Cheniere Energy, Inc. (AMEX:LNG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jack Fusco : My operating team never ceases to stop amazing me with what they’re able to do as far as our debottlenecking and optimization efforts. So I would say yes and yes. It’s our intent that we would commercialize these trains like we have in the past and, as Jack said, could potentially build them individually or in stages.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from the line of Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein.

Jean Salisbury: Hi. Good morning. Just one more follow up on the commercialization of the Sabine Pass expansion. Anatol, can you give some color on how much of a disadvantage it is to not have the FERC approval in hand when you’re out trying to commercialize versus all these other approved but untested operators in the market today? Maybe it doesn’t matter because Cheniere’s reputation is so strong, but just wondering.

Jack Fusco : What you said, Jean Ann, so we — very fair question. And we’ve thought about a lot, as you know, and we’ve discussed over the years what that opportunity could potentially buy us. And as you saw last year, as we were commercializing Corpus Stage 3, we ended up commercializing things that were well beyond Stage 3 and are sitting in an enviable position of having that portfolio of offtake in hand with almost 3 million tons at our option to convert to SPA. So it’s great to have this maps and renderings, of course help, but as you said, that reputation and what the Cheniere platform has armed us with on the commercial side is that great track record and execution that really is unmatched in the LNG market. So it’s great to have this in hand, but it is not, we don’t see it as a disadvantage that don’t have the full 20 million tons approved today.

Jean Salisbury: Great. Thank you. And can you kind of discuss the pros and cons that you weighed in your decision to return to full size trains for your next project rather than mid-scale?

Jack Fusco : Yes. So, Jean Ann, now we have all the tools in our toolkit. And when we looked at Sabine Pass and looked at potential different power solutions, the most economical trains there are the large scale ConocoPhillips trains versus the smaller midscale units. And as you know, when you look at your life cycle analysis from start to finish, you have to consider what the power mix is and could be. And unfortunately, at Sabine Pass, the power would come from Texas, which is, as you know, a predominantly coal fired power generation most of the year. And that’s not , that’s more, not quite as clean on a life cycle analysis as having gas fired turbines do the compression for us there. So that’s what led to our decision on larger trains. It just made sense for Sabine.

Operator: And we’ll take our next question from the line of Spiro Dounis with Citi.

Spiro Dounis: Thanks. Operator. Good morning, team. First question is just on EPC costs, seen escalation, I guess, abroad, just given all the inflation, seeing labor shortages as well lingering theme here and really across the rest of energy. Historically, you and B Bechtel have a great track record there, managing costs and timelines. So just curious, as you guys think about those challenges on some of your upcoming projects. Are you balancing the ability to offer a competitive liquefaction fee while also maintaining your target returns on these future projects?