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

Jack Fusco : Now, look, we have a very strong relationship with Bechtel. It’s been built over the last decade. They, with us, have gotten together. We’ve used limited notices to proceed. We’ve paid at risk money early to lock in materials and supplies, and we’ve been able to manage the inflation and escalation very effectively to meet our returns that we all have told you about in the past. So I would expect us to be able to do the same here. In regards to labor shortages, we haven’t seen it. We alluded to the fact that Bechtel is ahead of schedule on Corpus Stage 3. It’s my expectation that they continue to deliver well ahead of the guaranteed dates that are in the contract. I’m witnessing it again as we look at Stage 3. So I think for the right employer for the right cost and Bechtel is a great employer on the Gulf Coast that they’re able to attract and retain some very productive Gulf Coast workers.

Spiro Dounis: Great. Second question is just on spot volumes. You put away quite a bit on that side since the last update, so I’m just curious if that level of activity has continued. And as you think about placing the remaining 50 TBtu open for spot, do you see value in waiting a little bit longer or just given some of those green shoots you mentioned? Or could we actually see you close out that remaining book even before the next earnings call?

Jack Fusco : Spiro, it’s a great question and I have Corey Grindal, sitting next to me, Corey and the team. As you know, Corey is our new Chief Operating Officer as of this year, but prior to that, he was in London and Corey and the London team have done a great job at putting away some of these cargoes for us. I’ll let Corey answer the question.

Corey Grindal: I think the simplest answer, Spiro, is we’re going to have to wait on some of them because with our operational track record and the reputation that we try to keep, we’re going to have to keep some behind for later in the year, possible activities like hurricanes, as well as we have some planned maintenance that we’re going to do this summer that we’ve been very clear about, we keep some behind just in case our maintenance takes a little bit longer. So as we have opportunities and cargoes get firmed up, we’ll continue to sell them. But what we’ve sold is pretty much all of our firm cargoes right now, and we’ll just continue to place it throughout the year.

Jack Fusco : And I’ll just add Spiro, as people think about the guidance and clearly people were pretty focused on how much did we proactively sell going into this call. The CMI team did an incredible job selling probably over $20 last year going into this year and still over $10 this year. And as you think about the $8 billion and $8.5 billion of EBITDA with only 50 TBtu really outstanding. That’s priced right now on the curb sub $10 dollars. So it’s less than a $0.5 billion in the whole grand scheme of things. So it just shows how locked in things are right now and I imagine Corey and the team will sell that as they can efficiently and we’ll come up with a smaller number than 50 on the next call and the call after that.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from the line of Sean Morgan with Evercore.