New Fortress Energy Inc. (NASDAQ:NFE) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And we do think that with the world’s energy needs, these stranded gas fields offshore are going to need a lot of activity like we just deployed. From our standpoint right now, that is not our plan to incrementally put more in place. We feel like the facility that we have currently in the Gulf of Mexico, plus the proposed development onshore, which is a separate development is, as we’ve said many times, is one that is adequate for our own needs. But I have no doubt that there’s a big need and use for the technology and the capabilities that we have as an organization and maybe we’ll end up doing that for other people and whatnot. But from a capital investment and from a CapEx spend perspective, we are very focused on FLNG1 and FLNG2 at this point and have no plans other than that.

But I do think that the broader question that you asked is does this have applicability to the stranded gas deals offshore, the answers are sounding. Of course, it does. And I think you’ll see a lot of development for it. And I think that the techniques that we have used in creating our own liquefier will be mimicked by others perhaps, and we’ll see them crop up in different parts of the world.

Craig Shere: Thank you.

Operator: We’ll go next to Ryan Levine with Citi. Please go ahead.

Ryan Levine: Good morning. Hoping to follow-up on the FLNG permitting question. Can you just clarify what the onshore BOE application is for, if it’s not for FLNG1 or 2?

Wesley Edens: Yes, it’s actually super simple. Let me try and clarify, because I think this is just a — I really do this is just not met a confusion. So we applied for DOE permits and receive them on our offshore facility. It happens to be located 12 miles offshore of Altamira, right, and a story. So and we receive the FTA permits we’re an application for the non-FTAs. We’re also in applications for Jones Act. We actually had conversations with the various government agencies about all these things. And that very much continues on pace. And separate topic, we are exploring the potential of putting the units onshore in the place also called Altamira, and this is where I think it becomes confusing. And my kind of view of it is that simply the name and the nomenclature was similar enough that I think that the department said, “Hey, look, if you’re going to try to shoehorn your onshore development into your offshore permits, that’s not really the deal.

It has to be independently permitted.” We said, of course, that’s not our intention. And to the extent that we proceed with the onshore facility, we will file a separate application for that as is required and as is appropriate when that becomes necessary. So we filed that publicly. They responded publicly and said, “Great, thank you for that, and that’s the end of the story.” There was some misleading reports, frankly, they’ll put out in the investor community and said, “Oh my gosh, this now puts in the question whether we have the permits and whatnot” nothing could be further from the truth. And it truly was misleading. I was unhappy about that, honestly. But from our standpoint, it was just a simple misconstrued question from the DOE that we responded to, they responded to, that’s the end of the story.

So it’s actually pretty straightforward from that standpoint.

Ryan Levine: Great. Thanks for clarifying. And then on the different basics, can you help bridge the 20 or the third quarter EBITDA and CapEx to your full-year guidance in terms of what the implied ramp for the fourth quarter?

Christopher Guinta: Yes. So EBITDA is expected for the year to be $1.6 billion. As Wes said, that does include a little less than $200 million of gains on sales of assets that we expect to close by the end of the year. But that leaves you with approximately rounded $1.4 billion, which we think that the fourth quarter fills.

Ryan Levine: Any meaningful drivers embedded in there? Or any — can you break out any contribution expected for mass LNG that’s incorporating your guidance?

Christopher Guinta: Zero, Ryan. The only driver is the full quarter utilization of the new San Juan power plant.

Ryan Levine: Okay. Great. Thanks for taking my question.

Christopher Guinta: Thanks, Ryan.

Operator: We go next to Chris Robertson with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Chris Robertson: Hey, sorry guys. I had one last question as a follow-up. Wes, you had mentioned kind of being selected as part of the multiple award task order contract in that $5 billion pool in Puerto Rico. And Chris, I think you might have mentioned being selected as part of two groups there. Can you break that out a bit or clarify kind of what that encompasses in terms of the types of projects that, that pool is focused on?

Wesley Edens: Sure. Brennan, do you want to want to add?

Brannen McElmurray: Yes, no problem. Yes. Thanks for the question. This is Brannen. So specifically, the Army Corps, as you rightly point out, put out a new program, which is $5 billion of expected investment into the Puerto Rican infrastructure over the coming, let’s say, three to four years. We, meaning NFE competed with two groups on that. We meaning NFE were selected with two groups. And so the way it will go moving forward is once the Army Core decides on kind of a portfolio of projects, which obviously they intend to pay for, which could be power generation or other similar infrastructure builds, then we would participate. It’s not dissimilar to the two projects that we won in Palo Seco and San Juan. So we would expect something similar going forward.