General Electric Co. (NYSE: GE) and Clean Energy Fuels Corp. (NASDAQ: CLNE) have announced a collaboration to expand the infrastructure for natural gas transportation. As it turns out, the agreement was signed on November 7 as part of a credit agreement for Clean Energy to borrow up to $200 million to finance the development, construction and operation of two liquefied natural gas production facilities with an expected production capacity of approximately 250,000 LNG gallons per day at each facility.

The pact supports Clean Energy’s push toward the natural gas highway coast to coast and border to border. The current pricing claim is that truck fleets can often reduce their fuel costs by more than 25% and generate lower emissions with LNG.

Clean Energy Fuels initially will purchase two ecomagination-qualified MicroLNG plants from GE Oil & Gas. The plug-and-play modular units will support fueling stations along critical transportation corridors that run across the United States. Today’s press release confirmed that GE Energy Financial Services is providing up to $200 million in financing for the two GE MicroLNG plants.

GE Chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt said, “GE is proud to be partnering with Clean Energy Fuels to develop natural gas infrastructure in the U.S. Clean Energy is an industry leader in pioneering a new way for America to fuel its vehicles and to further gain energy independence.”

Clean Energy Fuels is the LNG trucking effort tied to T. Boone Pickens and has been an ongoing part of The Pickens Plan for American independence on energy. Clean Energy now expects to complete approximately 70 LNG stations by the end of 2012. It further said that during 2013 it is expected that four major manufacturers will introduce the Cummins Westport 12-liter LNG engine as the optimum size for long-haul Class 8 trucks.

Shares of Clean Energy Fuels are up by 5% at $11.62 against a 52-week range of $10.90 to $24.75. Its market cap as of the close Monday was only $961 million. This stock was down close to 8% since the presidential election.

JON C. OGG

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