Commitments and Contingencies

Environmental Matters

The Company is subject to federal, state, local and foreign environmental laws and regulations. The Company does not anticipate any expenditures to comply with such laws and regulations that would have a material impact on the Company’s consolidated financial position, results of operations or liquidity. The Company believes that its operations comply, in all material respects, with applicable federal, state, local and foreign environmental laws and regulations.

Litigation, Claims and Contingencies

The Company may become party to various legal actions that arise in the ordinary course of its business. The Company is also subject to audit by tax and other authorities for varying periods in various federal, state, local and foreign jurisdictions, and disputes may arise during the course of these audits. It is impossible to determine the ultimate liabilities that the Company may incur resulting from any of these lawsuits, claims, proceedings, audits, commitments, contingencies and related matters or the timing of these liabilities, if any. If these matters were to ultimately be resolved unfavorably, it is possible that such an outcome could have a material adverse effect upon the Company’s consolidated financial position, results of operations, or liquidity. The Company does not, however, anticipate such an outcome and it believes the ultimate resolution of these matters will not have a material adverse effect on the Company’s consolidated financial position, results of operations, or liquidity.

Operating Lease Commitments

The Company leases facilities, including the land for its LNG production plant in Boron, California and certain equipment under noncancelable operating leases expiring at various dates through 2038. If a lease has a fixed and determinable escalation clause, or periods of rent holidays, the difference between rental expense and rent paid is included in “Accrued liabilities” and “Other long-term liabilities” in the accompanying consolidated balance sheets.

The following schedule represents the Company’s future minimum lease obligations under all noncancelable operating leases as of December 31, 2018:



Fiscal year:
2019	$	6,340
2020	4,332
2021	3,311
2022	2,409
2023	2,300
Thereafter	13,214
Total future minimum lease payments	$	31,906

Rent expense, including variable rent, totaled $11,058, $7,878, and $6,613 for the years ended December 31, 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Long-Term Take-or-Pay Natural Gas Purchase Contracts

In October 2007, the Company entered into an LNG supply contract with Desert Gas Services (formerly known as Spectrum Energy Services, LLC) (“DGS”) to purchase LNG, on a take-or-pay basis, starting in March 2010 and expiring in March 2020. For the years ended December 31, 2016, 2017 and 2018, the Company paid approximately $9,692, $8,092, and $4,456, respectively, under this contract. On April 2, 2018, the Company exercised its right to terminate the LNG supply contract and made an aggregate termination payment of $3,234.

During 2015, the Company entered into a CNG supply contract with Jacksonville Transit Authority (“JTA”) to purchase CNG, on a take-or-pay basis, starting in January 2016 and expiring in December 2020. As of December 31, 2018, the fixed commitments under the JTA contract totaled approximately $429 and $548 for the years ending December 31, 2019 and 2020, respectively.

Long-Term Natural Gas Supply Contract

In June 2017, the Company’s subsidiary, NG Advantage, entered into an arrangement with BP for the supply, sale and transportation of CNG over a five-year period starting in December 2018 and expiring March 2022. The arrangement is customary and ordinary course, and provides for the payment by the customer of a nonrefundable amount of $13,360 to reserve a specified volume of CNG transportation capacity under the arrangement, which was collected during the year ended December 31, 2017. As of December 31, 2018, the commitments for the specified volume under this contract were estimated to be approximately $16,480, $20,675, $19,866, and $17,647 for the years ending December 31, 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022 respectively.