Clean Energy Fuels completes renewable natural gas facility in Texas

Clean Energy Fuels Corp.'s newest renewable natural gas facility at the South Fork Dairy LLC farm near Dimmitt, Texas, is operational and injecting RNG into the interstate natural gas pipeline system.

South Fork Dairy is one of the largest RNG production plants in the US. It houses 17,500 dairy cows and can produce approximately 2.6 million gallons of low-carbon RNG annually, Clean Energy said in a Dec. 1 news release. The facility processes up to 300,000 gallons of dairy manure per day to produce RNG, a fuel that has carbon reduction benefits because it is made from methane that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere.

The project, financed by Clean Energy, broke ground in July 2024 and cost $85 million. Clean Energy will acquire all of the RNG produced at the facility.

"The requirements to reach production and injecting milestones were extremely stringent, and we are incredibly proud of the team for getting our seventh RNG facility online, on time and on budget," Clay Corbus, a Clean Energy senior vice president, said in the release.

The South Fork Dairy facility is approved to generate low-carbon fuel credits for sale in the federal Renewable Fuel Standard program. Clean Energy expects the facility to generate credits for sale in California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard program in the first quarter of 2026.

Clean Energy continues to expand its fueling network, which delivers RNG to over 600 stations in the US and Canada. The company broke ground on three RNG production facilities in September under an agreement with Maas Energy Works Inc. that are expected to produce 3 million gallons of RNG annually.

A facility at the Marshall Ridge Dairy in State Center, Iowa, that will produce 1.7 million gallons of RNG per year started operations in the first quarter of 2024.

Natural gas utilities across the US have pursued RNG connections to supplement their gas supplies as a way to lower their emissions profiles.