Clean Energy & T. Boone Pickens Ride the Roller Coaster (CLNE)

Energy stocks rose along with the market in its 500+ point rally yesterday, and Clean Energy Fuels (NASDAQ: CLNE) did its part.  It actually had a massive beta yesterday as its shares soared nearly 25% to close at $5.65. Then Clean Energy reported third quarter numbers, and moved up another nickel after hours, and look up about 7% pre-market.

So, what was the good news? Analysts had expected an EPS loss of $0.17on revenues of $34.41 million. Clean Energy reported an EPS loss of$0.24 (-$10.6 million) on revenues of $35.3 million. The company had warnedon October 30th that it expected an EPS loss in the range of -$0.23 to-$0.26. Clean Energy recorded a $6 million loss on futures contractsrelated to an expected winning bid on a project that it ultimately lost.

Production of compressed natural gas and liquid natural gas wasslightly better sequentially, but down 1.3 million gallons comparedwith the same period a year ago. Adjusted gross margin per gallon roseto $0.55 from $0.48 sequentially. The company had nothing to say in itspress release regarding future guidance.

T. Boone Pickens is the founder and a major stockholder in CleanEnergy. He made no real comments yesterday either. Perhaps he is stilllicking his wounds for the failure in California of Proposition 10,which Clean Energy had funded to the tune of about $19 million.

Paul Ausick
November 14, 2008