ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Bill Bullock: Yes, sure. This is Bill. So I’ll just start with €“ we’ve got a really strong understanding and presence in the LNG market have had for several years. We’re regularly selling spot volumes into Asia of our APLNG venture. And we do think that Europe is going to be a long-term market for U.S. Gulf Coast and you will have seen where we recently secured regas capacity in Germany, which we’re really happy about and excited about. And so we’re looking at the best options in terms of long-term placements, but these are 20-year projects off the Gulf Coast. And so we think that the long-term strength of international pricing relative to U.S. gas is going to be pretty interesting. And that driver and that strength in LNG, we think, it’s going to be driven by its role in energy transition and reducing carbon emissions.

So as you see us build out our LNG portfolio over the next few years, we may take some longer-term contract decisions in there. But right now, we’re not really disclosing where we’re at for competitive reasons in terms of how we’re developing that market.

Ryan Todd: Thanks.

Phil Gresh: Thanks Ryan. Michelle, next question.

Operator: Our next question comes from Devin McDermott with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Devin McDermott: Hey. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. So, I wanted to first follow-up on some of the CapEx questions. Earlier, you laid out the $1.6 billion to $2 billion of spending this year on major projects, and you talked with some good detail about Port Arthur. It’s not necessarily ratable across the projects. But when you put it all together, I was wondering if you could talk about how you see the magnitude of major projects been evolving or changing over the next few years. Outside of Port Arthur were some of the key moving pieces that we should be thinking about across the projects that could move that number higher or lower?

Ryan Lance: Yes. I think we tried to explain kind of a bit about the front-end loading of the Port Arthur project. So, you ought to expect that’s going to come down as you look into the 2 years, 3 years, 4 years. Some of the other moving pieces, we €“ if the commodity price environment supports it, we want to see some ramp in our Lower 48 activities up to our optimized plateau across the various assets. You will see Willow ramping up if we get an adequate projects approval from the Federal government. So, that will come in. And then obviously, there are some inflationary forces as well as we think about where it’s going. So, there is a lot of moving pieces, but that’s kind of how you should think of the different pieces that we are looking at as we kind of think about the longer term nature of the capital. And we will be prepared to talk about that at our Analyst Meeting coming up in April.

Devin McDermott: Got it. Makes sense. Just a quick follow-up on NFE and NFS, are those fairly ratable over the next few years? Any additional color on those projects specifically?

Bill Bullock: Yes. So, this is Bill. You saw us in the fourth quarter and make our initial catch-up payment on NFE. And then you should expect that those projects are funding through the next couple of years.

Devin McDermott: Okay. Thank you.

Phil Gresh: Thanks Devin. Next question.

Operator: Our next question comes from Paul Cheng with Scotia General. Your line is now open.

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