Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Chenier Energy Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Call and Webcast. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Randy Battia, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Chenier's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Earnings Conference Call. The slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call are available at Chenier.com. Joining me this morning are Jack Fusco, Cheniere's President and CEO, Anatole Fagan, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, and Zach Davis, Executive Vice President and CFO. Before we begin, I would like to remind all listeners that our remarks, including answers to your questions, may contain forward-looking statements, and actual results could differ materially from what is described in these statements. Slide two of our presentation contains a discussion of those forward-looking statements and associated risks. In addition, we may include references to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as consolidated adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow. A reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable GAAP measure can be found in the appendix to the slide presentation. As part of our discussion of Chenier's results, today's call may also include selected financial information and results for Chenier Energy Partners LP or CQP. We do not intend to cover CQP's results separately from those of Chenier Energy Inc. The call agenda is shown on slide three. Jack will begin with operating and financial highlights, Anatole will then provide an update on the LNG market, and Zach will review our financial results in 2025 guidance. After prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. I'll now turn the call over to Jack Fusco, Cheniere's President and CEO.

Thank you, Randy. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today as we review our outstanding results from the fourth quarter and full year 2024. and discuss our vision for what I expect to be an exciting and rewarding year for Chenier in 2025. In 2024, we once again generated excellent results across the key strategic priorities of the company, driven by our uncompromising ambition to consistently deliver sustainable, long-term value to our stakeholders. These results, underpinned by Chenier's safety-first culture, operational excellence, customer focus, and financial discipline, further distinguish Janir in the market and reinforce our reputation as best in class across our entire platform. We take these successes in 2025 with the wind at our backs as a global market call for new LNG capacity is ringing loud and clear. Energy security in general and natural gas in particular have been prioritized over the last several years, accelerated by geopolitical conflicts in multiple theaters that have refocused governments on the long-term importance of natural gas. Throughout these conflicts, the criticality of a long-term energy supply portfolio that is diverse, secure, and perhaps most of all reliable has been laid bare. And Chenier's LNG stands as an ideal and powerful solution. The United States has a significant opportunity to provide that reliable and secure energy supply the world over. And we now have a more constructive backdrop for the development and operation of large scale energy infrastructure in this country. We are engaged with the new administration in Washington and are optimistic for a more clear, transparent and predictable permitting and regulatory regime so we can continue to safely build and operate more LNG capacity the world so clearly needs for decades to come. Please turn to slide five. where I'll highlight our key accomplishments and results for the fourth quarter in full year 2024, as well as introduce our financial guidance for 2025. In the fourth quarter, we generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.6 billion, bringing our total for the full year to $6.155 billion. We generated distributable cash flow of approximately $1.1 billion in the fourth quarter, and approximately 3.73 billion for the full year. Net income in the fourth quarter totaled approximately $1 billion and approximately 3.3 billion for the year. Full year EBITDA landed in the middle of our recently increased guidance range and 155 million above the high end of the original range provided a year ago. On DCF, we delivered results above the most recent range and $300 million above the high end of the original range. These outstanding financial results are once again enabled by the relentless focus on performance that I'm proud to share with my 1,700 Chenier colleagues around the world. We produced a record amount of LNG in 2024, approximately 45 million tons, which is over 10% of the global LNG supply in the year. And we did so while successfully completing turnarounds at both Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi. And most importantly, we once again delivered a top quintile safety performance. In 2024, SPL achieved 11 million labor hours and Corpus Christi achieved 7 million labor hours without a single lost time incident. All of our stakeholders should take as much pride in these results as I do, as the Cheniere production teams continue to set the safety and reliability standard in our industry. During 2024, Zach and his team continue to make excellent progress on our comprehensive capital allocation plan, deploying over $1.5 billion towards our Stage 3 project, paying down $800 million of long-term debt, and buying back almost 14 million shares for approximately $2.25 billion. In addition, We increased the dividend by 15% to $2 per share annualized and announced another $4 billion share repurchase authorization last summer, well ahead of schedule. Looking ahead to the full year 2025, I'm pleased to introduce our 2025 financial guidance of $6.5 to $7 billion in consolidated adjusted EBITDA, $4.1 to $4.6 billion in distributable cash flow, and $3.25 to $3.35 in per unit distributions at CQP. These ranges reinforced at 2024 was a trough year for EBITDA and DCF, as we expect year-over-year growth in 2025 as Corpus Christi Stage 3 begins to enter operations. The guidance range contemplates the first three trains of Corpus Christi Stage 3 startup production this year. Zach will have more to say on guidance in a few minutes, but we are committed to delivering results within these ranges for 2025. We made significant progress on our growth during 2024 as demonstrated from our progress on our Corpus Christi Stage 3 project. Bechtel continues to execute construction and commissioning on an accelerated schedule. At year end, total completion stood at 77.2%, with the construction across the entire project at over 42% complete. We were proud to achieve first LNG back in December, an important milestone that helps reinforce our forecast timeline for Train 1 to reach substantial completion by the end of the first quarter. I'll discuss Stage 3 more on the next slide. With regard to Corpus Christi Trains 8 and 9, the project is nearing the final regulatory approvals required in order to reach FID, and we remain on track to reach FID on this brownfield expansion this year. We recently placed orders for long lead time items to ensure we can continue our construction efforts without delays upon receipt of the remaining necessary permits. Please turn to slide six where I'll provide a more in-depth look at our progress on Corpus Christi Stage 3. We're working closely together with Bechtel to move Stage 3 into operation. Train 1 commissioning continues to progress the plan, and I'm pleased to share that this week we completed production of our first full cargo of LNG from the Stage 3 project. Over 5,000 personnel are working to safely advance the project towards completion, and we are beginning to turn a significant number of systems over to commissioning and startup teams on Train 2. In addition, All equipment and materials on trains one through seven have been procured and delivered at this point, mitigating stage three risks of import tariffs. We continue to target the first three trains to ramp up production by year end of this year, and all seven trains to be substantially complete by the end of 2026. Please turn to slide seven where I highlight our strategic priorities for 2025. First and foremost, we expect to reinforce our track record of best-in-class operations in 2025. We will continue to operate our business the right way, the safe way, especially as we construct and commission Corpus Christi Stage 3. Our hard-earned reputation in the market as a safe and reliable operator is a significant competitive advantage, one which will serve all of us well for the long term, and it is vital we maintain that advantage. Second, we are committed to getting Corpus Christi mid-scale trains 8 and 9 to FID. As I just mentioned, we look forward to receiving the remaining regulatory permits in the near future and are taking the steps necessary in preparation for an FID later this year. During 2024, we locked in approximately a half a billion dollars of long lead time equipment and other costs under limited notices to proceed with Bechtel related to trains 8 and 9, helping to ensure the project can maximize efficiencies on both cost and schedule. Finally, we intend to strategically pursue permits to ensure the long-term growth optionality of our Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi footprints. As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we're actively engaged with the new administration and are very encouraged by the early action and stated policy goals, prioritizing a clear, transparent, and durable permitting process. Given that improvement in the permitting environment for LNG projects here in the U.S., which is a stark contrast from just a few months ago, we have an opportunity and a strategic imperative to secure permits for significant growth at both Sabine and Corpus in order to de-risk the permitting requirements of future project development, with line of sight to a total capacity of over 90 million tons per annum. We will, of course, always adhere to our disciplined capital investment parameters so that any incremental capacity is likely to be built under a phased approach while optimizing our brownfield advantages at both facilities. But while we have this window, we intend to aggressively pursue permits at both sites and give ourselves a path to potentially more than double our current operating capacity once permits in a creative economics online. I look forward to updating you all on these efforts in the coming quarters as they develop. With that, I'll now hand it over to Anatole to discuss the LNG market. Thank you all again for your continued support of Chenier.