Aemetis completes $30 million biomethane equity investment

Advanced renewable fuels and biochemicals company, Aemetis has announced that its subsidiary, Aemetis Biogas, has closed a $30 million (€26 million) equity investment without any dilutive stock insurances by Aemetis.

The investment is for a project that will allow Aemetis Biogas to build, own and operate dairy biomethane digesters, pipelines and gas clean-up and compression facilities primarily under 20 year agreements with dairy farms in California.  

Aemetis state that dairies produce around 25% of California’s methane emissions and have also become targets of carbon regulations aimed to reduce climate change. The California Low Carbon Fuel Standard has made dairy biomethane highly valuable.

The company’s new project will connect about a dozen dairies to Aemetis’ ethanol plant in Keyes, California, and will later expand to add a further three dozen local dairies. The plant already supplies Wet Distillers Grain feed to about 100 dairies.

Chairman and CEO of Aemetis, Eric McAfee said, “Dairy biogas is a below zero carbon biofuel that is a new source of revenue for dairies, which do not currently have a way to monetize their biomethane as a transportation fuel without the necessary pipeline and gas cleanup/compression infrastructure, as well as a costumer that can use biogas to produce low carbon biofuels.”

He added, “Our 60 million gallon ethanol plant is capable of using biogas to replace petroleum natural gas, to produce a lower carbon biofuel and generate additional Low Carbon Fuel Standard credits.”