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New Fortress Energy Inc.
3/3/2025
Good day and welcome to the NFE fourth quarter 2024 earnings call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Matt Reinhardt, Managing Director for Introductory Remarks. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining today's conference call where we will discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2024 results. This call is being recorded and will be available by replay on the Investors section of our website under the subheading Events and Presentations. At the same location, you will find a presentation that we will walk through on today's call. Please review this as it includes important information on forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures. With that, I'll turn it over to our Chairman and CEO, Wes Edens.
All right, great, Matt, and thanks, everyone, for dialing in. Let's just jump into it here and start with the presentation that we sent out. So starting on page number three, quarterly financial results and annual financial results. So very, very good quarter concluding a very, very good year. $313 million in EBITDA for the quarter. That's roughly a 50% increase over the guidance that we had previously provided, so it was a big beat for that. Very positive outlook for 2025 and beyond. We were confirming our guidance for a billion dollars for this year in total, so by the numbers, a very, very good report. The profile of the business that we run is tremendous. We're an integrated gas to power company. We have five countries, seven terminals, manage or own nearly 10 gigawatts of power, so a very, very significant portfolio. It's a capital-intensive business to build, which is the bad news. But once it's created, as it largely is now, it has massive competitive barriers to entry. So sustainable competitive advantage are the terms that we use. And basically where we are right now is that we think by just focusing on our current markets, we feel that we have an opportunity in the next two years to grow EBITDA by 50% or more. So huge numbers, I know, but that's how big these markets are and how big the opportunities are if we execute on them. Growth with very little in the way of CapEx. and reduce then the amount of our debt outstanding and the cost of it dramatically. Those are the goals that we have. There's tremendous work by our people this last year and over the first couple months of this year. Tremendous work, actually. And I want to give a big thank you to all of them. We're very excited for what we have accomplished thus far this year, and we think that there's great things ahead. So with that, let's turn to page number four. A little bit more detail on the financial update. So basically here's the 314 and the 950. What is crystal clear is that the FLNG asset coming online was the star of the show for us, the star of the quarter, and contributing significantly to earnings now and also in the future. The volumes that are created there allowed us to optimize the portfolio and make significant returns, and the positions continue to do so in the quarters ahead. So two areas of focus for us is long-term growth in the core markets, number one, and number two are asset sales and deleveraging. So a little bit of the detail in terms of the business. Page number five, capital markets update. In the last six months or so, we have done a ton of different capital markets activities to strengthen the balance sheet, increase liquidity, and set ourselves up well for future growth. In October, we raised $409 in new equity, including $50 million of my own equity. In November, we extended the $900 million revolver to October of 2027. We issued the $2.7 billion bond that basically consolidated debt and extended its maturity out to 2029. And then in March, as recently as today, it's been a very busy period at the start of the year, we closed the $425 million term loan B upsize, and we refinanced our corporate facility in Brazil, which was $200 million, increased that to $350 million. Total of $4.775 billion in corporate transactions. And it's put us up in a terrific place in terms of our balance sheet and liquidity to now execute what our plans are. The goal is very simple. We want to deleverage, we want to simplify the capital structure, and we want to reduce debt costs, all of which are well in hand. So let's turn now to page number six. Gas supply update, as I said, FONG entering service was a big catalyst for us. And as a result, we have excess supply versus our current basic demand. The significant incremental demand that we see in our core markets will definitely come over the next couple of years, but this surplus then leads to the next question. Do we wait and sell excess cargoes over time until demand comes online, or do we hedge and sell today to capture excess spread? If you look at the chart on the right-hand side, the blue line represents the price of TTF as it goes forward. So you can see that it goes down fairly substantially over the next couple of years and then flattens out, as people expect, more and more gas to come onto the market. The yellow box represents the amount of gas or profitability that we have above our base returns. So the base returns at the bottom, that's if we sell to our customers down line with the returns that we generate. The yellow is the amount above that. And so the question is, do we hedge or sell some of this, or do we just let it all ride? I think in particular with the geopolitical time that we live in, In particular, the prospects for some kind of a resolution in the Ukraine-Russian war. We think that that alone would have a profound impact on the market. And if we did nothing and simply waited for the events to transpire, the yellow box could get bigger or it could get actually quite a bit smaller. And so the answer, what we did in our judgment, was to de-risk. sell a portion of it, keep significant upside if the market stays elevated or goes higher, but if the market falls, we're insulated, puts cash on balance sheet, conservative approach by us that we felt struck the right balance. It's good for our earnings. It's good for our cash flow. It was the right decision to make. We still retain a lot of optionality. So a very, very good result with our FLNG volumes. Page number seven, I'm just going to breeze on these because we're going to talk about them in some detail. Chris is going to talk about our fast LNG assets. I'll spend some time talking about Puerto Rico. We have our senior management, Leandro Cunha and Jeremy Dawson, on the phone to talk about Brazil. Lots of tremendous commercial activity. The greatest opportunities for us exist in our biggest markets. So there's a lot that we have to talk about that we're looking forward to. Chris?
Yeah, hey, thanks, Wes. I really appreciate it. So, as Wes mentioned, we're pleased to report that our FLNG-1 asset is performing above main plate capacity, demonstrating the exceptional dedication and expertise of our operators. Since achieving first gas in late July, we've successfully navigated several planned outages, taking advantage of these windows to implement key process optimizations. These proactive measures have allowed us to maximize uptime, enhance production efficiency, and ensure the asset is operating at optimal conditions. Notably, our highest production milestone was achieved in January, when we reached approximately 120% of nameplate capacity, a testament to the team's commitment to operational excellence. To date, we've shipped 12 cargoes, totaling approximately 24 TBTU. In parallel, we've taken significant steps to lower other operating costs, including improving procurement strategies, renegotiating service contracts, and consolidating third-party vendor support. Additionally, we've made tremendous progress in our commitment to the local community by increasing the proportion of local operators to approximately 50%. We anticipate this figure will rise to 80% Mexican workforce over the course of 2025, reinforcing our long-term investment in the region. Another key initiative underway is the direct sourcing of molecules from the Agua Dulce Hub, which is expected to yield annual savings of $15 to $30 million and further optimize our supply chain. On the accounting front, due to the asset's exceptional performance and its ability to consistently produce, we officially placed the asset into service as of December 31st, 2024. This milestone marks a significant step in the lifecycle of FLNG1 and positioned us for continued success in the year ahead. Flipping to slide number 10, investors have heard us talk about the incredible facility onshore at Altamira before. And as a quick reminder, it was built in the mid-2000s by Shell and is an ideal facility to turn from an import terminal to an export terminal. The infrastructure includes deep water berthing access, including direct access to the open waters in the Gulf of America or Gulf of Mexico, whichever your point of view is. 250,000 cubic meter tanks that are operational and cold now, access to pipeline gas and power infrastructure, and an incredibly protected operational location with only one named hurricane in the last 90 years that has hit the facility, and it was only a Category 1. A comment on the FLNG project generally, as this is a materially different construction project as compared with FLNG 1. On FLNG 1, we started construction and engineering at the same time. We didn't initially have a chosen deployment location, so our team had to engineer for any conceivable sea condition, as well as multiple gas composition scenarios. The FLNG-1 asset was also taken offshore too early in the development of the project, and manpower constraints and weather conditions impacted the schedule materially. Contrast all of these FLNG-1 challenges with the FLNG-2 project, and the differences are stark. We're now able to build something that is already designed, engineered, and in the case of the modules, we have as-built drawings, all of this making the construction much easier to know and to price, which is what we've done with our construction partners. On the next slide, we've outlined the current expected timeline for the completion of the FLNG2 asset. We started engineering and procurement in Q2 of 2023 using FLNG1 as the basis for design of the modules and the Altamira terminal as the deployment location. We signed a gas supply and partnership agreement for the onshore facility with the CFE in January of 2024 and started module construction at the same time. We currently expect onshore construction to commence this summer and are working closely with the CFE on that process and provide additional updates as permits are received. Over the last 18 months, we've spent about $625 million, with the bulk of that being on procurement in the modules. The remaining $480 to spend is back-end loaded with about $160 expected to be spent in 2025 and the remainder to be spent in 2026 or 2027. Given that the modules that we built for FLNG 1 are the exact same for FLNG 2, we were able to shift risk to the construction contractor and get price and schedule certainty. And as of February 1, 2025, We were over 50% complete on the modules, and the majority of the large pieces of kit are either already at the Kiewit yard or ready to be shipped when needed. With that, turn it back over to Wes for Puerto Rico.
Great. Thanks, Chris. So let's flip to the following page, page number 13. Here's a map of Puerto Rico with a bunch of dots on it. The dots represent power plants in different facilities. So there's the NFE facilities, their current power plants, there are power plants that are Targets for fuel switch, there's new builds and peakers and other anero sites. So lots of dots on the map. Just a little bit of context to where we are. So today we have two contracts. One where we provide gas to the yellow dot, which is our San Juan LNG facility where we provide gas to the San Juan 5 and 6 power plant that runs through March of 2026. Two is we have a gas contract on the two plants that we built for the Army Corps that are adjacent, one right there in the yard, the other five miles down the road. The two of those together total about 50 TBTUs of production, so about one ton of LNG. The conversions, which I'll talk about in just a second, represent a massive opportunity for Puerto Rico and, by derivative, a massive opportunity for us to basically take fuel-ready assets that currently burn diesel, switch them to natural gas, save hundreds of millions, billions of dollars over the years in time for the Puerto Ricans, and actually generate a significant amount of business for us. That is between 50 and 100 TBTs in total demand. Lastly, the new build business is also very significant. They announced their first new build power plant in 25 years in January. We are going to be providing the gas for that when it comes online in 2028. We estimate that the total need for new power will generate between 150 and 200 TBTUs in total volume. If you add that all up, you take the 50 that we have now, it grows to between 250 to 350 in total. So truly we're a fraction today of where we believe the market on this can be. Potentially the biggest gas-to-power market opportunity in the world. There's nobody that's in a better position to access this and perform on behalf of Puerto Rico than we are. So let's just flip the page real quickly. Page 14, these are the photos you've seen many times. The left-hand side is the San Juan 5 and 6. That orange boat is a boat that we have leased. It sits in front of our facility. On the right-hand side, there are two other contracts or assets in the island-wide contract. It is a 80 TBTU contract. We use about half of that, a little less than half of it today, and that contract expired on March 15th. We just extended it this weekend for one more year. I'll talk about that in just a second. Page 15, the opportunity to convert, is the earliest and easiest short-term win for Puerto Rico and for us to help them with. There are four plants that we show here that are currently burning diesel. 925 megawatts, they are actually used significantly, and so the cost savings would be $5 at today's prices roughly between what they pay for diesel and what they would pay for natural gas. These are a high priority. The government has made it a high priority. We are very aligned with them on that. This alone would double the size of our portfolio and save Puerto Rico $250 to $500 million a year. So it's a win-win on both sides and something that we are very, very focused on in the short term. Page number 16, long term, it's all about new power. So a little bit of context. Average power plant in Puerto Rico built in 1981. 50% of the power plants built in 1975 and before, desperate for more reliable, less expensive power. That's the situation. First new plant that they have announced to be built in 25 years is the one that is shown here schematically. It was originally scheduled to be a 478 megawatt power plant. They've upsized it to be 550 megawatts. We are the gas provider to that project, so 20 years at roughly 30 TBTUs. At today's margins, that's roughly $120 million in margin for 20 years with essentially no capex. This is the benefit of having spent all the capital in this capital-intensive business, established the beachhead, and now we're able to service customers efficiently. Of course, it generates a tremendous amount of margin for us. Phase number 17, yesterday we announced the one-year extension of the 80 TBTU contract This is the island-wide contract that allows them to grow gas use from currently 40 TBTUs to roughly 80 is the maximum over the next year. We think that the bulk of that can be taken up by the temp power growth. We've already saved Puerto Rico over $500 million in fuel savings on the San Juan 5 and 6, so we think by converting more power plants and burning more gas in this manner is the fastest way to more savings for Puerto Rico. So let's talk about page number 18. because we announced this late last night, and this is the change in the O&M agreement that exists between HONERA, which is our wholly-owned subsidiary that manages the PREPA plants, in exchange for a $110 million payment. The HONERA contract itself is actually quite simple. We get paid a base fee of $22.5 million. We had a $100 million incentive that basically we got paid 50% of the cost savings that were generated either by operations or from fuel savings. We earned $110 million over the course of that first year of the contract. We had billed them initially in July and have billed them a number of times ever since then. They wanted to convert and grow gas and utilize more of our business down there, but they became, as a government, very fixated on the incentive structure, and we said, after a lot of consultation with them, fine. At the heart of it, the government basically didn't feel comfortable with the structure of having us sell them gas and also charging them incentive fee, even though this was clearly the contract and the incentives from day one. And so we, after, again, a lot of consultation with them, we said, you know what, let's try and understand what it is you're focused on. We'll try and come up with what we're focused on and find a compromise that works for both of us. We have two goals. One, we're owed $110 million, and we wanted to get paid, as we're just the hodes. Two, we wanted to grow our supply of gas, and by doing so, A, make more money, because we're trying to generate more revenues, and B, a more productive business, and B, save them billions of dollars in fuel savings. So we decided on this compromise. They pay us $110 million. We agree to eliminate the incentives. Together, we then try to take the island off of diesel and fuel oil, save them potentially billions, and generate far more for us than the incentive structure would have in a manner that they feel that they are aligned with us. So it's very much of a win-win. With that, let me turn it over to Leandro Cunha and Jeremy Dawson to talk briefly about our Brazil operation.
Thank you very much, Wes. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Leandro Cunha, and I'm pleased to be presenting the NFU Brazil session alongside my partner in Brazil, Jeremy Dawson. Starting on slide number 28, I want to take this opportunity to highlight the incredible achievements NFE has made in Brazil over the past almost four years now since the acquisition of Haigo. During this time, we have made significant investments, laying the groundwork for a successful business prepared to deliver substantial and sustainable value to our shareholders. This slide showcases the impressive assets that we built in Brazil. We now operate two LNG terminals with a supply capacity of approximately 200 terabits per year, each terminal. Our Barca Arena terminal, the one you can see in the north of Brazil, in a region with no access to pipelines, is already operating to serve one key customer, the big North Hydro Aluminium Refinery. Soon the terminal will also serve two of our own power plants under construction, In that region, totally unimpressive 2.2 gigawatts of installed capacity. Furthermore, our Santa Catarina terminal, South Brazil, a terminal that is connected to the same pipeline used by Brazil to import gas from Bolivia, is fully commissioned and ready to play a major role in the upcoming 2025 capacity auction in Brazil, which is scheduled, by the way, to happen in June 2025. The auction is an amazing opportunity for NFE, and with our terminal, we could not only secure long-term power purchase agreements for our own projects, but also provide gas and terminal services to existing power plants in the region. We believe most of the south terminal capacity will be contracted after the auction, reinforcing our position as a key player in Brazil's energy landscape. I will provide more details on the auction opportunity in the following slides. Now let's move to slide number 21, please. And continuing with an overview of our business, I want to emphasize the strong foundation we've built in Brazil through our existing contract. In addition to the Alonorte long-term gas supply agreements that I mentioned before, we have secured over 2.2 gigawatts with long-term power purchase agreements contracted for more than 15 years with inflation-adjusted PPAs. These ensure a stable and predictable revenue stream for NFE in the long run. It's also important to highlight that NFE has no commodity index risk in any of those existing contracts. Both Alunautis GSA and the power plant PPAs, they do have a pass-through for the commodity price. With those contracts, as far as I'm concerned, the Parcarena terminal is the only terminal in Brazil with almost 100% of its capacity long-term contracted. Still on existing contracts, on the funding side, we have already secured all necessary equity funding, which was already injected into the project. And on the debt front, the long-term financing was already secured and disbursed. This demonstrates our diligence and commitment to these projects, which are fully funded until their completion. And looking ahead, we are focusing on near-term growth opportunities, and we believe that the upcoming Brazilian capacity auction could represent a great second wave of growth for NFE in Brazil. The market is expecting a big auction that will contract over 10 gigawatts of capacity. This auction represents the potential for higher margins for NFE in the south terminal and requires minimal additional capital investment as we have already built the necessary foundation for the expansion of our portfolio. I would also like to highlight that NFE registered over two gigawatts of its own capacity to participate in the next auction and has many players requesting gas supply to our terminal. which again elevates our confidence that after the auction in June, a material part of the TGS terminal will have long-term contracts, meaning NFU could potentially double its size in Brazil. Moving to slide number 22, I'm going to give you guys an overview about the auction. So first of all, this slide highlights the strategic advantage of our TGS terminals location. It's ideally positioned to serve part of the anticipated demand from the upcoming auction, supplying not only greenfield projects, but also existing assets in a region that currently lacks access to flexible and reliable gas. If you move to slide number 23, please. As I mentioned, we see a significant growth potential in the power auctions scheduled for June. As I also said, this auction is expected to award between 10 to 15 gigawatts of new and existing power projects. The PPAs awarded in this auction will commence its operation between 2025 and 2030, and the PPA term will be from 10 years for existing power plants to 15 years for new plants. Those contracts, they will be very similar to the one that we own in Barcareana, the 1.6 gigawatts power plants, where the system will pay a capacity fee for the power project and an energy fee whenever the project is called to produce power. The energy fee of those contracts can be linked to international indexes, including spotting indices like JKM and the TTS. As I mentioned before, NFE already registered two gigawatts of our own projects for this auction and have received requests from third parties to supply gas to an additional three gigawatts of projects. Our plan is to dedicate part of the terminal capacity to supply existing projects, supplying gas and terminal services, aiming for revenue stream already starting as early as September 2025, and utilizing parts of the terminal to supply new projects, including NFEs, of course, targeting commercial operation dates between 2028 and 2030. It's important to highlight again that we can capture substantial growth with very little capex and equity needs. At this stage, we have an overbooking of opportunities for our terminal, and we will need to select the best projects to support our growth in Brazil until the auction date. This strong demand underscores the value of our integrated LNG and power capabilities. And NFE right now in Brazil is only one of the few players that is able to provide these capabilities. We're confident that NFE will secure a significant share of the awarded capacity in the auction, further reinforcing our position as a leading energy provider in Brazil. This growth will generate substantial value, I'm sure, for our shareholders and contribute to Brazil's energy security and economic development. I will now hand it over to Jeremy Dawson, who will give you an update on construction.
Thank you, Leandro. And good afternoon, everybody. My name is Jeremy Dawson. I'm responsible for building and operating the Brazilian assets. I'd like to start. I just have a couple of slides. I'm on slide 24. But I would like to start just with the bottom line up front. The good news, we're on schedule. In one case, we're ahead of schedule with construction. We're also on budget. So this is an excellent outcome for the company. And we've done a good job in terms of contracting and being able to eliminate any CapEx leakage and also been able to back-to-back any regulatory or delay risk we have to the parties most capable of managing that risk, which is the construction consortiums themselves. If I could have you draw your attention to the map on the right side of the slide, I'd like to point out this nice geographical cluster of assets that we have coming together. You can see the Alunorchi Norse Hydro Aluminum Refinery right in the middle of the photo. And then just down into the left, both of our power plant locations, I'll talk about those in just a second. But this is a profitable cluster of assets that will be delivered into next summer. and we will then be able to conclude our capex cycle in the Barcarina cluster. This cluster of assets is going to have a demand of approximately 60 TBTUs per year, with potential for upsizing that as the power plant's dispatch increases in years of poor hydrology in Brazil, which are becoming more frequent. I'd like to start with the Norsk Hydro contract. This is a 30 TBTU per annum contract, which we started servicing in March of 24. It's got a 15-year tenor with a very creditworthy counterparty in Norsk. That contract and our current volumes on a daily basis, we're currently supplying approximately 74 million cubic feet per day of gas to that facility. We have two power projects, which you've heard about before. I'll give you an update on them. Although they're both power plants, of course, they're quite different. The Selba power plant is a combined cycle power plant, which basically means it captures the waste heat generated by the turbine combustion and passes that through a water and steam cycle to increase the power plant efficiency and output by about 50% compared to a simple cycle project. That's a very important process for a power plant that's expected to dispatch any significant amount on an annual basis, which this plant does. The power plant is a 630 megawatt power plant using Mitsubishi technology. It is 88% complete. It has a 25-year PPA with all of the terms that Leandro mentioned before in terms of commodity risk pass-through and also inflation adjusted. The COD, or the commercial operation date of this asset, will occur in the second half of this year. The PortoSem asset is quite different. This is a simple cycle project, which is generally used when you have any kind of sort of fast start peak support application, which is the nature of this asset. It's a 1.6 gigawatt power plant, which is expected to dispatch less than Selba. but is at 39% complete, has a 15-year PPA, and the COD will be the following summer. If I could have you go to now slide 25, please. I want to get into a little bit more detail on these assets and talk about the construction specifically of each one. As I did mention, Selba II is the 630-megawatt plant, and being combined cycle, it's a bit more complex in terms of the engineering and the erection phase of this project. So we chose an engineering-heavy consortium. We chose a consortium, a Japanese consortium of Toyo Engineering with Mitsubishi as the equipment supplier and have been able to secure lump-sum turnkey contracts, which place the risk of schedule and cost overruns firmly on the consortium and also aligns our goals in terms of project completion on time and on budget. The project is 88% complete, as I said. We've already started cold commissioning. Just this week, we had a very important milestone for the project, especially for a combined cycle project. We were able to introduce water onto the site into the water treatment plant, which allows us to start commissioning the water and steam cycle. This project, as I said, will provide firm power dispatch annually during the second semester of every year. And the cash flows for this project will commence in the second half of 25. You can see a few photos there on the right. Porto SEM, we have a different consortium makeup, primarily because of the different nature of the projects. A simple cycle project is much more civil construction focused rather than the complex erection and construction activities that are related to a combined cycle. So we chose a local contractor that is very experienced and has a very good track record in Brazil and is very experienced with the civil construction part of the scope. They're also partnered with Mitsubishi on a joint and several basis in our strong lump sum turnkey contracts. The project is 39% complete compared to a planned, at this stage, completion of 31%. So we're quite pleased to be significantly ahead of schedule. This is, as I said before, a standby asset. It is a capacity contract where we earn very healthy capacity payments in exchange for being ready to be online. immediately upon being notified by the system operator. The capacity revenues of this contract will commence in the second half of 26, as I said before. I wanted to point out two interesting photos on PortoSem, which highlight sort of the challenges that are inherent in constructing in a very remote and rainy area of the world. In this case, we're building in the Amazon. You can see in the first photo on the bottom left, that we have a very large tent erected over the site. That tent is almost 60 feet high and over 300 feet long. It essentially is covering an area of the site where we're going to do a lot of civil work and installation of balance of plant equipment during the rainy season. So essentially we created a dome so that we could continue construction without any interference from the weather that is going on right now as we're in the rainy season. Then you see a photo of one of the gas turbines that is currently en route to the site. That is a Mitsubishi 501 JAC advanced air-cooled design gas turbine. It's state-of-the-art. It is one of the largest turbines available in the world with an ISO output rating of over 400 megawatts. It is one of the five of these turbines that we own as NFE. We're the second largest fleet owner second largest customer of Mitsubishi power in the world when it comes to advanced class gas turbines. This gas turbine is being loaded in this photo at the Savannah, Georgia port after departing Mitsubishi's manufacturing facilities in the United States. Two of them are currently en route to our project right now. They'll arrive in about four to five weeks, and the other two will arrive a few months after that. With that, I'll turn it over to Chris for the financials update. Thank you.
Super. Thanks, Jeremy. Let's turn to the next section. I'll walk through a little more detail on both the financial results for the quarter and fiscal year 2024, as well as an update on cash flow and liquidity. So turning to slide 27, we've included some comments on financing activities both past and present. As you're all familiar, in Q4 2024, the company completed a series of refinancing transactions where we exchanged $875 million of 25 notes, $1 billion of 26 notes, $500 million of 29 notes into a new $2.7 billion 2029 tranche that included about $300 million of new cash proceeds to the balance sheet. As part of that transaction, we agreed to an amendment with our revolving credit facility lenders to extend $900 million of the $1 billion revolver into October of 2027. In addition, we issued $400 million of primary equity anchored by an additional personal investment from our CEO. And Friday, we priced, and today we're closing the upsides of our Term Loan B facility where we raised $425 million. And associated with this, we terminated commitments under the Term Loan A facility in the amount of $350 million. This transaction puts incremental cash on balance sheet, which will be used to fund the FLNG2 CapEx program. This refinancing was a natural progression of terming out and replacing relationship capital from select members of our supportive bank group with institutional investors that are better situated to have long-term funded loans in place. The 2025 asset sales processes are well underway, and as Wes has talked about earlier, we expect to generate $2 billion in net proceeds after fees and any asset-level debt payoffs, which can be used to further pay down corporate debt. Specifically, we will be using eligible proceeds from asset sales to retire the 2026 notes, or we could do a refinancing to extend them, but in any event, that is a near-term focus for us. Longer term, we think the right capital structure would be to take out the Term Loan B and the remainder of the Term Loan A with a long-term asset level financing secured by the FLNG units, as well as long-term offtake agreements. We think that this combination of de-levering as well as extending maturities is in the best interest of debt and equity holders alike. My final comment here is that while we have seen some downgrades to our corporate debt ratings, we would expect that these steps, once completed, will result in positive improvements to our corporate debt profile, which we expect will lead to upgrades. Flipping to slide 28, and the takeaway from this page is that as a result of the refinancing transactions and equity capital raise we completed in Q4, as well as the monetizing, the portion of our supply that we were long, you can see the company has ample liquidity to service debt and to pay committed capex. On the left side of the page, we have a cash flow walk that we've included in prior presentations. Embedded in this, we've updated the 2025 estimated adjusted EBITDA to be $1 billion, as Wes has described already this afternoon. On CapEx, this now includes the costs associated with F1G2 as we have that cash on balance sheet, but it continues to exclude the Brazil power plant CapEx, which is fully funded through either restricted cash on the balance sheet or committed financing facilities. For debt service, this includes the increased costs associated with refinancing but assumes that we pay off $2 billion of debt coming from asset sale proceeds. An important note here is that the way the debt documents work, a minimum of 75% of any asset sale proceeds in excess of $50 million go to pay off debt. The company does have discretion in keeping a portion of the cash on the balance sheet, but for this exercise, and consistent with what we've said publicly, we are assuming we use all of the proceeds to delever, and again, to keep it simple, this assumes the paydown is pro rata to the 29 notes, the RCF, and the term loans. We've excluded the portion of adjusted EBITDA that represents earnings that are generated from charter to third parties, and we've excluded the portion of ship charter hire that's running through interest expense. This results... and cash flow use of $200 million for fiscal year 2025. On the right side of the page, we show beginning of the year unrestricted cash balance was $493 million. Then add to that the proceeds from the Terminal B and Lumina financing that have just closed, which is $490 million. You have the negative $200 million of cash flow from the left side of the page. And finally, our expectation of the FEMA claim, which after taxes and debt repayment suite yields cash inflows of $425 million. All of this results in an end-of-year cash balance projection in excess of $1.2 billion. Turn forward to slide 29, and we have the financial results. Total segment operating margin was $240 million for Q4 and just under $1.1 billion for fiscal year 2024. For Q4, this is $206 million from sales to customers through our downstream terminals and cargoes that were sold to the market, which is about 85% of the revenue for the quarter. A similar percentage exists for the full year 24, which is $955 for the year, or 88% of total segment operating margin. In Q4, we had $34 million of operating margin from the ships, which contributed to $137 for the full year. Core SG&A for the third quarter was $34 million, which is up slightly from Q3, largely due to the professional fees incurred around the refinancing transactions. For 2025, we're forecasting $30 million per quarter or $120 million per year. The deferred earnings line was $108 million in the fourth quarter and is nil for the fiscal year 2024. This represents previously contemplated cargo sales that were included in segment revenue in Q2 and Q3, but they were not recognized in EBITDA until Q4. As a result of all of this and the punchline, adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter, $313 million, or $950 million for the full year of 2024. Moving on to slide 30, for Q4, $242 million of a net loss for GAAP, or a loss of $1.11 per share. For fiscal year 24, $270 million of a net loss, or $125 a share. But importantly, the majority of the Q4 result is a $235 million of charges related to the extinguishment of debt. $225 of that was non-cash and is largely driven by the equity issuance associated with the new 2020-29 notes, which was issued as part of the refinancing. If you adjust that and other non-recurring items out, we would result in $29 million of net income for Q4, or $0.13 a share, and $101 million of net income for the full year 24, or $0.46 a share. Finally, funds from operations for the fourth quarter, $68 million, and for the fiscal year, $263 million. Now that we've shared the high-level earnings for Q4 and fiscal year 24, I want to expand just a little more on the financial statement impact of the press release out this morning regarding the termination of the fuel incentives with PREPA. In prior quarters, notably Q2 and Q3-24, we previously recognized $58 million associated with the fuel savings under our generic incentive contract with PREPA. However, given that we are changing this incentive contract, we are having to reverse that revenue. So we recognized $33 million in fuel savings during Q2, $25 million in fuel savings during Q3, and we had been intending to recognize another $25 million in Q4. So we were previously projecting an additional $83 million in EBITDA for fiscal year 24 that will be excluded and deferred over future periods, but the cash is in hand now. Given this has been changing daily over the past week, we need a couple of extra days to ensure appropriate presentation and disclosures in the 10-K. So as a result, we will be filing a notification of late filing under Rule 12B25 with the SEC. It is important to note, though, that the income statement and adjusted EBITDA numbers included in our earnings release are reflective of the final PREPA deal. We do not expect any material changes to these results released and furnished within the earnings 8K filed with the SEC today. Further, it is our expectation that we will file the 10K before the end of the week. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Wes for some additional updates.
Great. Just a couple of brief updates, and then we'll go to questions. So the three most frequently asked questions I thought I would actually like to say to the end. So questions about the asset sales. We've said this before. This is all public information. We are very focused on deleveraging the company. Deleveraging can happen from one of two ways. It can happen online. the old-fashioned way by making more money than you spend and using that to pay down debt, which, of course, we intend to do, and that will become a bigger and bigger factor for us as we move forward. Number two, though, you can sell assets at accretive values and use those proceeds to pay down debt. The first asset that we are focused on is Jamaica. So Jamaica is the country where we went first, so it's our oldest and most developed market. Just by review, it's about a 30 TBTU downstream market. We generate about $125 million in EBITDA. Virtually all that is cash flow because that's what happens to these businesses over time is that once they're up and running, there's very little capex to run them. It's an extremely attractive profile of assets. It's got 20-plus years of downstream demand contractually. It's got 20-plus years of gas supply. 100% of the assets are U.S. dollar-based. It's never suffered a dollar of credit loss in its entire history. So it is a phenomenal asset. It's in a very, very good market, and we have phenomenal people that actually we're lucky to work with down there. So not surprisingly, it's been a very sought-after asset. We started this process back in the fourth quarter. We're now in kind of a final process with a handful of different folks, and although it's always hard to predict the exact timing for this, I feel like the outcome thus far has been very positive, and then we'll kind of go on from there. So it's the asset sale update. FEMA, my favorite four-letter word, has been a very, very productive period of time for us. FEMA, the way that it works just administratively is that you have, you know, we contracted with a prime contractor who then in turn contracts with the Army Corps that then in turn that money is paid by FEMA. FEMA obviously is the disaster relief providers. They play a massive role in all seriousness, both in a place like Puerto Rico, but also in the wildfires out west and every place else. So it's a critical, critical role that we value and deeply respect. We have had the most kind of comprehensive and in-person interactions with the Army Corps folks. I think that there is a great amount of understanding that we have accomplished in terms of us explaining to them what the nature is of our business and exactly how we provided gas to this and all the different aspects of the contract. And we've learned a lot from them in terms of how they think about the process and whatnot. It's an interactive process that does not have a definitive date right now, but I can say that the level of respect and interaction across the board between us and between them and between FEMA is at an all-time high for sure, and we feel very good about the constructiveness of it. Lastly, Klondike is our our effort to provide power to data center developments. That asset, the first asset that we have that is in our portfolio is in Pennsylvania. in early January to get building permits and air permits for the power plant that we would build there. We expect to get those sometime in the middle of this year, and we are hopeful that later this year we'll have good news with respect to the consummation of construction and marketing with it. So those are the three updates. Last thing I would say is just, you know, when you look at the quarter and the year in total, it's been obviously a heck of a period. Q4, $313 million in EBITDA. The year, $950 million in EBITDA. Our guidance for next year is $1 billion, which is what we're just reaffirming what we said before. Our two biggest markets are the ones that have the biggest opportunities. Brazil, that first power plant, we expect to turn on in the second half of the year and produce cash flow for us. The power auctions, as Leandra went through, are upcoming. They could be significant assets for us. We're incredibly well positioned in that market in both the north and, most importantly, in the south. Puerto Rico, perhaps the biggest gas-to-power opportunity in the world. We are the sole provider of gas in San Juan, where over 80% of the people live in that geographic area, so we feel like we're incredibly well-positioned. Capital structure-wise, $4.775 billion later, it has been a very, very busy and productive year for us. The balance sheet is in much better shape than it was at the beginning of it. We have excellent liquidity, as Chris went through. We are poised to deleverage, simplify, and grow the business, and those are the perspectives that we have. So with that, I will take a pause, and we'll open it up to questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you. And if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. And we'll take our first question from Ben Nolan with Stievel.
Yeah, thanks. I appreciate you taking my questions. So the first I wanted to start, if we could, on slide number six where you talked about your effective open position. Can you maybe help me quantify that a little bit? Between what you're buying and producing, 170 TBTUs of annual supply, how much of that is available? And then you talk about a portion of it has been fixed. Can you maybe put a little context on the spread that you have locked in for it?
Yeah, the majority of our position, the vast majority of it, is either sold or destined for a downstream customer or hedged. So our actual long position would show up as something slightly more than that, Ben. But basically the decision that we made, as I said, was to de-risk the portfolio, with really the caveat being that we think that there is a lot of volatility potentially ahead. And to the extent that there was, we didn't want to let the yellow box evaporate. And so our goal was not to be exposed to, at this point, either increases in TTF that actually then somehow hurt us because we were short or decreases in TTF that somehow eroded the profits that we already had in the balance sheet. And so we thought that actually the conservative approach was the right one, and that's why we hedged it up. Obviously, when the FLNG2 kind of comes into the portfolio here in the first part of 27, those will be incremental volumes. Those are volumes that we are already talking to people that are interested in buying them, so it's a good position to be in. So that would be technically a long position, but it's not yet something that is deliverable about it. But on the balance sheet, deliverable positions, we are essentially neutral. So we have, as I said, we've either sold, committed discreetly, or we have – hedge them so that we are actually insulated from price moves.
Okay. And then for my next question, I know in conversations that we've had in the past, there were a number of cost-saving initiatives that you guys were looking to undertake. You did that in Puerto Rico or in the Northern Islands or in Jamaica. Could you maybe give any update on, first of all, what those look like, how – how meaningful they would be and where you are in that process.
Yeah, I'd say the majority of the cost savings are from the ships and FSRUs side of the balance sheet. So we've got some FSRUs that have come back to us that are under market, and we've talked about initiatives to try to realize the gap between market and where they're priced. Those are more opportunities on the profit side. On the other side, we've got an abundance of ships. When we increased the portfolio of gas we provided in Puerto Rico, we increased the number of supply ships from two to five, We're trying to reduce that from five to two. And that is well underway. We spent a tremendous amount of time and effort basically refurbishing and upgrading the berth in Puerto Rico to be able to take in a bigger ship that will then simplify that supply chain. That's what we're focused on right now. And we have a handful of other initiatives that we think are also meaningful. One of the things that has been really interesting is that as we have basically built some version of just about every terminal. You can imagine we've learned a lot of things. And as part of that, we think that there are significant opportunities. And pretty much in the shipping business, everything you touch is worth millions of dollars. So if you can reduce a ship or two or just use it more efficiently, you can save meaningful amounts of money. And that really is the focus. On the people side, obviously, we think there's always opportunities to continue to grow the business and and whatnot, but we've got a great core of people that have worked extremely hard and really effectively, and so we think there's less on the labor side, but on the ship side of it, we think that there's definitely meaningful opportunities to do some good work.
All right, I appreciate it. Thanks, Wes. Yeah, thanks, Ben.
And we'll take our next question from Chris Robertson with Deutsche Bank.
Hi, good afternoon.
Thank you for taking my questions. I was going to ask a bit about the Brazil power auction, but Leandro did a pretty good job of laying an overview there. So I wanted to ask him a bit more of a specific question about the two gigawatts that you registered of your own power projects, just in terms of where would you source the turbines? How are you thinking about the number of different projects that makes up that two gigawatts? and what estimated capex might look like for something like that.
Hi, Chris.
Thanks for the question. So we, as I said, we registered two gigawatts in projects. And you went straight to the point, I mean, the most difficult thing for this auction will be to secure turbines availability. And we did it, so we have security turbines from one of the O&Ms that are our partners, so we're confident that we have turbines available not only for the 2028 COD date, but also for 29 and 30. The capex for those plants, and I'm mirroring here what we just did at PortoSan, which we hired the full EPC lump sum tourniquet last year, is around $600 per kilowatt installed. And those projects, they're going to be spread over two different sites initially. Nevertheless, we have many other projects that qualified for the auction connected to the same pipeline that we do provide gas that would also be interested to somehow partner with us. So that number until the auction in June could increase a bit.
Okay. Thanks for that, Leandro. I guess as a follow-up, when you guys are talking to potential partners here that have existing assets and you're coming in as a potential gas supply partner, how are those conversations going with the potential for sharing in some part of fixed capacity payment in addition to you know, the variable dispatch and the spread on that. Is that part of the conversation or what does that look like?
Yeah, absolutely, Chris. I mean, we are discussing with about potentially supplying gas to brownfield assets. And in the end of the day, what those projects need is a kind of gas call option, right? Because their power plant is available to produce power whenever the system needs. So they need to buy gas whenever they're required to produce power. So it's a gas call option. And yes, I mean, in order to buy that gas call option for us, they will need to pay a premium for the call option, which is our terminal fee, plus a strike price that it's going to be a premium over the JKM. So yes, I would say that all the players in the country they are already expecting that because we have done contracts before charging capacity fees or terminal fees in a high strike price whenever they buy the gas. So all the discussions that we are having right now, they are according on that direction.
Great. Yeah, that was really helpful, Leandro. Thank you. I'll turn it over. Thank you.
And we'll take our next question from Sharif Al-Maghrabi with BTIG.
Hey, thanks for taking my questions. A couple on Puerto Rico. First, as we think about building to that $1 billion of EBITDA guidance, it seems like there's a lot of upside to volumes under the island-wide contract. How quickly can some of these older plants switch over to gas?
Really, as quickly as they can get regas installed. If you have the regas in stock, which we do, you can actually convert them fairly quickly. The megagens are actually connected to a regas system now, so they could actually convert at the drop of a hat. The MiGWAS plant is entirely gas-ready. It just simply needs regas that is put in place. It's basically a regas unit and a buffer tank is what kind of sits between it. The Campalachee plant, same thing. It's actually a gas-ready plant, and 160 of the 240 megawatts, the other asset, needs some technical work. And the Aguirre plant is actually ready today. So the short-term opportunity on the conversions is significant. And it really became one of the factors in the discussions we had with them. As I said, they were just uncomfortable. Notwithstanding the contract, they were uncomfortable with the notion that we would be selling gas and generating revenues and still earning an incentive, even though that's what the contract called for. And it was an easy decision to sit down with them and say, look, we share objectives, and our objectives are we want to provide more gas and power to the island, and we want to save you a lot of money, and they want to save money on the go-forward basis, and they want to save on the incentives. It's a very, very simple and easy transaction. There are a few things in life that are truly win-wins. This is one of them. So we're happy to do our part on that. And we think that the benefits will become manifest quickly because we think that there's going to be a significant amount of activity on these initiatives on the conversion side.
That's helpful, Culler. And then, you know, kind of longer term, How does contract renewal work for the island-wide contract? Are there a fixed number of extension options, or does it just roll every March?
There's a couple of different extension options, but for the first time, the government really came to us, came to me a couple of months ago and said, we would like to run an RFP for a new contract that would have significantly more durations. Obviously, the year-by-year tenor of it creates instability in terms of their energy security. They recognize what a critical part of the energy sector of the gas is today, only to get more critical as they add more volume into it. This is something we talked about having a duration of 10 years or 15 years or even longer. We know what the tenor looks like on the new contract that we signed on the new power plant. That's a 20-year contract. But I would expect that there will be something that happens in the not-too-distant future with no specific time associated with it right now, and I would expect that it would end up being a significantly longer duration, at least on a portion of it, than what they have right now.
Wes, thanks very much for taking my question. Great. Thank you very much.
We'll take our next question from Chris Scheer with 2E Brothers.
Hi. Thanks for taking the question. I'm just continuing on the question about renewing or extending a longer term the ADTBTU contract island-wide with PREPA. So your initial sales on the island were just like gas sales, gas margin sales. But that ADTBTU is diesel links. but it won't be diesel-linked forever, right? I mean, you may still supply this in 20 years, but go ahead.
Yeah, no, it definitely won't be. The diesel-link, ironically, is our initiative because it was linked to our savings initiative. We wanted to make it crystal clear there was savings, so we linked it to diesel. So you'd say at 73% of diesel, you save 20% of the money. It's not that hard. But it wasn't the pricing that they objected to at the end of the day. It was really just this notion of you're selling us gas, why are you also being charged an incentive for it? And that became the heart of the discussion. I think the new contract that we signed on the new power plant is Henry Hub-based. I think this certainly will be Henry Hub-based when they go to redo it. It's not a natural fit to the diesel savings that was an artifact from you know, a different part of a transaction that we were trying to do. But, you know, I mean, just to put it in perspective, you have, again, 925 megawatts of gas, of diesel burning plants today. You probably have, you know, one and a half to two gigawatts of new power needed. We have the peaker plants that are being built right now that are another 280 or 60 megawatts or whatever. So there's a tremendous amount of – of room for this. I mean, we even talked with them about converting some of their old steamer plants, those boilers, to running on gas. So I think that now that we've kind of gotten past this point on the incentive part of it, I think it's kind of a log jam that then opens up. That's our bet, and it's a bet based on the fact that I assume that people will want to save money and have less emissions, right? That seems like a very logical outcome. And if they do that, we'll sell more gas. It'll be more profitable for us. And so what seems like a give in the short run is actually a great opportunity for both of us. That's the win-win aspect of it.
And with a conversion from diesel to Henry Hub Plus, you're confident you still have sufficient LNG availability, respectable margins, given the selling at the Henry Hub Plus?
We do. We think that the margins are appropriate and consistent with what they are across the rest of the portfolio. I think it's a good situation. Obviously, the more that you sell, probably it may affect your margin at some level, but you're on a total volume basis. As I said, when you add it all up, the gas need quite likely could be 250 or 300 or 350 TBTUs, so many, many times the size of the 50 TBTUs you currently have. So there's a lot of efficiencies in deploying that much gas, and we think there's a lot of savings for them, billions and billions of dollars of savings, frankly. And for us, it obviously could be a huge market.
Gotcha. And I just want to confirm real quick, the $110 million Henera payment, is a part of the $1 billion guided 2025 EBITDA? It is.
Great. Thank you. You bet.
We'll take our next question from Wade Suki with Capital One.
Afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. Just One on guidance, if I could. I might have missed an interim step somewhere, but I wonder if you could kind of speak to the moving parts. For prior guidance, I thought it was around 1.3 to the 1. And if there's anything embedded in guidance, something like asset sales or sort of non-incurrentions.
Hey, Wade, it's Chris. No, the simple change is that we're not including – FEMA claim in the guidance for 2025, the $1 billion should be exclusive of the claim. That's the simple answer.
Gotcha. That's what I thought. Thank you. And just to switch gears a little bit, dovetail on, I think it was Ben's question earlier, talking about the supply book open cargos and whatnot. I'm actually thinking of a longer term after you get these projects up and running and So just wondering if you might be able to give us color on the third-party supply book, kind of what the supply situation is in the out years, excluding FLNG 1 and 2, maybe 26, 27 timeframe. Any color you could give us on the third-party supply book would be great. Thank you.
Yeah, I mean, obviously the further out that you go, the more supplies available. The tightness in the market is really a function of the shortness of gas, in particular in Europe with the – the restrictions on the Russian gas. That's why Russian gas coming back into the European markets, if that was to pass, would have a profound impact, I think, certainly on prices in Europe and thus worldwide. As you go further out, there's obviously a tremendous amount of activity on the construction side, and the prices go out. Especially if you're looking for a longer-term tenor, there's a lot of gas that is available. With respect to our portfolio, we do have a couple million tons in long-term contracts. We have our own FLNGs. We have very long dated. I think that as you extend duration in some of these portfolios, you're also then likely to then look to maybe layer in other amounts of supply. It's a large portfolio. As I said, it is on a current basis, we feel like it's as well matched as we can make it. So it's like you're predicting the usage levels with all the different customers, and there's always different factors into it, but to the best of our abilities, that's what we try to do, to de-risk the portfolio, take advantage of the elevation in price, generate some earnings, but still maintain some significant amounts of upside on these. And so that's the goal. But longer term, there's lots of gas, I think, that is readily available for longer term projects, especially with creditworthy downstream.
Perfect. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Can I squeeze one more in? Sure.
I think you're the last question.
Okay. Thank you. I'm just wondering if there's anything sort of maybe more creative that you can do in Brazil with the auction coming up, and I'm thinking about the existing Porter Sim and Selva plants. Is there anything, whether it's adding capacity or expanding the plants, anything like that, Again, kind of thinking creatively to participate more so in that option. Anything there would be great. Thank you.
I gave an answer for Leandro on that. The port of salmon and the silva plants are committed, right? So, unfortunately, we can only commit them once. They are tied to very long-term contracts. That said, we think that there is incremental capacity at the terminal And so obviously that's something that Leandro and Jeremy and the other guys down there are in the thick of. The power auctions are an unbelievable opportunity in our judgment in terms of the array of options that they have, both on the brownfield and the greenfield sites, and both in the gas, terminal, cash flows, et cetera. The one point that I would just reinforce is that where in the past we either bought or acquired these PPAs and then built the plants, We think now that there's lots of different opportunities to partner in different ways. We're very focused on our terminal cash flows, but the overall impetus of the business is to minimize CapEx, maximize free cash flow, grow without actually building a tremendous amount of stuff on balance sheets. So while you can put capital into it, we think that that's actually something that we're very, very focused on, and we think there's going to be lots of opportunity to do so in this house. Great. Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
And at this time, I'll turn the conference back for any additional or closing remarks.
Great. Well, thank you, everyone, for your time on a Monday night. We appreciate it and look forward to talking to you again soon. Thank you.
And that concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.