With the expectation, we will get to the cumulative one-to-one share repurchase to debt paydown ratio and complete the current $4 billion authorization ahead of its three-year window, at which point the focus will primarily be on updating the buyback plan again with the Board while maintaining our IG balance sheet across the complex as we prepare for our creative growth initiatives at Corpus and Sabine in the coming years. We also declared $1.66 per common share in dividends for 2023, a nearly 15% increase year-over-year, having increased our quarterly dividend by 10% in Q3, consistent with our stated target of 10% annual dividend growth. Over time, we intend to steadily increase our overall payout ratio as our platform grows, while still maintaining the financial flexibility essential to our capital allocation plan and growth objectives.
During the quarter, we funded approximately $467 million of CapEx at our Stage 3 project, bringing total spend to approximately $1.5 billion for the year and a little over $3 billion in total for the project. While front-loading the equity spend has enabled considerable interest savings, we still have over $3 billion available on our CCH term loan that we plan to utilize over time as the project progresses towards full completion in 2026 and we expect to spend between $1.5 and $2 billion in Stage 3 CapEx this year. Turn now to slide 13, where I will discuss our 2024 guidance and outlook for the year. Today, we are introducing our full year 2024 guidance ranges of $5.5 billion to $6 billion in consolidated adjusted EBITDA and $2.9 billion to $3.4 billion in distributable cash flow.
As we’ve been clear about on recent calls, 2024 represents our most contracted year-to-date, as all contracts signed to underpin our existing 45-million-ton platform have commenced, as well as some bridging volumes tied to contracts signed in support of our growth projects. It’s likely 2024 will represent a trough year for EBITDA after being down sequentially since 2022, as we expect to move upward post-2024 as Stage 3 commences and eventually reaches run rate in 2026 and beyond. With very little unsold capacity remaining throughout the year, these ranges largely reflect our 9-train run rate guidance adjusted for a higher proportion of volumes sold under long-term contracts or bridging volumes, as well as some forward selling of spot cargoes at higher international gas prices.
These positive adjustments are partially offset by the prepayment and cancellation of the Chevron TUA and some incremental O&M costs related to our planned maintenance program. We expect to produce approximately 45 million tons of LNG this year, inclusive of planned maintenance at both sites. We remain optimistic we will achieve first LNG from train one of Stage 3 this year, but that would not impact our revenues or EBITDA in 2024, as it will likely remain in commissioning through year-end. In terms of portfolio optimization activities, we include any such transactions already completed in the guidance, but we do not forecast additional [Technical Difficulty] 2022. We remains on track as we continue to execute on the plan this year and credit those to our commercial team who have sold our 2% open capacity going into this year, which has come down from 50 TBtu to 15 TBtu since the November call, highlighting that despite the recent drop in global gas indices, our EBITDA forecast remains above the $5.5 billion midpoint of our 9-train run rate guidance.
As always, our results could be impacted by the timing of certain cargoes around year-end, as well as incremental margin from further optimization upstream and downstream of our facilities. Our distributable cash flow for 2024 could also be affected by any changes in the tax code under the IRA. However, the guidance provided today is based on the current IRA tax law guidance and assumes we qualify for the minimum corporate tax of 15% this year. As the year progresses, we will likely tighten our ranges consistent with what we’ve done in the last two guidance cycles. At CQP, our full year 2024 distribution guidance range is $3.15 per common unit to $3.35 per common unit, which maintains our base distribution of $3.10 and a variable distribution of between $0.05 and $0.25.
As we have discussed publicly for the last year, by adjusting the variable component of our base plus variable distribution this year, we are preserving cash and balance sheet capacity at CQP in anticipation of funding the $10-plus billion SPL expansion project according to our disciplined capital investment parameters, which call for financing the project 50% with cash flow, while maintaining investment-grade ratings at both SPL and CQP, all within a traditional MLP structure. This DPU guidance keeps us on our previously assumed FID timeline and should be viewed as an indication of our confidence in the attractiveness and viability of the SPL expansion project. In the near-term, deleveraging at CQP or SPL can be considered early investments in the SPL expansion project until we are in a position to formally sanction the project, raise financing and begin construction, which we plan for in 2026.
We expect the accretive SPL expansion project could increase the run rate distributable cash flow at CQP to over $5 per unit, a win not only for CQP unit holders but LNG shareholders as well, since we are in the high splits of the MLP, meaning approximately 75% of the incremental cash flow would accrue to CEI, and further meaningfully increase our run rate DCF per share target over time, as it was not baked into the original 2020 Vision. Looking beyond this year, the Cheniere story remains the same. Our highly contracted business model is built upon long-duration, fixed-fee, investment-grade, take-or-pay-style cash flows, which underpin the $40 billion natural gas infrastructure platform we operate today. As we pursue brownfield expansions, our approach will be consistent with that of the first over 55 million tons, adhering to our disciplined investment parameters so that our cash flows and our value proposition remain insulated from whatever transitory supply and demand imbalances may occur over the next decade plus.
Our company provides investors with exposure to LNG the theme, more so than the commodity, and it is inherent stability and long-term visibility in our contracted cash flows, growth and shareholder returns that should enable us to continue to deliver meaningful value to our stakeholders for decades to come. That concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you for your time and your interest in Cheniere. Operator, we are ready to open the line for questions.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We’ll go first to John Mackay with Goldman Sachs.
John Mackay: Hey. Good morning. Thank you for the time. I appreciate the color you guys gave on the 2024 guide and that you’re already above the kind of 9-train run rate, but maybe you could just spend another minute talking through what kind of gets you to the low-end of the range versus the high-end of the range. It’s about the same $500 million range as you gave for 2023, but there were more open volumes unsold at that point. So maybe just kind of walk through those dynamics? Thank you.
Zach Davis: Hi, John. It’s Zach. And I’ll just say the $500 million range is basically we’re keeping the same cadence that we’ve had for the last couple of years with the $500 million. It’s still under 10% of the EBITDA. But it’s safe to assume that we’re going to start right now around the midpoint of that range and from there, I would say there’s a few variables, even though the open capacity is so small and $1 CMI move in margins is only $15 million. With most of the year still ahead of us, $1 move in Henry Hub can move EBITDA in the lifting margin by around $100 million and just year-end timing of deliveries, that can move things around $100 million as well, even though a lot of those end-of-year cargoes are even locked in at pretty attractive rates by the team.
When it comes to the upside and downside to the high-end and low-end, on the low-end, it would really have to be something unforeseen today operationally that got us that close to the low-end considering how locked in we are. So it would be maybe a longer maintenance cycle than we even had last year, which we don’t foresee or a tougher hurricane season or something of that sort. On the upstream — on the upside, I’d just say, we’ve been very clear from the get-go. We don’t guide on optimization upstream and downstream of the plants that’s not locked in. So as that accrues, ideally through the year, even though margins are lower, Henry Hub is lower and volatility has moderated, that should help us get to the upside and the, yeah, we’ll stay optimistic on seeing if we can get a couple more cargoes out through the course of the year.
John Mackay: I appreciate all that detail. Maybe just a follow-up and maybe this one’s for Anatol. There’s been obviously a lot of focus in the market on the next three years, three-and-a-half years for the LNG market with U.S. and Qatar supply coming online and the demand picture maybe not warming up as fast as we would have hoped. Understand the kind of long-term dynamics you talked about earlier in the call, but maybe just spend a couple minutes walking through what you see as this kind of medium-term outlook and maybe what the supply-demand balance looks like around the back half of this decade? Thanks.
Anatol Feygin: Sure. Thanks, John. Thanks for the questions. I’ll start kind of in reverse order. The market will grow what the supply allows it to grow, right? So the 10.5 million tons was a function of that supply coming into the market and being placed where it was most needed at the margin. The things that are encouraging to us and we see as kind of inexorable trends are the commitments to gas and the investments in long-dated infrastructure. Not a month goes by that we don’t add a couple of regas terminals and things like gas-fired power plants are very difficult to get, turbines are difficult to get for years and that is a function of the deployment of that infrastructure globally. So we prefer a world where LNG is in those high-single, low-double-digit rates where returns for us are attractive but reasonable and the consumers can get their hands on these attractive BTUs. And as we mentioned in the prepared remarks, are competitive with coal and other generation sources.
So we remain very optimistic. You’ll see volumes going into South and Southeast Asia. You’ll see the marginal kind of elastic demand come back into the market. We’re already seeing that even in the early days post the Chinese New Year and we think that these are trends that will last for decades and decades to come and we have kind of those commercial — the commercial engagements with those types of counterparties that are continuing apace. So we think the market will enjoy absorbing this volume and whether it comes online on schedule or if things are modestly delayed as they have been historically, we think that the market will show robust growth and ability to absorb this next wave.
