Montauk Renewables believes there is rising demand for renewable natural gas (RNG), which attributable to growing public support for non-fossil energy sources and United States’ government support enhanced energy independence as well as environmental concerns that are underpinning demand for natural gas-powered vehicles.
The company also sees rising job creation in RNG sector on the back of increasing investment in the renewable energy sector.
Montauk Renewables, which rose 1.19% in afternoon trade on the JSE yesterday to R94 per share, has cited regulatory and policy initiatives such as the national-level low-carbon fuel program in California and Oregon as driving demand for RNG.
“As we commonly use modular equipment; our RNG processing equipment is more efficient than its fossil-fuel counterparts,” explained the company yesterday.
“The RNG we create is pipeline quality and can be used for transportation fuel when converted to CNG commonly used by medium-duty fleets that are close to fuelling stations, such as city fleets, local delivery trucks and waste haulers.”
Montauk Renewables operates as a renewable energy company focusing on the recovery and processing of biogas from landfills and other non-fossil fuel sources for use as a replacement to fossil fuels.
The company develops and operates its own RNG projects and for renewable energy supply to the transportation industry in the US. It also uses the RNG it produces to manufacture renewable electricity.
In the third quarter period to the end of September, Montauk Renewables raised renewable identification numbers that indicate its recovery and conversion of biogas into renewable natural gas by 14.5%, with revenues for the period amounting to $65.9 million (R1.2 billion) and net income rising to $17m.
The company has now projected 2024 full year revenues to be between $175m and $185m as RNG output is projected to range from 5.5 to 5.7 million thermal units.
However, Montauk is anticipating delays in installation of wellfield collection infrastructure installations as likely to have an impact on volumes.
It said that during the period under review it had derived 100% of its renewable electricity generation segment revenues from the monetization of Renewable Electricity at fixed prices associated with underlying power purchase agreements.
Last month, Montauk announced a collaboration with Emvolon aimed at transforming methane emissions from waste stream biogas into high-value carbon negative fuel.
“Leveraging Emvolon’s patented technology, the initial pilot is a small-scale demonstration of recovering and converting biogas into green methanol. We expect the pilot to take place at our Atascocita facility in Houston, Texas,” is said.
The pilot project had been designed to “provide proof of concept to eventually move to a commercial facility capable of producing up to 15 thousand gallons of green methanol per year and may eventually lead to a full-scale, commercial system capable of producing up to 2 400 gallons of methanol” annually.
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