Cheniere Energy, Inc.

your questions may contain forward-looking statements, and actual results could differ materially from what is described in these statements. Slide 2 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 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 and 2025 guidance. After prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. I will 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 results from the first quarter of 2025. The year is off to an excellent start, evidenced by the strong financial results and operational, execution, and capital allocation milestones that we achieved during the quarter. We have much to be proud of from the first quarter, and our results and operations only further validate to the market that Cheniere is the reliable and disciplined LNG provider of choice in America. Our LNG platform and expansion plans are designed to develop new production capacity in pursuit of enabling customers around the world to realize the material benefits of a secure, affordable, and reliable energy supply like we enjoy here in America. That said, we find ourselves in an evolving market landscape characterized by heightened volatility and increasing uncertainty as geopolitical risks, shifting global trade dynamics, and the competitive landscape continue to dominate the narrative. Despite the volatility, headlines, reciprocal headlines, and the other dynamics throughout the quarter We remain steadfast in our commitment to operational excellence and delivering on our promises to our customers and broader stakeholder base. We recognized an income, an all-time quarterly record amount of LNG for the first quarter and made significant achievements and advancements in both our construction efforts at stage three, as well as our development efforts on mid-scale trains eight and nine. leveraging our brownfield platform and solidifying Cheniere's next phase of accretive growth. Please turn to slide five, where I'll highlight our key results and accomplishments for the first quarter of 2025. In the first quarter, we generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.9 billion, distributable cash flow of approximately $1.3 billion, and net income of approximately $350 million. Today, we are reconfirming the full year 2025 guidance we provided on the last call and are tracking well to deliver financial results within those ranges. During the first quarter, we achieved several significant execution milestones that I'd like to highlight. First, we achieved substantial completion on the first train of the Corpus Christi Stage 3 project, and this was done ahead of schedule and within budget. care, custody, and control of Train 1 from Bechtel in March. I'd like to congratulate the Chenier and Bechtel teams for delivering the first train of Stage 3 safely and timely, and thereby further building upon the track record of excellence in execution that is consistently demonstrated. One train down, six to go. Bechtel has progressed overall project completion to 82.5%, with most of the remaining work being construction. As we discussed on the last call, procurement for Stage 3 is basically complete, effectively eliminating the project's exposure to potential tariffs on equipment and materials. I'll discuss this prospective tariff dynamic in more detail on the next slide. I continue to expect to have the first three trains reach substantial completion by the end of 2025. In fact, recent progress on site, particularly on Trains 3 and 4, has increased my confidence in that target, as well as the likelihood that we'll have Train 4 in commissioning by the end of this year as well. Train 2 is well into the commissioning phase at this point, and I expect to achieve first LNG around the end of this month or early next. We've been able to deploy significant lessons learned from our commissioning and early operations of Train 1 into Train 2 and expect the subsequent trains to benefit from these learnings and efficiencies as we bring them into operations. During the first quarter, we received our FERC permit on Mid-Scale Trains 8 and 9, one of the key remaining steps ahead of an expected FID later this year. Trains 8 and 9 received a positive environmental assessment from FERC last June, so we were pleased to see FERC act on this brownfield shovel-ready expansion project. I'll cover Trains 8 and 9 and the timeline around that project in more detail in a moment. On the operations front, we had two major operational milestones during the quarter, which are each achievement worthy of celebration as they are the outcome of Chenier's Safety First culture and commitment to operational excellence. First, I'm proud to say we safely produced and exported our 4,000th cargo of LNG in March. Chenier is the fastest company to achieve this in the world, having done so in just over nine years. Also in the first quarter, Chenier Marketing, or CMI, sold its 1,000th LNG cargo. CMI's responsibilities and contributions have evolved considerably since managing the first commissioning cargo at SPL back in February of 2016. Today, this essential part of Chenier manages not only spot cargoes and commissioning volumes, but also multiple delivered long-term contracts, including our IPM volumes, and has a leading position in the LNG shipping market. CMI's capabilities and reliability are a key part of what separates us from our competitors, and we are proud to celebrate this significant milestone. Please turn now to slide six, where I'll address the evolving landscape around trade and tariffs and how Chenier is positioned. Certainly, the last few weeks have been marked by volatility and some confusion around tariffs and trade as announcements and proclamations from here and abroad have come in rapid-fire succession. The underlying issues and the developing policies to address them have raised questions from our investors, customers, and other stakeholders regarding the potential impact on the physical LNG market and the LNG contracting environment, as well as the cost of materials and equipment. As a result, over the last few weeks, I've spent significant time in Washington, D.C., meeting with the leadership of multiple departments and agencies, and providing the perspective of Chenier and the U.S. LNG industry in policy discussions around those key issues. From these meetings, it is clear that the administration strongly supports our industry, and they understand the significant role LNG can play in the support of the administration's energy dominance agenda and trade priorities and the importance and durability of our permits long-term. With regard to the physical market, the destination flexibility inherent in U.S. LNG contracts, which Chenier pioneered, is a significant mitigant of impacts to physical flows of volume. Even so, we are uniquely insulated from volatility in the short-term market via our highly contracted business model. the overwhelming majority of which is FOB. Any potential impact is further mitigated by the depth and the physical liquidity of the LNG market today. With well over 40 importing markets and regasification capacity that continues to grow well in excess of supply, LNG volumes can respond to signals and reach the markets where it is most economic. On the contracting front, Anatole will touch on this in his remarks in a few minutes. But first and foremost, our long-term LNG demand outlook remains unchanged. Current trade tariff dynamics have not altered the structural shift to natural gas or the many advantages that US LNG provides our long-term customers as they construct diverse, reliable, and secure long-term energy portfolios, and for our country as we think about trade balances. And finally, on materials and equipment costs, we have significantly mitigated the risk both for Stage 3 and mid-scale Trains 8 and 9. On Stage 3, procurement is effectively complete, and materials and equipment have been delivered to the site, so the risk of tariffs impacting the cost of the project has been substantially taken care of. With respect to mid-scale trains 8 and 9, as mentioned previously, we have issued LNTPs to Bechtel, which help lock in costs and schedule ahead of FID worth over $500 million. With the majority of the total cost of trains 8 and 9 expected to be labor and a fair amount of equipment and materials sourced domestically, we don't anticipate a material impact on the cost of mid-scale trains trains 8 and 9 in any of our scenario modeling. The recent focus on trade balances and tariffs have highlighted the outsized impact that LNG contracts can have on those dynamics, given the absolute dollar magnitude in the tenure of our agreements, as well as the fact that we have signed contracts with companies in nearly 20 different countries. We believe that reality only further improves the backdrop for constructive dialogue with LNG buyers around the world. Turn now to slide seven, where I'll cover mid-scale trends eight and nine in our expected path to FID. We're progressing trends eight and nine towards FID, which I expect with increasing confidence and visibility to occur in the coming months. With identified de-bottlenecking opportunities across all trains, we expect trains 8 and 9 to add up to approximately 5 million tons of volume to our platform at Corpus Christi, increasing our overall capacity to approximately 60 million tons per annum. We received our FERC permit in March, which had no request for rehearing, and in May, we received authorization from FERC to begin site work. So we were very close to having the necessary regulatory approvals to move forward in the coming months. With respect to other remaining necessary steps, we're currently working together with Bechtel to finalize the EPC agreement, which we expect to execute in the near term, as well as other remaining project development pieces falling into place, ensuring the project meets or exceeds are disciplined capital investment parameters and return requirements. These actions are evidence that we are in very late stages of development on Trains 8 and 9, and we are excited to bring this Brownfield expansion project to FID soon. The project is designed to maximize our in-place infrastructure and leverage the ongoing execution on Stage 3 in order to deliver much-needed volume to the market and market-leading risk-adjusted returns to our shareholders. With that, I'll now hand it over to Anatole to discuss the LNG market. Thank you all for your continued support of Cheniere.

Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide nine.

The first quarter saw another relatively tight LNG market on the back of a largely normal winter weather season and no meaningful LNG supply growth. However, after reaching 15-month highs in early February, We saw spot prices drop sharply thereafter, albeit still above the levels we saw this time last year. Following several years of tepid growth, we're now seeing gas supply into U.S. LNG facilities ramping up. Feed gas for U.S. exports is averaging approximately 16 BCF a day lately, and we expect this to continue to grow as new projects currently under construction commence service. U.S. projects, including, of course, cheniers, are expected to contribute over 80 million tons of incremental liquefaction capacity to the market by 2029. In this upcoming supply cycle, which we've been highlighting for a while now, the growth increments are expected to be significant in absolute terms. But as we've detailed before, the market they will enter is markedly different than that of a decade ago with respect to depth, liquidity, and sophistication. We expect this growth to serve as a relief valve to help rebalance the global market, enabling some of the price elastic demand to reenter the market and reinforce the affordability of LNG as a key rationale to drive further long-lived gas infrastructure investments globally. While we see 25 and 26 as pivotal years for supply growth, there are a multitude of factors that continue to inject uncertainty into the market, affecting overall sentiment. The geopolitical and trade issues and their related news coverage caused sharp movements in prices throughout the first quarter and continue to present risks to both the upside and the downside going forward. particularly in the short end of the curve. Cold weather and the cessation of Ukrainian gas flows drove daily TTF month ahead prices upwards early in Q1, settling January at nearly $16 in MMBTU. Since then, prices have moderated, in part due to the proposed relaxation of storage refill targets, as well as announced tariffs and reciprocal tariffs with China. TTF and JCAM settled March at $13.80 an M and $14.95 and M respectively. Lower LNG demand in China, coupled with uncertainty surrounding tariffs and their impact on the global economy, accelerated downward momentum as we enter the shoulder season, with TTF and JKM currently trading below $12 an M. This price moderation persists despite the fact that European storage levels are at multi-year lows, natural gas flows from Russia to Ukraine have ceased, and Ukraine itself has historically low storage levels. Let's turn to the next page to address the regions in further detail. LNG market fundamentals reversed in Q1 compared to last year when Asia was pulling cargoes amid lower European demand. This year, following the cessation of Russian flows through Ukraine and with Europe's storage depleted, Europe's call on LNG was strong amid cooler winter temps. LNG imports into Europe rose 23%, or 6.7 million tons year-on-year in the first quarter, to 36 million tons. with deliveries from the U.S. increasing 34%, up 5.2 million tons to 20.5 million tons. Higher gas burn in power, which was up 11%, or 19 terawatt hours due to lower wind output, coupled with an increase in heating demand, supported LNG demand during the quarter. The steady supply of U.S. LNG imports contributed to the rise in storage levels and stabilization of prices. LNG from the U.S. represented 57% of Europe's total imports during the quarter. Non-Russian pipe gas into Europe fell 2.5%, down 0.9 BCM in Q1, as outages in Norway and lower flows from Azerbaijan offset a 9% increase in North African pipeline supplies. With cargoes being pulled to the Atlantic Basin, LNG imports into Asia declined relative to last year. During the quarter, China's imports declined 25% year-on-year to 15.1 million tons. Total gas demand was nearly flat year-on-year, as small increases in the residential and chemical sectors were offset by decline in output from heavy gas consumption sectors, such as certain manufacturing and refining, leading to a notable 1.5 BCM drop in gas demand from the industrial sector. LNG imports into China were further pressured by stronger domestic natural gas production as well as increased pipe gas imports. As expected for contract ramp-up, gas imports into China via the Power of Siberia One pipeline cumulatively reached 6.8 BCM in January and February, which was an increase of 1.9 BCM year-on-year. In the JKT region, cold weather combined with lower coal generation in South Korea and the decommissioning of nuclear generation in Taiwan helped support LNG demand in the region. This month we'll see the last nuclear generation unit decommissioned in Taiwan, just as its third LNG import terminal is being commissioned, with plans for a fourth terminal. Taiwan's import capacity is set to significantly increase from the current 16.5 million tons last year to up to 37 million tons once the fourth facility and other expansions enter service in the coming years. In South Korea, Cooler temps and higher gas-fired power generation contributed to storage withdrawals leading to a 14% increase in LNG imports in March. COGAS's gas-fired power generation was up 7% year-on-year, or 2 terawatt-hours, in January through February, a trend that we expect to continue as the country furthers its efforts to phase out coal generation. Let's move to the next slide for some perspectives on the latest trade policy developments in the context of the LNG market. The rapid escalation in global trade policy developments in recent months has caused concern over the impact this could have on LNG trade and sales, particularly between U.S. and China. The U.S., led by Chenier, has become the world's largest LNG producer, while China has become the world's largest LNG consumer. So this trade relationship is important to the industry. However, managing tariffs between the U.S. and China is actually well-chartered territory for Chenier. as we had a long-term foundation customer contract with a Chinese buyer in place during President Trump's first term. While those tariffs resulted in de minimis US LNG cargoes delivered into China's terminals during that time, we performed on our contract and there was no impact to the growth in US LNG output, nor in overall market growth as the volumes loaded by Chinese customers were redirected to other markets. Since that time, The sophistication, agility, and capability of market participants, including Chinese buyers, has been enhanced in large part due to the growth in flexible volumes and the resulting liquidity those volumes bring to the market. With the flexibility inherent in U.S. contracts and the increased sophistication of market players, we're confident today's market is even better equipped to navigate the evolving dynamics in global trade policy than it was in 2018 and 2019. Looking ahead, there are significant volumes of U.S.-China long-term LNG contracts set to start over the next few years. But even when these reach their peak of roughly 25 million tons, these contracts will only represent about 4% of total LNG trade. Assuming these volumes are redirected, the market should be able to absorb the supply and optimize around these trade constraints as LNG demand continues to grow across the rest of the world. It's important to note that the Atlantic route between the US and China takes US cargoes past Europe, India, and Southeast Asia, providing ample logistical opportunities to arbitrage these cargoes into other markets. Finally, as you can see in the chart to the right, market commentators expect LNG to remain critical to China's energy mix, maintaining a quarter of total gas supply through at least 2040. China's commitment to natural gas appears unwavering, and we fully expect China to remain one of the three main nodes of LNG demand growth, for decades to come. With that, I'll turn the call over to Zach to review our financial results and guidance.

Thanks, Anatole, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be here today to review our first quarter 2025 results and key financial accomplishments and to discuss our financial guidance for 2025. Turn to slide 13. For the first quarter 2025, we generated net income of approximately $350 million, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.9 billion, and distributable cash flow of approximately $1.3 billion. Compared to the first quarter of 2024, our 2025 results reflect higher total margins as a result of higher international gas prices, optimization downstream of our facilities, that freed up incremental SPL and CCL source cargoes for CMI to sell in the spot market, and the timing of certain cargoes during the quarter leading to a lower proportion of our LNG being sold under long-term contracts. During the first quarter, we recognized in income 616 TBTU of physical LNG, which included 609 TBTU from our projects, and seven TBTUs sourced from third parties, respectively. Approximately 90% of our LNG volumes recognized were sold in relation to term SBA or IPM agreements. During the quarter, we also produced and sold approximately six TBTUs of LNG attributable to the commissioning of Train 1 of the Stage 3 project, the net margin of which, in adherence to GAAP, is not recognized in income, nor are EBITDA and DCF results, but rather as an offset to our overall CapEx spend on the project. Our team continued to execute on our updated 2020 vision capital allocation plan throughout the first quarter, deploying over $1.3 billion towards shareholder returns, balance sheet management, and discipline growth. We have now allocated approximately $15 billion of our initial target of $20 billion by 2026 as we continue to reduce our share count and enhance our capital returns, while retaining financial strength and flexibility to self-fund accretive growth across our platform, all of which positions us well to achieve our target of generating over $20 per share of run rate distributable cash flow for our shareholders. During the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 1.6 million shares for approximately $350 million. leaving approximately $3.5 billion remaining on our current buyback authorization through 2027 as of quarter end. The market volatility post-quarter, especially in early April, enabled the plan to be more active and deploy over $200 million for over 1 million shares just in the month of April, as our financial position, along with our heavily contracted cash flow guidance, gives us the ability to be opportunistic on the buyback during times like these. With less than 222 million shares outstanding as of last week, we continue to methodically make meaningful yet opportunistic progress towards our initial target of 200 million shares outstanding. We also declared a dividend of 50 cents per common share for the first quarter last week and remain committed to our guidance of growing our dividend by approximately 10% annually through the end of this decade, targeting a payout ratio of approximately 20% over time. Even with increasing our dividend by over 50% since its initiation in 2021, our dividend and payout ratio are designed to enable the financial flexibility essential to our comprehensive and balanced long-term capital allocation plan and disciplined self-funded and accretive growth objectives. During the first quarter, we repaid $300 million of outstanding long-term indebtedness, fully repaying the remaining balance of the $2 billion of SBL 2025 notes due in March. Looking ahead, our next maturity, also at SBL, is not until the middle of next year, which we expect to address with a mix of debt pay down and opportunistic refinancing in order to extend our maturity profile and reduce our interest expense, all while further desecuring and desubordinating our balance sheet and strengthening our investment grade ratings throughout our corporate structure. The focus of our 2025 debt paydown remains within the CQP complex in preparation for financing the SBL expansion project, while CEI maintains its prioritization of shareholder returns, funding stage three, and readying mid-scale eight and nine for FID. In February, we received our 23rd and 24th credit rating upgrades. Since 2021, when Fitch upgraded both CEI and CQP, from BBB- to BBB, our first BBB unsecured rating at CEI and second at CQP. This further sets us apart in the U.S. LNG space and solidifies our investment grade ratings while reflecting the robust credit metrics enabled through operational excellence and our focus on balance sheet management and capital investment discipline these past few years. With a positive outlook on our BBB project rating by S&P at Corpus, We are optimistic for further upgrades to come at Corpus and CEI as we continue to progress through Stage 3 construction. During the first quarter, we funded approximately $325 million of CapEx on Stage 3, bringing total spend on the project to over $4.8 billion. We also deployed approximately $230 million in the first quarter towards future growth and de-bottlenecking. including procurement of certain equipment for mid-scale trains 8 and 9, and continued development capital to progress the SPL expansion project. As Jack noted, we have locked in over $500 million of costs for mid-scale trains 8 and 9 and related infrastructure as we prepare for FID later this year. Our proactive procurement efforts help mitigate the risk around inflation for steel, aluminum, and other materials and equipment. With nearly $3 billion in consolidated cash and ample undrawn revolver and term loan liquidity throughout the Chenier complex, we expect to continue equity funding the Stage 3 CapEx, preserving the financial flexibility to utilize the $3-plus billion of undrawn capacity on the Stage 3 term loan later this year, which would include for funding mid-scale 8 and 9, all while remaining active on our opportunistic buyback program as we continue to manage our cash balances efficiently. Turn now to slide 14, where I will discuss our 2025 guidance and outlook for the remainder of the year. Today, we are reconfirming our full-year 2025 guidance ranges of $6.5 to $7 billion in consolidated adjusted EBITDA and $4.1 to $4.6 billion in distributable cash flow and $3.25 to $3.35 per common unit of distributions from CQP. These ranges continue to reflect our production forecast of 47 to 48 million tons of LNG in 2025, which contemplates our existing nine-train platform plus our outlook for production from the first three trains at Corpus Christi Stage 3 this year. With the substantial completion of Train 1 in March and the progress Jack highlighted earlier on Trains 2 to 4, we are on track to achieve our goal of completing the first three trains at Stage 3 this year. The 2025 production forecast also takes into account the major maintenance on Trains 3 and 4 at Sabine Pass that we will execute over the course of several weeks this summer. Looking at curves today, netbacks have come down recently and are hovering around $5 to $6 for the balance of 2025. Fortunately, our team was able to opportunistically sell into the market or lock in via financially hedging another half million tons of our remaining open capacity prior to the recent pullback, which, when combined with our optimization efforts, largely offset the mark-to-market of our remaining open CMI volumes for the year since the last call. For perspective, today's netbacks are still well above the $2 to $2.50 margin contemplated in our run rate guidance. Since our last call, our team was able to lock in another $100 million of incremental margin from optimization for the year. both upstream and downstream of our facilities, the majority of which came from our downstream optimization efforts. Given the successful startup of Train 1 at Stage 3 and that the CMI team has sold another half million tons of open volumes for this year, we are left with only 50 to 75 TBT remaining unsold for the balance of 2025, most of which is contingent on the timing and ramp-up of Trains 2 and 3 of Stage 3. Given this exposure, we forecast that a $1 change in market margin would impact EBITDA by approximately $50 to $75 million for the full year. As always, our results could be impacted by the timing of certain cargoes around year-end. And as noted on prior calls, our DCF could be affected positively or negatively by changes in the tax code, including any coming tax reform particularly around bonus depreciation, the IRS transition guidance, and the final rules of the corporate alternative minimum tax. These changes can impact the timing and amount of our cash tax payments this year and going forward, but should be immaterial on an NPV basis and not impact our ability to generate over $20 billion of available cash through 2026. To confirm, we do not expect the changes in trade policy to impact our 2025 financial guidance, as our highly contracted platform largely insulates us from market volatility as we are first and foremost a contracted infrastructure company. More importantly, demand for our product long-term remains as strong as ever, as the uncertainty around global trade further highlights the value of the commercial flexibility inherent in our product, as well as our track record of reliability for our customers. As Jack and Anatole have noted today, while news of tariffs and other developments certainly create some variability in the market, we have successfully navigated similar trade dynamics in the past and continue to do so today in terms of commercial execution, project development, and financial opportunity. While we continue to advance brownfield expansions across both Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi, the rigor with which we evaluate further growth is unwavering as every dollar of capital competes. And if we can't deliver the risk-adjusted returns we are accustomed to at the same standard as we've done to date, With lump-sum turnkey EPC contracts and credit-worthy long-term SBAs, we will remain disciplined, maintain a strong investment-grade balance sheet, and continue to opportunistically buy back shares so that we can all own more and more of our existing world-class infrastructure platform over time. Our longer-term outlook for LNG demand growth is unchanged, as US LNG remains essential for global growth. and we will continue to supply the world for decades to come with our reliable, flexible, and cleaner-burning LNG. 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.

Thank you. If you are dialed in via the telephone and 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 once you ask a question. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you do have more questions, please re-enter the queue. We'll go to our first question from Jeremy Tonnet with JP Morgan.

Hi, good morning. Good morning, Jeremy.

Thanks for all the details in the prepared remarks here. I wanted to maybe expand a bit on the current contracting market out there. A lot of talk about trade agreements between the US and others, and LNG seems to be a prime vehicle to participate in balancing trade. Just wondering how, if you could expand a bit more, how that's impacted, I guess, the contracting discussion out there, how you see your opportunity set at this current point.

Go ahead, Anatole.

Hey, Jeremy. Thanks for the question. Yeah, it's an enviable position to be in. We have, obviously, the reputation, the business model, the track record, and the fortuitous position of LNG being the I believe the second largest contributor to the trade balance. So we're dealt a very good hand. We have very robust commercial engagements. And those commercial engagements, we have the luxury of being very selective of with whom we partner to capture the premium that we expect in the market, work with customers that value our proposition, and as you know, have a very high percentage of repeat customers as a result. So it is a tailwind. It's a tailwind that contributes to the position that we have been in for years now, given our track record and our performance.

I'll just add, Jeremy, our conviction on long-term contracting being 90% plus contracted on the infrastructure as we underwrite future FIDs. That conviction is stronger than ever. And do we just have a great position with $50 billion of infrastructure in the ground, do this on a brownfield basis, be at a contracted level, and get those six to seven times capex to EBITDA levels. So really promising what Anatol's working on, and optimistic not just for mid-scale 8 and 9, but we'll have economic first phases of Sabine and Corpus beyond that later this decade.

Got it. That's very helpful. Thanks. And maybe, Anatole, just picking up on a point you put out there, there's a lot of competitors going after the same business that's in focus right now. And just wondering if you could expand a bit more, I guess, how Chenier is viewed in the marketplace and what type of competitive advantages that you believe you present and how that is resonating with customers.

Yeah, thanks, Jeremy. You know, we've said to you and everyone else that we don't compete with a very credible supplier like Qatar, for example. It's a different product in the market. And while very well respected and regarded, it's not something that we view as competition. We think of other Gulf of America projects in kind of a similar vein. We're not in the commoditized kind of FOB business that we pioneered a decade plus ago. We look for differentiated opportunities, and those are, again, customer relationships, counterparties that value our commitment to performance, safety, and reliability, and engagements where, again, we have this symbiotic relationship of creditworthy long-term buyers that we will support in their endeavors and not participate in what you can describe as a race to the bottom for the

commoditized Gulf of America product. Got it. That's helpful. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Next to Teresa Chen with Barclays.

Good morning. Want to touch on the permitting side to an earlier discussion about the durability of permits long term. What are some key learnings so far, either from your ongoing permitting process for mid-scale 8 and 9, or your conversations with the current administration that should translate well to permitting for future projects?

Teresa, this is Jack. After spending most of last week in Washington, D.C., I can tell you that permitting reform is front and center on anything the administration is trying to do. They understand that because of the pause and some other things that there are quite a few projects here in America that have been sitting in the queue for years. And our first round of permits at Chenier, we achieved in a little under two years. That went to four years. And then in some cases, never. So it is a major focus for the administration to get permitting under control. That's a long process. So the DOE needs to complete its study on the need for LNG exports. We think that'll get done relatively soon. We need CERCLA to put out some policy reforms and changes on how they FERC will will review those permits but I think all of that stuff is in the works on specifically on eight and nine we received our FERC permit we had no request for rehearing which was really positive and a first so I feel good that we're moving ahead forward, but there's a lot of work in America so we can get things built.

Thank you for that detailed answer, Jack. In taking a step back, looking at the supply and demand picture for this year, how vulnerable do you think 2025 is to LNG supply shocks? given where European inventories are currently and still a relatively limited amount of incremental supply coming online globally this year.

Yeah, thanks, Theresa. Maybe I'll chime in. This is Anatole. I agree with you and your premise that Europe is vulnerable. It really is, at this point, a country-by-country issue. But, you know, Germany, for example, in the first quarter imported less than a million tons, as you well know. inventories are well below recent years. They're about 10 percentage points below the historical average. They're over 20 percentage points below where they were in 23 and 24. So quite a vulnerable position. This idea that targets will be reduced, we think is actually counterproductive. It's leading to a very flat curve for European gas, which does not incentivize inventories. And I think what people also forget is that without the flow through Ukraine of about 15 BCM, that's another almost 20 percentage points equivalent of storage. And for rough math, 8% is 10 cargoes. So Europe is once again putting itself, especially certain countries are putting themselves into a difficult position, and we may find ourselves in a position to help out once again. First quarter, Chenier sent the most cargoes to Europe since 23, and if things work out the way we hope, the fourth quarter may very much rhyme with that.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Spiro Dunez with Citi.

Thanks, operator. Good morning, team. First question on the 2020 vision. Zach, I think you've got over $15 billion deployed now, so we're just sort of hoping you'd level set us I know that's tracking against the allocation buckets. And, you know, I hate to say it, but how much time do you think you've got until maybe we need another capital allocation update?

Oh, man, already? Well, the 2020 vision, we've still got some work to do, but we're getting there. Basically, the next big step is FID of mid-scale 8 and 9, ideally in the coming months. And that'll kind of lock in the EBITDA and the DCF. And then we'll keep on working down the share count and paying down a bit more debt. But at this point, having done basically $5 billion of debt pay down, $5 billion of buybacks, and $5 plus billion of capex, we're tracking well ahead of completing that $20 billion before 2026. Give us a little more time, but for sure, before the end of 2026, we'll have surpassed easily the $20 billion mark of deployment, and we'll come up with something new for you.

Got it. That's great to hear. Second one, Zach, maybe sticking with you just around the guidance, just pulling together some of the things you said. Sounds like potential for a train 4 to sneak into 25. I suspect that's not a huge contributor to EBITDA per se, but I think would imply that the train three maybe becomes a bigger contributor. Uh, I think you heard you say optimization still pretty strong, another a hundred million in the hopper. So, you know, I think last quarter you said you were comfortable with the midpoint of the range. Where are you kind of leaning right now with that backdrop?

I think it's a testament to our execution, not just operationally, which is like a second to none, uh, but commercially that, uh, margins basically came off since the last call from over eight dollars to under six dollars today and if the team wasn't as proactive as it had been locking in cargoes like honestly in the nine plus dollar range in the middle of the quarter we might not be as convinced that we are rock solid in the middle of the range if not better and we just in terms of our cadence annually It's just too soon in the year to start tightening or raising that guidance materially, but things are progressing in the right direction there. But thanks to locking in those cargoes, thanks to optimization coming through, mainly downstream, third-party sourcing allowed us to produce a few more cargoes at the sites that were sold into the spot market, as well as we actually did some subchartering and made some extra money on the lifting margin through basis differentials. Those things all together basically offset, if not more, the margin compression. And when you think about 47, 48 million tons and 50 to 75 million TBTUs still open, it's minimal. Train 4 coming into this year, that's basically, at this point, forecast to be commissioning, so it won't really move the needle. But yeah, we're optimistic. Train 2 and 3 are progressing well. Hope for first LNG in the next month or so on train 2, and then for train 3 to come in the fall. But really, we have to focus on the 45 million tons of existing nine trains, get through the major maintenance this summer, get through hurricane season, and then we'll feel better about if we got to the higher end of that range or not.

Great. I'll leave it there. Thanks, everyone.

We'll go next to Michael Bloom with Wells Fargo.

Thanks, Jack. Good morning, everyone. I appreciate the comments on the China market and the market's flexibility, but you've always told us that China is really a key market for U.S. LNG, so I'm just wondering how you're thinking of that in light of the potential for a broader, potentially more permanent realignment of global trade and how this impacts your future contracting strategy?

Hey, Michael, thanks. Yeah, so a nuanced answer. So China is very important for the LNG market, and China is very important for Chenier. Chinese counterparties are very important for Chenier. We've told you over the years that we expect it to be about 10% of our contracted portfolio. That is a very substantial number. We've also told you that If we chose to release that constraint, that percentage could go much higher. But those Chinese counterparties, we're proud to have four of them in our portfolio, are very capable market participants. The larger ones have hundreds of people that are involved in the same LNG optimization business that we are in. And as you know, we are agnostic what they do with their cargo. So when the ARB from the Atlantic is closed to China, Why would a cargo bypass a lot of other premium markets, even though it is controlled by a Chinese counterparty? So China, very important to the LNG market, a critical partner of Chenier's as we continue to grow and fortify our business. But U.S. volume, Chenier volumes going to China is not important to us in the slightest.

Great. Thanks for that. That's all I had today.

We'll go next to Bob Rackett with Bernstein Research.

Good morning. If I look at your 1Q consolidated adjusted EBITDA and just annualize that, foolishly, I get to $7.5 billion or so. And clearly, the full year guide, $6.5 to $7. And then if I kind of look at the key drivers that you allude to, and I'm looking for things that could cause the deceleration, the two that sort of pop up are the turnaround, obviously, and then a bit on the potential tax reform. Could you give a little more color on those two issues and some of the milestones to watch for?

Sure. Thanks for that question. First off, on the tax reform, that may affect VCF, but that's not going to affect EBITDA at all. But in terms of EBITDA, we clearly noticed that we beat consensus by $200 million for the quarter. even though we didn't move guidance. And this is literally the third year in a row this has happened where we believe people are still dividing our annual guidance by four instead of noticing that there is truly seasonal production differences between the colder quarters versus the warmer quarters. So we produce the most in Q1 and Q4. So you would expect those two quarters to have higher EBITDA than the middle of the year, which has the shoulder months and the warmest quarters of the year. In addition, margins were, yeah, over eight bucks in Q1, and now for the rest of the year we see them closer to $5 to $6. Add on to that, the major maintenance will start later this quarter at trains three and four. That'll be over three weeks of those trains being down. So you have that in addition. Stage three only has one train up and running at this point. So we expect more trains to be online by second half of the year versus Q2. So I'd expect our lowest production quarter to be Q2 and there to be some variability quarter to quarter on EBITDA. So yes, don't multiply Q1 by four because that's clearly not what we're seeing in the forecast.

Very clear. Thanks for that.

We'll go next to Jean-Anne Salisbury with Bank of America.

Hi, good morning. Jack, as you referenced, there has been a burst of activity on the U.S. LNG front since Liberation Day. I guess my question is if you view most of this activity as related to tariffs and countries wanting to reduce trade deficits, which would likely continue, or if it was more just like built-up activity, I guess, waiting for the LNG ban to be lifted and more of a one-off situation.

Oh, boy, that's, Gina, I think there's just so much activity. And as you know, it was the president's first executive order was energy dominance during the Trump 1.0 administration. They were some of our best salesmen for US LNG. And that's continued during the president's current administration. So there's a big push by the administration to get to energy dominance and to get our exports in line. And I think you're seeing the byproduct of that excitement.

Okay, that makes sense. And then I think my follow-up is probably for Anatole, but it seems like recently more U.S. projects that have FID just very recently or are close to FID have much less firm third-party contracts than in the past. Is that your view as well, and does it kind of long-term change your view of mid-cycle margin?

Well, I guess first I will just reiterate my boss's tagline of we're not in the FID business, and my CFO partners tagline of we will he is the biggest impediment to moving forward with the discipline that we that we apply to deploying capital so Don't expect us to change our stripes as we said that we we still plan our business We don't have ID anything But we plan our business on a mid $2 margin as we said to you before we see that or certainly for the Chenier product as as something that today is the bottom of the range where we would expect to transact. So we'll stay just as disciplined. The market will remain volatile. This is a long cycle business. Your question to Jack earlier, we saw the first FID in two years here, and very little commercial activity underpinned that, to your point. We're not changing our stripes. We'll stay disciplined. We'll move forward with 90% plus contracted projects that meet our hurdles, and the market will remain volatile in terms of margins, destinations, and we will support it with our reliability and continue to deliver to our customers without fail.

Great. Thanks, Anatole. We'll go next to John McKay with Goldman Sachs.

Hey, thanks for the time. This is probably both for Anatole. Just on that last point, you know, we are seeing a lot of this capacity coming online out of the U.S. anyway. I guess, would you expect U.S. export utilization to kind of fall over the next couple years as the market absorbs this incremental capacity?

Hey, John, thanks. You know, the market will see a lot of volume entering the market, but as you can see in our slides, we're kind of made the same point we've made a number of times. Like, this is not unusual for the LNG market in terms of percentage. So it's in that 7%, 8% per annum range. The market has absorbed percentages north of 10. And I put to you that the market is much more sophisticated, that the players are much more capable. And as we've harped on over the years, the amount of infrastructure that can accept these volumes has increased. has grown much faster than liquefaction. So what we're haggling about is the clearing price and how quickly the price elastic markets will absorb these volumes, which Chenier, as you know, is largely agnostic to with 95% plus contract levels for the next decade plus. So we will see the market work to absorb these volumes. I personally, and we've discussed this before, I don't see the mechanism of U.S. cancellations as being a very effective one. We have to be notified two months in advance, and the curves have only priced in such a decision only during COVID. So I think it's going to be much more a price-elastic demand question than a price-elastic supply question.

I appreciate that. Thank you. And then a second quick one for you. Asian exports have been pretty weak so far to start the year. Would you say most of that's just the fact we're coming out of a kind of warmer winter and relatively higher stocks going in? Or are you guys seeing any signs of kind of underlying demand weakness tied to industrial or economic activity?

So it is mostly overwhelmingly China. The rest of the JKT market has been fairly reasonable to a little bit stronger. Part of it is weather. Part of it is healthy domestic production growth in China and the ramp up of power Siberia won. So ebbs and flows structurally, we do continue to see very healthy growth. As I mentioned, even Taiwan, Korea, these mature markets, large mature markets, we expect to continue to grow. Quarter over quarter, there is a farming aspect to it, as Jack always says, and that is part of what we saw in certainly Northeast Asia.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

We'll go next to Brandon Bingham with Scotiabank.

Hi. Thanks for taking the questions. Just wanted to go back to the topic of European vulnerability and maybe kind of loop that into the discussions around possible resumption of flows from Russia to Europe, and just if you have any thoughts on potential impacts there or probability of that happening now in light of everything happening, and just kind of maybe the knock-on impacts of Russian flows to other countries now that might be directed back should those flows resume to Europe?

Yeah. Thanks, Brent. So in the immediate future, what we think we'll see is Brussels moving forward with its proposal to ban Russian gas into Europe, which actually grew in 24 over 23, obviously driven by LNG, and obviously will be down this year because of the cessation of flows through the Ukraine. You know, we have an assumption over the years of some resumption of pipeline flows. We think it'll be part of a grand bargain. When that happens, as anyone's guess, we can spend a lot of time on what is feasible from an infrastructure standpoint. And then there are legal challenges and all kinds of arbitrations and regulatory issues that would have to play out. But we don't expect that Gazprom will never flow into continental Europe again via pipeline. When that happens, as anyone's guess, and the best solution for that is having the infrastructure to address these issues and having the diversity of supply that a lot of our European counterparties have to deal with these uncertainties. When it happens, what quantum, again, happy to give you our guess, but that's not of great consequence to the Chenier model, and we think the market will absorb that fairly easily.

Great, thanks. And then maybe just, I know it's early days here, but based on the current forward pricing and the moves you've discussed already. How are you guys thinking about the uncontracted capacity for next year if you've maybe locked in some of that with forward sales agreements already or just kind of how we should think about that moving forward?

So we're already thinking about that a bit, especially next winter as it's less than a year away. Next year, we'll have a step up again in our long-term contracting from around 43 million tons that we've had this year and last year to closer to like 46 to 47 million tons. However, with the trains coming online at stage three, we'll be over 50 million tons of production, most likely. So we'll still have a healthy amount of open capacity. Margins next year are still around $5, but you'll see us steadily this year put some of that away opportunistically, and by the time we give production guidance, likely in November, we'll de-risk that a bit. So we're already thinking about that, especially with the progress we're making on stage three.

Great, thanks.

We'll take our last question from Jason Gabelman with TD Cowan.

Hey, morning, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to touch on the expansion projects you mentioned. It sounds like the main item left to FID, the Mid-Scale Trains is Bechtel EPC, but you did note other items, so wondering if any of those other items, one, what they are, and two, if they're significant, and then also the outlook for timeline on FIDing, the Sabine expansion, if that's changed at all in the past few months.

Hi, Jason. This is Jack. First, I'll talk about Trains 8 and 9. We have a, you're right, probably the biggest thing is waiting for our final permits to actually get papered and posted. That's the FERC permit. That's the DOE permits for FTA, non-FTA. And it's also the air permit, the Title V air permit. And then after that, I would say the Bechtel EPC contracts. But we're moving right along. I don't see any issues with any of those. And I think, like I said in my prepared remarks, that over the next coming months, we'll be FIDing that expansion project.

And then on the Sabine expansion, we're in the process of optimizing that project. We're going to take advantage of this permitting window as best we can at both sites and get permits for large expansions at both Sabine and Corpus. But in particular, at Sabine, there's likely a train plus some de-bottlenecking and boil-off gas reliquifaction that can get us a five to six plus million ton project. And we'd hope to be able to FID that in late 26 or early 2027. Really, the goal right now is permit what we can, but we're going to stay true to how measured we've been and stick to the parameters. That if it doesn't fit that six to seven times capex EBITDA, we're just going to buy back the stock. But we have a lot of optimism right now. The permitting process will go rather smoothly. The cost will come in for this attractive brownfield phase one, and Anatole will show up with pushing the market on long-term SBAs.

Great, thanks. And my follow-up is just the funding outlook for this year. It sounded like last call your growth capital funding would all be from equity, and now I don't know if it was intentional, but it sounded like a bit of a shift where you may actually – some of that credit facility. So I'm wondering if there was a shift in thinking on funding sources for this year, and if so, what drove that? Thanks.

No shift in thinking. If anything, we're going to be drawing on that term loan a little later than we even forecast it. It all comes down to the fact that quarter in, quarter out, we show up with almost $3 billion of cash thanks to the success of the operating business. um but when i think about the the capital that still needed to to be deployed i'd say it it's it's probably uh a little over two billion at this point uh of capex still to fund this year and that's uh over a billion for for stage three but also almost a billion for for mid skillet to nine as we get that thing going um but we're in such a good liquidity position considering If you add up, say, the two plus billion left for stage three, add up a little less than three billion now for mid-scale eight and nine, considering we're already spending some money on locking in long lead items, that's five billion. And we still have that $3.3 billion term loan available to us for both projects. So, yeah, that's not going to eat into too much of the cash flow. And why I mentioned before to Spiro, we're going to easily surpass that. the 20-plus billion of deployment by 2026. Yep.

Understood. That's very clear. Thanks for the time. I want to thank you all for your support of Cheniere, and please be safe.

This does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation.