In the fourth quarter, TTF averaged $13.66 an ounce and JKM $14.97, both significantly lower than levels seen in the previous two years and both have continued to trend down through the first quarter of this year. Henry Hub benchmark also decreased in the fourth quarter, falling to an average of $2.88 an ounce. For the full year 2023, TTF monthly settlement prices averaged $13.73 an MMBtu, over 66% lower year-over-year and 4.6% lower than 2021. Similarly, the 2023 average settlement price for JKM decreased 53% year-over-year to an average of $16.13, while the Henry Hub average settlement price was $2.74, down approximately 59% from $6.64 in 2022 during the height of the energy crisis in Europe. Let’s address the regional dynamics on the next page.
With more than 65% of all U.S. LNG volumes in 2023 flowing in Europe, the region’s underground storage inventories remained elevated throughout the year, easing concerns about physical market tightness amid further reductions in all other sources of gas supply to the region. Total gas supply to Europe fell 56 BCM year-on-year due mostly to the continued reduction in Russian flows, as well as heavy upstream maintenance in Norway further affecting pipe gas supply. Nonetheless, storage levels ended the calendar year at 86% full, the second highest level for the period since storage data became available in 2011. Meanwhile, gas demand in the region’s key markets continued to drop, declining by nine% year-on-year in 2023, following a 12% reduction in 2022.
The power sector accounted for nearly half of these reductions amid relatively mild temperatures, continued conservation efforts, improving nuclear performance and growth in renewable generation. And aside from Germany, industrial demand reductions appear to have bottomed out in 2023 throughout the region. In Asia, as I mentioned, LNG demand grew by four% or 9 million tons year-on-year, thanks to a resurgence in demand from China and other emerging economies throughout Asia. Most of the uptick in Asia’s demand was largely due to a rebound in China’s economy, which resulted in a 7.5% year-on-year increase in gas consumption. It was up 27 BCM. Despite a 13 BCM increase in domestic gas output and the scheduled 7 BCM ramp up in the Power of Siberia flows last year, China’s reliance on LNG remained high at 25% of total gas supply.
The country’s imports rebounded by about 12% to 71 million tons last year, about 8.5 million tons below the peak 2021 levels. We continue to expect gradual but continued growth in gas consumption that will increase the call on LNG going forward. In addition to China, an approximately 8.5-million-ton year-on-year increase in South and Southeast Asia’s imports also contributed to growing global demand last year. Thailand and India led the charge as LNG spot prices moderated and demand for gas-fired power generation reached record levels in India. Additionally, three new receiving terminals started in this region, giving the nascent import markets of the Philippines and Vietnam access to LNG, which we believe will help power their economies for years to come.
LNG demand growth in Asia was partially offset by the reduced demand for LNG in Japan due to lower electricity demand and increased nuclear availability. In Japan, two nuclear reactors restarted in 2023, increasing available nuclear capacity to the highest level since the Fukushima disaster in 2011. This is a structural trend in Japan that we expect will continue to impact gas-fired power generation and consequently LNG imports over time. Let’s move to the next slide where we’ll consider the outlook for gas in these and other economies. As discussed, global gas demand in 2023 remained relatively flat, growing by 20 BCM or 0.05% amid tight global supplies and historically elevated prices. In contrast, global demand for coal was up 1.4% on the back of increased use in emerging and developing economies.
Given the DOE action related to climate that Jack already discussed, it’s worth highlighting here the simple fact that for the second year in a row, global coal consumption hit a new all-time record. Coal-fired power generation increased in 2023 despite continued coal-to-gas switching in the U.S., notable declines in Europe and significant growth in renewable generation overall, which rose over 22% globally. As shown in the lower left, more than half of the power demand growth in China and India in 2023 was supplied by coal. Coal-fired generation from these two nations alone increased by 419 terawatt hours, which is roughly equivalent to the total power generation for the entire country of France and more than 80% of the entire growth in renewable power generation seen last year.
While China and India remain committed to growing gas as a primary energy source in their respective economies, tight gas supplies and higher-than-normal global LNG prices in recent years have impacted the pace of potential gas consumption growth in these developing economies. More broadly, coal remains the largest source of power generation globally and represents about two-thirds of power sector emissions and about a quarter of total emissions globally. With power demand expected to double by 2050, any hope of achieving global decarbonization and clean energy targets will require further displacement of coal use wherever possible, especially in countries like China and India. As Jack noted, natural gas holds a critical role in helping achieve these goals over the coming decades, which we expect will result in robust increases in demand for natural gas over that period, as shown by the outlooks on the central chart.
The fast-growing economies in the Asia-Pacific region are expected to play the greatest role in powering gas demand beyond the 2040s, when demand from Europe and the developed world could possibly be in modest decline and regional gas supplies in Asia further deplete. The outlook for global gas demand should remain robust going into the second half of the century, because natural gas is an affordable, reliable and sustainable solution that will serve to displace coal and support the deployment of intermittent renewable energy sources. As such, in 2023 alone, we have executed over 6.5 million tons per annum of long-term agreements, representing over 119 million tons in aggregate volume of LNG between 2026 and 2050, the majority of which are with repeat customers and are structured to meet each customer’s unique long-term objectives.
These investment-grade counterparties include North American producers, portfolio players and Asian and European end-users, all of which seek secure, cleaner and affordable and flexible supply. Our customers sign up for decades of LNG from Cheniere because they believe in the long-term role of natural gas and they believe in Cheniere’s ability to deliver the LNG reliably and responsibly. Looking ahead to 2024, as the market continues to stabilize and achieve the stable pricing necessary to ensure market access and adoption, we anticipate our premium products will continue to have broad-based appeal. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Zach to review our financial results and guidance.
Zach Davis: Thanks, Anatol, and good morning, everyone. I’m pleased to be here today to review our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results and key financial accomplishments and introduce our financial guidance for 2024. Turn to slide 12. For the fourth quarter and full year 2023, we generated net income of approximately $1.4 billion and $9.9 billion, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.65 billion and $8.8 billion, and distributable cash flow of approximately $1.1 billion and $6.5 billion, respectively. With today’s results, our full year consolidated adjusted EBITDA results were at the high end of our most recent guidance range and we exceeded the high end of the range on distributable cash flow, mainly attributed to higher margins captured on open capacity and optimization upstream and downstream of the plant.
In addition, we have now reported positive net income on a quarterly and cumulative trailing four-quarter basis five quarters in a row. As compared to 2022, our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results continue to reflect a higher proportion of our LNG being sold under long-term contracts with less volumes being sold into short-term markets, as well as the further moderation of international gas prices relative to what we experienced in 2022. These impacts were partially offset by certain portfolio optimization activities that our teams were able to achieve throughout the year. During the fourth quarter and full year, we recognized in income 618 TBtu and 2,353 TBtu of physical LNG, respectively, which included 607 TBtu and 2,318 TBtu from our projects, a record for the full year, and 11 TBtu and 35 TBtu sourced from third parties, respectively.
Approximately 90% and 87% of these LNG volumes recognized in income were sold under long-term SBA or IPM agreements, with initial terms greater than 10 years, respectively. While we have many significant achievements to highlight from 2023, I’m particularly proud of my team’s focused execution on our 2020 Vision Capital Allocation Plan. We deployed approximately $5 billion towards balance sheet management, shareholder returns and accretive growth in 2023 alone, while maintaining strong available liquidity going into this year. In aggregate, since updating our Capital Allocation Plan in September 2022 with the target of $20 billion of cash deployment through 2026 and $20 per share of run rate DCF, we have now deployed over $8 billion. Execution under the plan got off to a fast start in early 2023 when we achieved investment-grade ratings at both of our parent entities, bringing the entire Cheniere complex to investment-grade status.
And in June, we issued our inaugural corporate investment-grade bond, placing $1.4 billion of unsecured notes at CQP. These milestones follow approximately $8 billion of deleveraging over the last three years, from approximately $32 billion of debt at our peak to now under $24 billion. During the fourth quarter, we repaid $50 million of long-term indebtedness, further redeeming a portion of the senior secured notes due in 2024 at SPL, and bringing our total long-term debt paydown for the year to approximately $1.2 billion. We plan to address the remaining balance of the SPL 2024 notes with cash on hand within CQP early this year, after which point we will have addressed all maturities in the complex for the year. We have already begun strategizing around the 2025 maturities we have at both SPL and CCH, and as always, we will evaluate opportunities to efficiently refinance or delever throughout the year.
The buyback plan is working as designed and enabling us to be opportunistic. During the fourth quarter and full year 2023, we repurchased an aggregate of approximately 2 million and 9.5 million shares of common stock for approximately $339 million and $1.5 billion, respectively. As the share price has provided greater opportunities so far this year compared to the fourth quarter 2023, deployment under the share repurchase plan has accelerated. In year-to-date or in just a month and a half or so, we have already deployed nearly $500 million, which is more than we did in any quarter in 2023, repurchasing almost 3 million shares so far, bringing our total shares outstanding to under $235 million currently. We will continue deploying the now under $2 billion remaining under the plan over the next year or so.
