Share count
29Mpeak FY2025
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OPAL, OPAL Fuels Inc.
OPAL Fuels Inc. is a vertically integrated leader in the capture and conversion of biogas into low carbon intensity renewable natural gas and Renewable Power.
OPAL Fuels is also a leader in the marketing and distribution of RNG to heavy duty trucking and other hard to de-carbonize industrial sectors.
Partially treated biogas can be used directly in heating applications (as a form of medium-Btu fuel) or in the production of Renewable Power.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$327M
+12.3% YoY · 19% 4-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $311M 5-yr avg $252M
Revenue $73M −14.1% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin −6.6% yr-ago −2.3%
Net income ($6M) yr-ago $1M
Net margin −7.6% yr-ago 1.5%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What it is
- Revenue is Fuel Station services (66%), RNG Fuel (31%) and Renewable Power (10%).
- Situation
- Regulated utility. Returns are set by regulation on an approved rate base; the capital spending regulators approve becomes the growth, recovered through allowed rates. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run about 3.3% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from 2.3% to 7.3% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Capital spending runs about 45% of sales, well above depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on rate base and the allowed return. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Fuel Station services is 66% of revenue, with RNG Fuel the other meaningful segment at 31%.
Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025
- Fuel Station services66%$215M
- RNG Fuel31%$102M
- Renewable Power10%$33M
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2021–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||
| $162M | $231M | $251M | $291M | $327M | $311M | RevenueRevenue |
| 18% | 22% | 20% | 18% | 20% | 20% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| — | 3% | 2% | 7% | 5% | 3% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| $11M | $8M | $7M | $21M | $7M | $5M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 6.8% | 3.3% | 2.8% | 7.3% | 2.3% | 1.5% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| ($16M) | $3M | $19M | $561K | $4M | $2M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||||
| $19M | ($1M) | $38M | $31M | $36M | $20M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $11M | $13M | $15M | $18M | $22M | $22M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $24M | ($19M) | ($1M) | $6M | $3M | ($11M) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $90M | $131M | $114M | $127M | $71M | $84M | CapexCapex |
| 55.3% | 57.0% | 45.3% | 43.7% | 21.7% | 26.8% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $8M | ($14M) | $24M | $14M | $14M | ($2M) | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 5.1% | −6.3% | 9.4% | 4.6% | 4.3% | −0.8% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($71M) | ($133M) | ($76M) | ($96M) | ($34M) | ($64M) | Free cash flowFCF |
| −43.7% | −57.6% | −30.1% | −33.0% | −10.5% | −20.5% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| Balance sheet | ||||||
| $39M | $105M | $48M | $24M | $24M | $133M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $25M | $31M | $28M | $47M | $62M | $43M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $25M | $31M | $28M | $47M | $62M | $45M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $87M | $212M | $128M | $117M | $123M | $213M | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $142M | $153M | $74M | $104M | $104M | $97M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 0.6× | 1.4× | 1.7× | 1.1× | 1.2× | 2.2× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $55M | $55M | $55M | $55M | $55M | $55M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $381M | $645M | $755M | $881M | $959M | $1.1B | Total assetsAssets |
| $134M | $88M | $197M | $285M | $361M | $457M | Total debtDebt |
| $95M | ($17M) | $148M | $261M | $337M | $323M | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 1.5× | 1.1× | — | 1.0× | 0.3× | 0.2× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $14K | ($801M) | ($479M) | ($148M) | ($13M) | $8M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 0.4% | 0.6% | 2.4% | 2.2% | 2.0% | 2.2% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | ||||||
| 0K | 26.1M | 27.5M | 27.7M | 29.3M | 28.3M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| — | $8.85 | $9.13 | $10.50 | $11.17 | $11.00 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| — | $0.13 | $0.69 | $0.02 | $0.15 | $0.07 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| — | $-0.56 | $0.86 | $0.49 | $0.48 | $-0.09 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| — | $-5.09 | $-2.75 | $-3.46 | $-1.17 | $-2.25 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| — | $5.04 | $4.14 | $4.59 | $2.42 | $2.95 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| — | $-30.72 | $-17.41 | $-5.36 | $-0.44 | $0.29 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 4-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +8.1%/yr (3-yr) | +8.1%/yr (3-yr) |
| EPS | +4.0%/yr (3-yr) | +4.0%/yr (3-yr) |
| Capital spending / share | −21.7%/yr (3-yr) | −21.7%/yr (3-yr) |
The record, charted
FY2021–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
24.0×peak FY2025
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$14Mowner earningsvs.$4Mnet incomelow FY2022
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
FY2021FY2025
Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.
In fiscal 2025 the business earned $14M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $22M it takes just to hold its position. It put $48M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($34M).
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $4M | $561K | $19M | $3M | ($16M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$22M | +$18M | +$15M | +$13M | +$11M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$6M | +$6M | +$6M | +$1M | +$639K |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$3M | +$6M | −$1M | −$19M | +$24M |
| Cash from operations | $36M | $31M | $38M | ($1M) | $19M |
| Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume | −$22M | −$18M | −$15M | −$13M | −$11M |
| Owner earnings | $14M | $14M | $24M | ($14M) | $8M |
| Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still | −$48M | −$109M | −$99M | −$118M | −$79M |
| Free cash flow | ($34M) | ($96M) | ($76M) | ($133M) | ($71M) |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 4% | 5% | 9% | -6% | 5% |
Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $22M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $48M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $6M), owner earnings is nearer $8M.
Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- Does not cover its interestOperating income $7M ÷ interest expense $28M
What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
- How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $337M · 45.4× operating profitHeavy net debtCash $24M − debt $361M
What this means
Netting $24M of cash and short-term investments against $361M of debt leaves $337M owed, about 45.4× a year's operating profit (48.7× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 4%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Thin, recently turned positivelatest $14M = operating cash $36M − maintenance capex $22M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (5-yr median 5%)Industry peers: median 7%
What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 4% of revenue this year, a 5% median across 5 years. It chose to put $48M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was ($34M) — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $6M of SBC) leaves $8M.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $36M ÷ net income $4M
What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.
How is the cash used?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? 3.15×ExpandingCapex $71M ÷ depreciation $22M
What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.
Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 5 met
Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.
- Adequate size MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $327M
What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
- Strong liquidity MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.18×
What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
- Conservative debt MissDebt ≤ working capital · $361M vs $18M WC
What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
- Earnings stability NearA profit every year (5-yr record) · 1 loss year
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted dividends · none paid
What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
- Moderate price —P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $0.28/share (latest year $0.15), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-0.46/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Durability & moat, 2021–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 4 of 5
What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 3 yrs
What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
- Operating margin 5% → 5% (2-yr avg ends)
In the filing’s words The margin has held, but the filing names price competition — the pressure is present even where the margin has absorbed it so far.
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 5% early, 5% lately, median 3%.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
- Worst year 2025 · 2.3% op. margin
What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Current Position
as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.
Current assets$213M
- Cash & short-term investments$133M
- Receivables$43M
- Inventory$2M
- Other current assets$35M
Current liabilities$97M
- Accounts payable$69K
- Other current liabilities$97M
Current ratio2.20×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.18×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.37×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$116Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−14.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.3× → 2.2×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($48M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($335M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$470M$13M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$5Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
How the cash was used, 2021–2025
Over the record, the business generated $124M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.
- Reinvested$533M · 431%
- Source of funding−$409M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $409M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $134M to $457M.
- Net change in share count8.6%
The diluted count rose from 26M to 28M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
- Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.
- Return on what it retained103%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($11M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $11M, so each retained $1 added about 1.03 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.
- Insider ownership16.5%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$6M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue, equal to 88% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Inverting the record
Invert: instead of why OPAL Fuels Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2021–2025.
1 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.
- Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?8.6%
Diluted shares grew 8.6% over 2021–2025. Owners were diluted on net; each share owns less of the business than it did. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
And these came back clean
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- Did debt outgrow the business?
- Did reported profit become cash?
- Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
- Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?
Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Revenue recognition as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Gas Utilities
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ALEALLETE | $1.5B | 90% | 12.6% | 4% | 11% |
| SMCSummit Midstream Corporation | $562M | 73% | 12.9% | 4% | 8% |
| UTLUNITIL Corporation | $536M | — | 16.9% | 7% | -7% |
| GNEGenie Energy Ltd. | $502M | 33% | 5.8% | 29% | 7% |
| HNRGHallador Energy Company | $469M | 24% | 2.1% | 2% | 3% |
| CLNEClean Energy Fuels Corp. | $425M | 49% | -10.5% | -4% | 5% |
| OPALOPAL Fuels Inc. | $327M | — | 3.3% | — | 5% |
| MSEXMiddlesex Water | $195M | — | 27.3% | 6% | 21% |
| Group median | — | — | 9.2% | — | 6% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what OPAL Fuels Inc. has delivered.
OPAL Fuels Inc.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.
$
Through the cycle, OPAL Fuels Inc. earns about $15M on its 4.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 4.3% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
Base
—
The assumptions
9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth, delivered—
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2023−23%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—
P/B—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.
Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.
Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.
Owner-earnings yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Free cash flow ($64M) on 28M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net debt $323M. The base opens on the steady-state figure (the latest year is negative on total capex mid-build-out); clear Steady-state to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($84M) runs well above depreciation ($22M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about ($3M), the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "OPAL Fuels Inc. (OPAL), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/OPAL, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← OOMA its page in the Manual OPCH →
Industry order: ← OGS the Gas Utilities chapter SR →