Venture Global, Inc. Class A common stock

Hello, thank you everyone for joining us and welcome to the Venture Global Inc. 4th Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Ben Nolan, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Venture Global Inc.' 's 4th Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. I'm joined this morning by Mike Sable, Venture Global's CEO, executive co-chairman and founder, Jack Thayer, our CFO, and other members of Venture Global's senior management team. 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. I encourage you to refer to the disclaimers in our earnings presentation which is available on the investor section of our website. Additionally, we may include certain non-GAAP metrics, such as consolidated adjusted EBITDA, which we may refer to simply as EBITDA during this call. A reconciliation of these metrics to the most relevant GAAP measures can be found in the appendix of the earnings presentation posted on our website. Finally, the guidance in this presentation is only effective as of today, In general, we will not update guidance until the following quarter and will not update or affirm guidance other than through broadly disseminated public disclosure. I'll now turn the call over to Mike Sable.

Thank you, Ben. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are pleased to share our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results and provide guidance for 2026. I'll begin the call with an overview of our key accomplishments and future plans before shifting to our LNG projects individually. I will then make some remarks on the LNG industry in the current events before turning over the call to Jack, who will provide a more detailed review of our financial results and guidance for 2026. Following all prepared remarks, we will open the line to Q&A. Turning to page five of the presentation, 2025 was a landmark year for Venture Global. In January, we went public. We reached commercial operations at our first project, Coxview Pass, in April. At Plaquemines, after producing our first cargo at the end of December 2024, we have ramped up commissioning activities and are now generating more than one commissioning cargo per day. And at CP2, our largest project to date, we launched construction and raised financing for the first phase in July. This means we are simultaneously constructing 57 MTPA plus of capacity across two facilities. Phase one of Plaquemines is on track for COD this year and construction of the first phase of CP2 is running well and is on schedule and on budget. Total assets grew by approximately $10 billion to $53 billion and EBITDA and income from operations nearly tripled. Venture Global is on track to be the largest LNG producer in North America. supported by more than $134 billion of total contracted third-party revenue, which we expect to continue to grow as we add to our existing base of 49 MTPA of long and intermediate-term offtake agreements. For 2026, it is worth noting that we now have 69% of expected production capacity contracted, a percentage that should rise quickly as we anticipate signing additional short to intermediate and long-term contracts in the near term. Venture global equity has been publicly listed for just over a year now, and our priority has been to control what we can control and deliver on what we promised. As you see on page six, we have accomplished a great deal this year. The number of cargos we produced in 2025 was at the high end of the guidance range set out at the IPO. We reached FID at CP2 phase one, We secured 7.75 NTPA of additional 20-year SPAs. We leveraged data generation and analysis, lessons learned from Kaukchi Pass, to further increase production capacity at Plaquemines. And we identified low-cost bolt-on production opportunities at our first three facilities in excess of what we had originally anticipated. In addition, as you can see in the column to the right, we believe there should be further upside to each of these areas in 2026, and we are working diligently to deliver growth in return for our shareholders and customers. The constant pursuit of excellence is core to our culture at Venture Global, as we have highlighted on page seven. The combination of structural benefits from our modular approach, massive data capture and analysis, and our unrelenting focus on continuous learning and improvement translates into superior LNG production and project-level operating and maintenance costs that are currently about 30% below industry averages, and we see room for further improvements. We have continued the process of bringing most of the typical EPC functions in-house, which has enabled us to construct our facilities in less than half the time many other LNG projects take, which combined with our faster production ramp translates into lower costs and better returns. While efficiency and speed are important objectives, our first priority remains the safety of our employees, contractors, and communities, as reflected in our best-in-class safety record. Finally, we are working to monetize the key components of the LNG value chain and augment our LNG portfolio with complementary midstream shipping, regasification, and in the case of CP2, nitrogen removal assets, all of which we expect should give us better access to attractively priced gas, protect and enhance margins, and improve our customer connectivity. We view our LNG infrastructure as technology assets that we are constantly optimizing to be safer, faster, and more efficient. You can see on page eight, our near-term outlook for the buildup of production from our facilities. We anticipate Kakushu Pass, Plaquemines, and CP2 phases 1 and 2, when complete, will generate approximately 68 million tons per annum plus on an annual run rate basis with room for upside from optimization efforts and peak production opportunities. Of this 68 MTPA, we have contracted approximately 72% already on a long-term basis. Beyond that, we have included what we anticipate will be our next additions following CP2 phase two. As I'll discuss in more detail shortly, we expect to be able to add approximately 13 MTPA of bolt-on capacity at CP2 and Plaquemines at costs well below even our own industry low construction pricing and even faster than our industry leading construction timelines. This tremendous growth in the number of trains and related infrastructure translates into a more than doubling of monthly ship loadings growing from approximately 43 per month today to approximately 90 per month in 2029. This in turn could transform our cash flows. For example, assuming just a $3 per MMBTU liquefaction fee for our uncontracted volumes, we estimate by 2029 our EBITDA could be about $11 billion. Assuming a $5 MMBTU on uncontracted volumes, that estimated EBITDA number could rise to $17 billion, reflecting the straightforward impact of installation of more trains producing more LNG commodity product. Our new production ramp is expected to be staggered with the COD dates of our existing projects, such that as we complete commissioning at one project and move to long-term fixed-rate contracts, the new production capacity should begin to ramp, creating a balanced portfolio of long, intermediate, and short-dated sales agreements. This should improve cash flow visibility and provide an optimal balance of margin and predictable cash flow, while importantly retaining very valuable upside earning optionality. As we advance on schedule this year and next year to COD of phases one and two of Plaquemines and following CP2, we activate an increasing portion of our $134 billion of long-term contracted third-party revenue, now blended with a growing portfolio of intermediate-term tenor sales contracts. we are actively working to add to both the 20-year and intermediate term contract portfolios and anticipate more deals in the coming quarters. Importantly, we currently target funding all of our project CapEx and the incremental growth with our existing construction loans, retained earnings, and incremental project-level borrowing with no parent-level equity, preferred, or debt anticipated at this time. Notably, we have executed our Plaquemines and CP2 construction financings while retaining 100% ownership of those projects and therefore, of course, 100% of future earnings. Turning to page nine, since we reentered the contracting market in April of last year, Venture Global has signed 9.25 MTPA contracts of new 20-year SPAs with a fantastic portfolio of customers. This is more volume than any other LNG company in the market, demonstrating that the world's top buyers trust our execution and reliability. Today, we are pleased to announce our first five-year contract at Venture Global Commodities for approximately 0.5 MTPA with Trafiguro. Additionally, last week we signed a new 1.5 MTPA 20-year SPA with Hanwha Aerospace, marking our first long-term contract with a South Korean customer. These two new binding agreements add to the four we signed in the fourth quarter of 2025 with Natogy, Atlantic Sea, Mitsui, and Tokyo Gas. On page 10, I'll highlight our performance in Q4 in the exceptional year-over-year increase in our results. As you can see, we nearly tripled revenue income from operations and EBITDA through the gradual ramp of commissioning. Jack will discuss these numbers in greater detail later, but the main takeaway is our company's ability in the fourth quarter to generate over $2 billion of EBITDA and $1 billion of net income during a period of disruptive market dynamics, including swings in commodity prices in a period of challenging ship availability. underscoring the resiliency of our business model and resourcefulness of our team. Turning to page 11, thanks to our innovative temporary power solution, all 36 liquefaction trains at Plaquemines have undergone initial startup. We also recently filed a request with FERC to increase the authorized peak liquefaction capacity at both Plaquemines and CP2 to 35 MTPA as well as filing with FERC and the U.S. Department of Energy for up to 31 MTPA of bolt-on expansion at Pakman's. Our construction success is predicated on our mission to be the safest LNG developer in the industry, as reflected by our 0.16 total recordable incident rate compared to the national average of 2.2. I mentioned on our commercial success, our commercial success in 2025 earlier, and now early 26th, But our finance team is also very busy as we issued $3 billion of Plaquemines notes to repay construction financing. And we are currently hard at work to finalize the construction loan for phase two to fully fund the construction of that phase of CP2. Turning to page 13, we show a summary of the projects we are planning to bring online by the end of the decade. as I just discussed. As you know, there are further low-cost bolt-on and growth opportunities available to us, but we thought it would be helpful to outline our near-term development plans. Moving to page 14, it was business as usual at Coxy Pass during Q4, as we exported 38 cargoes, which is down slightly from our prior expectations as ship availability in Atlantic storm delays late in the quarter did impact several anticipated cargoes. I wanted to provide some update commentary on the COCSU Pass arbitrations. In January, we received a favorable no liability decision in the Repsol arbitration proceedings. Going forward, the non-cash reserve, which reflects our best estimate of award outcomes from BP and the other three remaining arbitrations, is currently estimated to be $13 million per quarter reduction to revenue at COCSU Pass through the 20-year duration of the SPA contract terms. while the impact EBITDA will be less due to adjustments for non-controlling interest and taxes. Importantly, this is an estimate and there is no cash impact to our fourth quarter financial statements. We will update these estimates in our financials quarterly as we receive arbitration results and incorporate any final financial awards or settlements going forward. Also, while BP has raised the quantum of their damages claim, our position as to our exposure there is unchanged. as the clear language of the contracts prevents recovery of the categories and magnitude of damages sought by BP. Turning to page 15, Plaquemines continues to progress construction, commissioning and the performance reliability and assurance testing required in advance of phase one COD in Q4 of this year and phase two COD in mid-2027. Although we continue to utilize and rely on a significant amount of temporary power, In the second quarter, we expect Phase 1 will transition to its permanent power plant configuration. We are yet to achieve substantial completion, but we are on schedule and targeting substantial completion under the scopes of the EPC by late summer, so coming soon. Turning to page 16, CP2 is now just over seven months from Phase 1 FID, announced on July 28th. Despite this short period, I'm pleased to announce construction of phase one is proceeding well on schedule and budget. And over the weekend, we raised the roof on our first LNG tank, making it the fastest time to a roof raise of this size in the history of the LNG industry. Furthermore, we now have six of the 26 liquefaction trains delivered to the site and on foundations and expect delivery of the first pretreatment module in the coming months. With respect to phase two, as I mentioned, we have now signed five MTPA of 20-year SPAs to support the financing for the project. We continue to have constructive conversations with off-takers and expect to announce additional SPAs in coming quarters. With $1.7 billion of equity already invested in phase two, we expect project financing and FID to be complete in coming weeks. We anticipate funding the entire CP2 project with retained earnings and a construction loan from a group of leading banks, enabling Venture Global to again maintain 100% ownership in one of the world's largest LNG projects. On page 17, We depict the first two bolt-on expansions we expect to develop after FID of CP2 phase two, subject to additional contracting and regulatory approval. The bolt-ons at CP2 and Plaquemines are straightforward liquefaction train and gas turbine additions that should add around 6.4 MTPA each. The additions leverage the benefits of our modular approach, resulting in what we expect to be much lower cost and much shorter construction timelines. These developments exemplify the advantages of our mid-scale modular approach, as well as the power to leverage existing redundancies built into the original designs. Turning to page 19. The past few months and recent events have demonstrated the impact of seasonality, the inherent tightness of LNG supply and demand, and of course, the impact of geopolitics on our market. While LNG spreads compressed in late 2025, cold weather in January and February has exhausted gas inventories in Europe to low levels, lifting LNG forward curves. Of course, this is all impacted by current events over the weekend. Furthermore, a number of LNG projects under construction have announced delays of their planned start dates. As you can see on the left, the forward curves reflect the market expectation for LNG prices in both Asia and Europe to remain at considerable spreads over Henry Hub through 2028, even during periods of expected cold weather and higher US gas prices. Of course, these are the four curves reflected on Friday. As we approach production at CP2, our pipeline infrastructure, which enables us to access Permian gas at Waha and Katy, is likely to become increasingly supportive of expanded margins. Importantly, Waha gas is expected to remain at a significant discount to Henry Hub, creating an opportunity for positive basis impact at CP2, highlighting the value of our investment in nitrogen removing units to address high nitrogen levels found in that basin. Flipping to page 20, based on our bottom-up view of the global LNG market on the left, we expect demand to meet or exceed supply through the end of the decade, but quickly move to undersupply early next decade unless additional liquefaction capacity is added. This positively supports contracting demand for our growing portfolio. Importantly, these assumptions are conservatively based on demand growth of 4.7% through 2035, which is below the historical 5.3% from 2015 to 2025. Demand for clean baseload electricity continues to grow and new LNG markets are being developed throughout the world. Historically, Demand for energy and certainly gas increases as price declines provided the physical infrastructure exists to support it, which we see on page 21, where we see some of the expansion of regasification infrastructure, which is further positioned to grow by approximately 40% from 2024 to 2030, with upside as new projects are announced. China alone is positioned to add more than 100 MTPA of regasification capacity by 2030. India is committed to taking natural gas from just 6% of primary energy mix to 15% by 2030 as well. There has also been a sharp increase in developments from new markets like Iraq, Vietnam, Philippines, South Africa, New Zealand, and others. We see countries around the world increasingly require reliable, consistent sources of energy, seek alternatives to cross-border pipelines, and make investments to meet rising power demand. Furthermore, we estimate regasification utilization would only need to reach 40% of capacity in order to offset all of the new liquefaction infrastructure currently under construction, which again has seen slippage in FIDs and projected startup timing. Page 22 shows reflects the growth in gas power generation in both Europe and China. Not only are investments being made in regasification infrastructure, but also in gas power generation, which we expect to experience heavy utilization, particularly at attractive LNG prices. In 2025, a high-priced global LNG market, less than 3% of Chinese power was produced from natural gas, while more than 55% came from coal. As existing installed gas generation capacity operates at higher capacity factors and new gas-fired power generation is added, we expect LNG imports to follow as delivered if LNG prices moderate. Domestic gas production is flattening in China and new pipeline additions are limited. Furthermore, we estimate that every 1% share gained by LNG relative to coal would translate into 34 MTPA of LNG demand. At $10 per MMBTU LNG prices, for example, the cost of electricity in China is about 7 to 8 cents a kilowatt hour, converging on the cost of coal-fired power generation, and history has proven that people consume affordably priced electricity. In the event the LNG prices were to fall below $10 per MMBTU and gas and coal power generation approach parity, we would expect a sharp demand response, creating an LNG price floor at levels supporting liquefaction margins well in excess of those reflected by current long-term SPA prices. Of course, we're in moments of price volatility, but we expect those, of course, as we move beyond current events for them to smooth out. Consequently, we are confident that the market is building the infrastructure to easily absorb new LNG supply and demand elasticity should mean every drop of LNG the market would be able to produce over the next several years should be consumed at reasonable prices. As evidenced by the forward curve, historical precedent, and contracting activity, our customers feel the same. Now I'll turn it over to Jack, our CFO, who will review the financials and our updated guidance.