Archaea expands commercial partnership with Énegir

Archaea Energy Inc., a renewable natural gas company based in Houston, has announced it is expanding its commercial partnership with Énegir L.P. by entering into a new long-term RNG purchase and sale agreement. This is the second long-term commercial agreement between Archaea and Énegir, the largest natural gas distribution company in Quebec.

Under the agreement, which is subject to regulatory approval by the Quebec Energy Board, Énergir expects to purchase approximately 2.04 million MMBtu of RNG generated by Archaea annually from its portfolio of RNG production facilities for a fixed fee for a period of 20 years. The agreement is expected to commence in October 2023.

The RNG produced by Archaea for this expanded long-term partnership is expected to be a key contributor toward Énergir’s interim target of delivering 2 percent of its total annual natural gas volumes using RNG by 2023, with a longer-term target of 5 percent by 2025.

“We are excited to extend and expand our multi-decade partnership with Énergir as a result of this second long-term agreement,” says Brian McCarthy, Archaea’s co-founder, chief investment officer and interim chief financial officer. “The team at Énergir has been tremendous to work with, and from the top down the organization is focused on executing its mission of decarbonization. We continue to see natural gas utilities, such as Énergir, as first-movers in the voluntary RNG market who are looking to RNG as a primary method of decarbonization in response to regulatory and existential mandates.”

He adds, “We are proud to be one of the few RNG producers capable of offering tailored long-term, fixed-price agreements that can scale with the growing demands of our customers, thereby giving our RNG can a growing impact as a sustainable, multi-decade decarbonization solution.”

According to McCarthy, this growth will be enabled by Archaea’s “extensive, high-quality RNG development backlog,” including projects related to the company’s Lightning Renewables joint venture with Republic Services and the acquisition of Ingenco, which successfully closed in July 2022.

“We are thrilled to pursue our relationship with Archaea, a proven RNG producer with an innovative-driven approach,” says Renault-François Lortie, vice president of customers and gas supply at Énergir. “If this agreement is approved by our regulatory authority, it will represent an important addition to our RNG supplies target. It will inevitably strengthen the development of the RNG industry in Quebec, as it will allow a greater number of customers who are concerned about reducing their carbon footprint to benefit from renewable energy at a competitive cost.”

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