is planned to generate revenues while decreasing the carbon intensity of electricity produced from natural gas, such as fuel cells, which produce a purer form of CO2 compared to gas turbines. Our dairy RNG is also available via a utility pipeline to reduce the carbon intensity of electricity produced from natural gas at the site. In addition to a recent expansion of tenants at the Riverbank site, including a new facility built by a recycling company from England to extract precious metals from electronics, we are currently negotiating agreements to utilize the unique capabilities of the Riverbank site to provide lower emissions, lower cost, and lower carbon intensity power and other infrastructure to users. Let’s review some regulatory events that support a strong growth outlook for Aemetis and the biofuels and biogas industries.

Aemetis is positioned to benefit from a range of federal and state policies that directly enhance the value of its low-carbon biofuel and biogas operations. The California Low Carbon Fuel Standard, amendments adopted by CARB to establish a 20-year framework for reducing transportation fuel emissions, became effective on July 1 of this year. In response, LCFS credit prices rose by more than 25% since this summer and are expected to continue to increase as credit supply tightens and credit demand increases. We expect further strengthening for the foreseeable future to the current LCFS credit price up to the cap of $268 that continues to increase each year. The Federal Renewable Fuel Standard, the sale of renewable natural gas qualifies for D3 RINs, adding about $19 per MMBTU in value at today’s prices. Section 45(z) production tax credits.

Effective January 1, 2025, the new federal Section 45(z) transferable tax credits support low-emission ethanol and RNG production. Aemetis is currently applying Treasury guidance to calculate and market these credits for both our Keyes plant ethanol production and our RNG sales, with additional clarification from the DOE and Treasury expected later this year. In addition to any further clarification in 2025, the Section 45(z) credits will increase in 2026 under the recent One Big Beautiful bill, which removes indirect land use from the ethanol plant calculation and requires dairy-specific carbon intensity scores for RNG. This will more than double the 45(z) credits in 2026 for each business, even with no further changes to the current Treasury guidance. Section 48 investment tax credits. Aemetis received $19 million in cash proceeds in Q1 2025 from the sale of solar and biogas-related ITCs.

We expect additional sales of both investment and production tax credits in Q4 2025 and in Q1 2026 for the balance of 2025 production tax credits, plus additional sales of both PTCs and ITCs for the next four years. E15 ethanol blend expansion. In California, the recent E15 approval of 15% ethanol blend should decrease fuel prices at the pump by $2.7 billion per year when fully adopted, according to a UC Berkeley study, while increasing the ethanol market by more than 600 million gallons per year. The U.S. EPA has approved temporary summary use of 15% ethanol in 49 states, and new legislation is advancing to allow year-round use, including the match in California. E15 approval in all 50 states would expand the potential U.S. ethanol market by more than 6 billion gallons per year from the current 14 billion gallons per year, while lowering fuel prices for consumers.

With legislation passed at the federal and state level, we are now in the slow process of regulatory adoption of these policies, with the 45(z) production tax credit, 15% ethanol blending, and the significantly increased demand for LCFS credits as primary examples of supportive policies that will increase revenues and/or cash flow from operations starting in the fourth quarter of this year. We are very pleased with the progress on our projects, as well as California and federal policies made during year 2025 to date, and believe that Aemetis is positioned for significant growth in revenues and improved cash flow through year-end and throughout 2026. Our India IPO continues to expand the opportunities in India to diversify our business and attract new investors into a large growing market.

Our new projects at the Riverbank site are exciting and, to a large extent, unexpected in their size and potential for a positive financial impact starting in 2026. Now, let’s take some questions from our call participants. Matthew? Thank you, Mr. McAfee. We will now conduct a question-and-answer session. If you’d like to ask a question, please press Star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press Star 2 if you’d like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Your first question is coming from Matthew Blair from TPH. Your line is live. Great. Thanks. Thanks for taking the question. I had two questions on the ethanol segment in the quarter.

The first is, it does look like your corn costs came down quarter over quarter, but they’re a little bit higher than our modeling. Could you talk about any sort of issues with basis? Were there any challenges there? Overall, what kind of ethanol EBITDA did you generate in the third quarter? Second, regarding the opportunities around California E15, it sounds like there’s a lot of upside. I think you mentioned 600 million gallons a year of incremental ethanol demand in the state. This depends on retailers offering E15 instead of E10. Maybe could you talk about whether that’ll actually happen, whether retailers will indeed switch over to E15, and what are the mechanics there? Thank you. Certainly. Thanks, Amet. We appreciate all your work. Ethanol industry, in general, benefited from lower corn costs as corn volumes this year were substantial.

Because of sort of global supply-demand balance, we have excess corn here in the United States. We do have transportation that delivers it to California. Transportation actually gave us a slight benefit during the quarter as well. Lower corn costs and relatively attractive, I should say, rail were benefits. Corn basis did have an effect of offsetting it a bit as corn farmers were reacting to low corn prices, and they held the corn in their bin rather than releasing it in the market. Although the spot prices on NIMEX appeared to give you one number, the actual physicals of prompt delivery had a benefit to farmers as they held back. That is probably where your model was slightly different than the market, as the corn basis moved around quite a bit during the third quarter.

We don’t have a business that’s designed to be the low-cost corn feedstock plant. Because of the demand for ethanol in California, actually, it’s cheaper to move ethanol into California than it is to move corn. We actually see it as a disadvantage of our model that we have higher corn costs and we have higher power costs in California. We also have a decarbonized grid in California. California has a commitment to a zero-carbon intensity grid driven by solar and wind and hydroelectric and nuclear. We have that as a sustainable benefit. We have changed our operational strategy at the ethanol plant to change from petroleum and natural gas feedstock and convert, as we know, with mechanical vapor recompression to almost completely removing using any petroleum and natural gas in our plant.

That decreases our carbon intensity significantly, decreases our cost of energy completely, and takes advantage of the fact we’re physically in a market where low-carbon intensity electricity can offset the higher corn costs of the Midwestern supply chain. We also have completed a $12 million solar project on site, of course, at solar energy, zero CI again. And we have carbon-negative dairy renewable natural gas directly connected to our ethanol plant. I haven’t done a count on this, but us and the one other ethanol producer in California, I think, are among the few dairy RNG projects in the United States that actually can monetize through the 45(z) channel of an ethanol molecule rather than having to fill trucks. So that direct connect to our ethanol plant, which is required, there’s no booking claim in this business.

To be able to calculate for ethanol, is a unique opportunity that we expect to use more in 2026 than we’re currently using. It buffers us from the absolute necessity of having to have trucks to consume our RNG. For a variety of reasons, we think that our plant has distinctive competencies that will be sustainable over a long span of time and will overcome our corn and rail cost disadvantage. We will be talking about this more over the course of the next two quarters as our MVR is adopted and try to provide more clarity about how we believe we will have a sustainable margin advantage over pretty much any other producers in the U.S. Second one is E15 in California. The $0.20 per gallon is just a competitive advantage for anybody who uses E15.

The legislature stepped in to adopt E15 permanently October 2nd when it was signed by the governor. That is because California prices are completely out of control. 17% of oil refining capacity for gasoline will be going offline in the next 12 months. Market demand is increasing. Certainly, it is not decreasing as people had projected as electric vehicles would be adopted. The cancellation of the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles has reduced electric vehicle sales by 50% in the last month, according to national statistics. California is going to require a lot of gasoline for a long time. Ethanol is really the only way to reduce the cost of the gasoline. All the other factors are increasing the cost of gasoline. We anticipate that retailers will start largely with independent retailers and the truck stops, the travel stops.

National chains who are already structured with their infrastructure to be able to get this increased margin by rapid adoption of E15. We think the competitive environment will cause pretty much every retailer to adopt E15 as rapidly as they can. Otherwise, the guys across the street or down the street will be getting their customers from them with a $0.20 cost advantage. Great. Thanks for your comments. Thanks, Amet. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Derek Whitefield from Texas Capital. Your line is live. Good morning, Eric, and thanks for your time. Hello, Derek. For my first question, I wanted to start with a top-down look at your business. As you think about the impact, the inflection, and the credit markets will have on your U.S. RNG and ethanol business.

The IPO of your India biofuels business, could you paint the picture for your EBITDA profile net to Aemetis in 2026. How this could lead to improved access to lower-cost capital and allow you to pay off some of your Third Eye Capital credit facilities and notes? Yeah, that’s a very good top-down because you actually hit what I believe will be the biggest business opportunity that we’re pursuing right now. We are in the middle of a refinance of our most expensive debt. Third Eye Capital has some very inexpensive debt, about $118 million at an effective interest rate of about 5.1%. We also have a chunk of debt with them that is pretty expensive. We are in the process of negotiating the refinance of that expensive debt, supported by the 45(z) production tax credit revenue, which we’ve been generating since January.

It hasn’t shown up in our financial projections yet. As we monetize this into cash, the favorable impact of that over the next four years is resulting in our ability to refinance our most expensive debt. I do not anticipate that’s going to close this quarter. I think it’s a first-half 2026 event as lenders get comfortable with the ongoing nature of our 45(z) sales. We do anticipate we’ll be doing 45(z) sales on a quarterly basis. We have multiple buyers that want to sign up with multi-year offtakes for our 45(z) production tax credits. We have existing buyers of our investment tax credits that have already told us they want to buy all of our 2026 ITCs and for the foreseeable future. That particular buyer has capacity to take whatever we need to offtake to them.

I think the investment community, as well as the lender community, will see this ongoing quarterly flow of 45(z) production tax credits for both biogas as well as ethanol and a steady drumbeat of ITC sales that are in federal law now and can continue on for the next four years at least. Personally, having been in Washington, DC a lot, I think we’ve got 2031 to 2035. We have up to a nine-year span of this 45(z) activity continuing on. I’m anticipating to see a refinance of that expensive debt as the fundamental quarterly profitability of the company becomes much more clear. Terrific. As my follow-up, Eric, I just wanted to touch on the government shutdown and get your thoughts on expectations just around when we’ll get final RVO and 45(z) policy. I also ask if you think the administration.

Is receptive to increasing the D3, D7 RVO given the strength of recent RIN generation reports. Let’s talk RVO for a second. RVO is a fight between the oil industry and the ethanol industry. With independent oil refiners being very successful in their strategies of walking away from RVO obligations. Just last week, CVR run by Carl Icahn was able to benefit to a tune of $488 million of avoidance of buying the obligated party RINs that they were obligated to buy. Their strategy historically has been, just do not buy them, then complain to the government or declare bankruptcy or do whatever you are going to do to avoid them. They have been very successful with that strategy. Carl Icahn just received another half a billion dollars from the biofuels industry from that kind of behavior.

Now, in my view, the large integrated oil refiners, certainly Valero’s at the top of that list, are on both sides of the equation. They’re suffering when the D4 or D5 doesn’t reflect the actual market value because they operate the largest renewable diesel assets in the U.S. P66, Marathon, Valero, and even put Montana Refining on that list, are traditional refiners that have migrated into renewable diesel and have interests that are very substantial in the success of the renewable diesel business. I think the Trump administration has a problem. That problem is that the political cost of ignoring farmers hits about 28 states where the U.S. senators and congressmen literally have to have the corn and soybean vote. You don’t get a corn and soybean vote when you are supporting oil refiners and thrashing the renewable volume obligation with waivers.

I hate to tell you, but I cannot really handicap this one well. I’ve spent over a dozen trips to Washington, DC. There’s very strong support for the RVO among the 28 ag states and the 56 senators from those states. I think what we’re seeing here, unfortunately, is there are other issues that are more important to the administration, both domestic and foreign issues that they’ve been spending time thinking about. The events of yesterday or the day before yesterday, the Democratic wins across the slate are going to bring back into clarity the need for the votes of Midwestern corn and soybean states. I think that.

I hate to say it this way, but the Democratic sweep, including Proposition 50 in California, is a wake-up call for Republicans to pay attention to domestic policy, including energy prices, which kind of drove a couple of governors into their seats by declaring war on utility prices. I think the RVO will suddenly become a much more interesting topic because of the Democratic votes that happened this week. It’s strange, but it’s all politics. That had a real wake-up call. I hope that the senators we talk to directly will be more effective now with the White House. Regarding 45(z), the Department of Energy has been focused on the January 1, 2026 adoption of the One Big Beautiful Bill. There’s been no.

Real appetite to take up 2025, except for the fact that the industry is making a tremendous amount of noise about the need for 2025 calculations to be completed. We have really until September 15th of 2026 to get that done. Continue to be very organized as an industry to have the political and regulatory support so the DOE finally gets around to doing what they should have done in January 2025. The new leadership at the DOE is still not in place. Audrey Robertson, the head of EERE, still isn’t in her job. The response we get from many regulatory agencies is that the person who’s in charge of making decisions is still pending Senate approval. We should all just be patient and understand that politics takes time.

We’re sitting here in November with something that should have been adopted in January under a previous administration. I do think it will get figured out. I do think that there’s a range of outcomes, some of which I’m pleased with and many of which I’m not. We, as an industry, are united to getting the Argonne 45(z) CI GREET model to reflect the Argonne overall GREET model and not be manipulated, which is what had happened in January with the artificially inserted negative 51. I have a lot of confidence that the industry is united on the 45(z) topic. Our company has a tremendous, I mean, tens of millions of dollars of additional tax credits in year 2025 that are waiting for this calculation to come out. There will be some upside.

I just don’t know whether it’s going to impact 2025 or we’re going to have to wait until January 2026 to start seeing the actual new calculation. Eric, just maybe to follow up on one point of the question, just on the D3, D7 RVO. Do you think there’s an appetite to increase that just given the strength of recent RIN generation reports, which would suggest the market’s slightly oversupplied? The market’s clearly oversupplied. There is a broad need to answer the soybean farmers’ need to sell soybean oil. And the corn farmers’ need to sell corn oil. Right now, I think that’s. The only real solution to that is to increase biofuels markets, both ethanol, which takes corn starch, as well as renewable diesel, and even potentially SAF. There’s a movement afoot to go back to the $1.75 under a new tax bill. For SAF.

I think the pendulum swung against the corn farmer and soybean farmer during the middle of 2025. There has not been enough of a reaction by the federal government. Direct subsidies are one reaction. Another reaction is simply creating new markets. A domestic market of biofuels for D4s and D5s, which are largely renewable diesel and SAF, as well as D6s, which is ethanol, are clear needs. What I personally am focusing on is a D3. The D3 cannot be replaced by any one of the other molecules. You end up with a cellulosic waiver credit. It is really the only solution to over-mandating D3s.

The message I would like the industry to communicate is that the RVO should start with a very strong D3 so that you do not have an overflow of D3s into D4s and then D4s into D5s and D5s into D6s because that is the weakness of the RVO. If you do not start with a strong D3, essentially overshooting what dairy RNG producers are going to achieve, then whatever you mandate for D4 and D5 are going to get reduced. That is going to be upsetting to a lot of soybean farmers. D6 is upsetting to a lot of corn farmers. It is a very simple solution to a very large problem, which is how do you take care of 160 million acres of U.S. farmland that produces only two crops, corn and soybean?

That is increase the biofuels market demand by having a stronger RVO starting with the D3 RIN. This is a message we’ve been taking as an industry. I serve on the Board of the Renewable Fuels Association representing the corn, the ethanol industry, but also the RNG Coalition representing the dairy RNG and other RNG producers. I think the biofuels industry has done an excellent job of making the case. The administration’s attention has been elsewhere. They’ve solved some very big issues in the Middle East and elsewhere. Now I think they’re going to have to snap their head back to paying attention to domestic industry. This is a big one. The RVO strengthening is a really big opportunity they have to help 160 million acres in 28 states. Understood. Appreciate your time, Eric. I’ll turn it back to the operator.

Thank you, Derek. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Amet Dial from HC Wainwright. Your line is live. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Eric, I think there were expectations that some of these 45(z) 48 tax credits would be monetized in third quarter. Was there any push-out? Going forward, I know you are trying to make this a bit more consistent in the future, but what are the sort of steps that are being taken to make that come to fruition? There are the actual physical things that happen in the third quarter that caused this delay in the fourth quarter. Specifically, the expansion of production capacity by about 30% happened in the middle of September. We literally had 11 days to sell ITCs if we were going to do it in the second quarter.

Because you have to do a cost segregation and insurance policy and a bunch of other things, that’s just really not possible. It was the completion of the project and the in-service date that drove the ITCs to the fourth quarter. On 45(z)s, it’s much easier for us to sell larger volumes. If the DOE calculation would come out and it was the right number, we’d have almost $40 million of 45(z) to sell for 2025. Selling a part and then later selling more has some technical complications to it. It’s not impossible, but it’s just difficult, and it’s a pain in the rear. We’ve been trying to sell the correct number the first time rather than go back and doing it twice, and that has caused us to be reluctant to sell the smaller numbers.

I mentioned $10 million of 45(z) with a sale in the fourth quarter. It should be $40 million for the year. It’s unfortunate, but that’s where we are. The government shutdown, I think, was the final nail in the coffin that caused us to conclude that we should just go forward. When we get more tax credits later for 2025, we’ll just sell them later. It’s disappointing, but that’s what’s happening in the world, and that’s what we’re going to do. Understood. Thank you for that, Collar. With respect to the India IPO, I mean, it looks like you are close enough now. First quarter 2026 is not too far. Any high-level sort of indications for maybe investors in terms of what you think the valuation range could be for that business and how much you are looking to sort of.

Retain and how much you might offload? I’ll answer the second question first. We’re looking to sell between 20% and 25% of the subsidiaries. So we retain ownership of more than 75%. We still be consolidated revenues and costs consoled and everything else into our financial statements. And just show a minority interest in other income as we declare what our earnings are. The valuation, which will drive how much capital we can raise, is a wide gap because we’re expanding our footprint in India pretty significantly. Over the course of the next quarter, we expect to be finalizing what the valuation looks like. Certainly, by the end of the first quarter, we’re looking to have a number that we could report that we’re pretty settled in on. As of right now, it’s a fairly wide band. Anywhere from $100 million-$200 million would be.

The range we’re looking for. If I can expand it to $300 million, I can assure you that we have a business opportunity that would justify that kind of support for the company. We are going to push for that as much as possible. If we can sell 20%-25% of the company for $300 million, we absolutely will. The business expansion we have in India, I think, supports that kind of valuation. We are just looking to see whether the market is in agreement with us about the exciting growth opportunities we have in India. Understood. Thank you for that. This last one, this $266 million in debt is showing as current. A little bit of an overhang on the stock, it feels like. I know you are working on it, but is there maybe an update on the timeline by when you think this could.

Get negotiated and done? The refinancing is in process. The 45(z) revenues is what’s really delayed that process. We’re looking for 45(z) to be a quarterly, predictable drumbeat of after-tax cash and income to the company that will go on for the next four years and probably for the next seven or eight years because of the way these things get extended. That was supposed to start in January. It’s supposed to have started January of 2025. As we all have learned, the Treasury, upon departing with the prior administration, threw out an artificial number of negative 51 carbon intensity. Our California carbon intensity is negative 384. The current calculation does not allow us to generate about 90% of the revenue from 45(z). That has delayed our refinancing. Let’s call it completion, as we’ve had to say to the lenders, "Okay, guys, it’s in process.

This is what the law says, but we do not have the calculation yet. We have legislation, we have regulation. We do not have the DOE calculation. When we drop in the DOE calculation, I think, since we have good solid offtakes for 45(z) as well as ITCs, I think our business becomes much more understandable and predictable as we start showing those revenues on a quarterly basis. That drives the refinancing. Understood. That is all I have, Eric. Thank you so much. Thank you, Amet. Appreciate it. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Dan Storms from Stonegate. Your line is live. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Just wanted to start. Morning. Wanted to start with the dairy digesters. Right now, it looks like you sold about 114,000 MMBTUs in the quarter.

On an annualized run rate basis, that’s a little shy of the 550,000 goal you have set for the end of the year. I guess my question is, what will it take to get the run rate up to that number? I know there’s typical seasonality as the winter slows that down. Is there anything else we should be keeping in mind here? The 30% production capacity increase that I discussed happened 11 days from the end of the third quarter. So it did not have a significant impact on the 90 days of the third quarter. And so that’s a primary driver of what we’re doing here in the fourth quarter to exit with a higher capacity. We also have multiple digesters under construction right now.

It is an overlapping process where we are building additional digesters at the same time as we are completing the in-service dates for existing digesters. Understood. That is very helpful. Thank you. Turning to the India plant, you mentioned now that you are hoping to bring online biogas and ethanol production there. I guess, what are the logistics to getting that up and running and any timelines we should have in our mind? Yeah, there are two things in India. Number one is we have an 80 million gallon plant that is fully operational and fully maintained, ready to do 80 million gallons a year. The oil marketing company tender process continues along. We have a tender in process right now that is publicly available to everybody. We should be able to announce our allocation from that as quickly as in the next week, and that would be for the next four months.

We expect, however, that there’s some policy enforcement by the India government that is being brought to fruition. There’s a, just a piece of litigation at the Supreme Court that this month the government is having to justify where they haven’t adopted a penalty for diesel gallons that do not have biodiesel. This was a penalty that was passed in legislation a couple of years ago, but they’ve been postponing it several times and have not quite adopted it yet. That litigation is for the enforcement of that penalty. Virtually every gallon of diesel in the country will have biodiesel in it if the Supreme Court determines that the enforcement of that legislation is going to have to start. There’s also some contracts that were issued to us for $58 million.

It had about an $18 million profit in it that the oil marketing companies, because a tariff was changed by the government, determined they would not perform under those contracts. It is a contract breach by the oil marketing companies. That is a part of that legislation. We are targeting a resolution of the government’s position and maybe some strengthening in the tenders, as well as perhaps a resolution in this contract allocation that we received. If we can get one or both of those, that is going to be very strongly positive for our biodiesel business and really timed well for the IPO. Our diversification into the other businesses will include at least one acquisition of an operating facility. For a variety of reasons, we are extremely well positioned there.

We’ll see some transactions happening either prior to or at the time of the IPO, driving us into these new lines of business. We have a very talented management team and an extremely talented CEO and extremely talented CFO. Looking forward to that team continuing to build an exciting business in India that, by the way, is diversifying. It’s going to have lines of business that might be differentiated from the parent company because they’re responding to the needs in the India market, which is an expanding market all by itself. That’s great. Thank you for the call, Eric. Good luck on Q4. Thank you, Dan. Appreciate it. Thank you. Your next question is coming from Ed Wu from Ascendient Capital. Your line is live. Yeah, thank you for taking my questions. Congratulations on all the progress.

Also on the India IPO as it’s progressing and for a possible IPO in next year, have you given further thought of what you’re going to do with the proceeds, either take it back to the US and use that as part of your refinancing plan, or will it be stayed in India to develop these new business lines that you are talking about? A portion of the IPO proceeds are definitely planned to be utilized in the US. If we have not completed the US refinancing, I can assure you it will be a part of that. The process we have currently is a refinancing without India IPO funds included. It just makes it easier, of course, if the amount we’re refinancing is smaller.

We are anticipating that the India IPO would also provide substantial growth funding in India, essentially fully funding a very strong revenue increase. Because of our intention of having 75% or more ownership by the parent company, all those revenues would drive top-level growth in the United States. We expect the refinancing as well as top-level and bottom-line growth to come from the India IPO. That sounds good. Just a clarification again, India does not have any debt right now, right? That is correct. Yeah. Other than what it buys inventory for us, it has to pay for the inventory. Great. Thank you. I wish you guys good luck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to management for closing remarks.

Thank you to Aemetis stockholders, stock 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. Please visit the investor section of the Aemetis website where we’ll post a written version and an audio version of this Aemetis earnings review and business update. Matthew? This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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