With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Industries included in the sector are mining, oil and gas exploration and services, pipelines, refining, and utilities.

Fortune Sector Leaders: Energy

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

Fortune Global 500

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-328-Cheniere Energy

Producing a specialized liquid form of natural gas, the company became the first U.S.-based company to export liquefied natural gas in 2016.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-329-Cheniere-Energy

Headquartered in Houston, Cheniere is one of the leading producers of liquefied natural gas in the U.S.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

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Total Return to Investors (last year)

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Cheniere Energy is the largest producer of liquefied natural gas in the U.S. and the second-largest LNG operator in the world. The company buys natural gas, processes it into LNG, and then sells it. The company also owns and operates the Sabine Pass LNG terminal in Cameron Parish, La., and the Corpus Christi LNG terminal in south Texas, as well as key pipelines. Cheniere’s LNG has reached more than 40 markets in five continents.

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Cheniere Energy (LNG): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Cheniere Energy

cheniere energy

Thank you for standing by. Good day, and welcome to the first quarter 2026 Cheniere Energy earnings call and webcast. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Randy Bhatia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Cheniere's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. The slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call are available at cheniere.com. 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, a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure can be found in the presentation appendix. The call agenda is shown on slide three. After prepared remarks from Jack, Anatol, and Zach, 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, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today as we review our results from the first quarter of 2026 and our improved outlook for the full year. Certainly, a lot has changed since our last earnings call, which took place just before the start of the war in Iran. What has unfolded in the wake of that operation is another major shock in the global energy system, the second such shock in just over four years. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the weaponization of energy, including the damage to a portion of QatarEnergy's LNG facility at Ras Laffan, are tragic consequences, the effects of which are being felt all over the world.

The sudden cessation of reliable supply of Middle Eastern oil, natural gas, and the many other products that normally transit the Strait every day on their way to dependent markets around the globe shine a bright light on the criticality of supply security in a diversified portfolio. What we sell at Cheniere is access to a secure, reliable, and affordable product that provides the energy to power homes, businesses, and economies. Prior to the war, the LNG market already demanded more production than the market could supply, as evidenced by the elevated spot market margin we had in the first two months of the year.

The disruption of Middle Eastern volumes only exacerbates that supply shortage, increasing prices and restricting availability of supply to the wealthiest buyers at the expense of fast-growing, energy-hungry emerging markets. At Cheniere, we look forward to the resolution of this conflict that will enable the renormalization of commerce to one of the world's most important trade gateways so that prosperity through energy affordability and availability can benefit all. Please turn to slide five, where I'll highlight our key results and accomplishments for the first quarter of 2026 and introduce our upwardly revised guidance for the year.

Our performance in the first quarter has gotten off to an excellent start to 2026. We generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of over $2.3 billion and distributable cash flow of approximately $1.7 billion. On the production side, we picked up where we left off at the end of 2025 and produced and exported a record amount of LNG in the first quarter. The 187 cargoes we exported through March topped the previous record set in the fourth quarter of last year. I'm extremely proud of our operations team, whose tireless efforts to engineer and deploy solutions to address the feed gas composition-related challenges we experienced last year continue to bear fruit and drove enhanced operational reliability during the quarter.

Today, we are increasing our full-year 2026 financial guidance to $7.25 billion-$7.75 billion of consolidated adjusted EBITDA and $4.75 billion-$5.25 billion of DCF. This significantly improved outlook. The previous high end of the EBITDA guidance is the new low end is driven primarily by an improvement in our production forecast of approximately 1 million tons, higher marketing margins, as well as higher contributions from optimization activities achieved year to date, both upstream and downstream of our facilities. Jack will cover guidance in more detail in a few minutes, but we look forward to delivering financial results within these upwardly revised ranges for the year.

During the first quarter, we continued to execute on our comprehensive capital allocation plan. We repurchased approximately 2.7 million shares for approximately $535 million, funded approximately $1 billion worth of growth CapEx with equity and debt. We paid down over a quarter of a billion dollars in debt, and we declared a dividend of $0.555. Moving to our growth projects. We continued to make excellent and safe progress on our growth and expansion during the first quarter. Our CCL Stage 3 project now stands at approximately 97% complete.

Substantial completion was achieved on Train 5 in March, and Trains 6 and 7 remain on track for substantial completion in the summer and fall, respectively, with each now tracking a few weeks ahead of schedule that had informed our initial 2026 production forecast in October of last year. First LNG at Train 6 is expected within a few days. On our mid-scale Trains 8 and 9 and debottlenecking project, we have safely progressed to approximately 37% complete, and while it's still early, are tracking ahead of schedule on a number of execution fronts. Piling is nearly complete, with approximately 8,000 piles having been driven.

The first structural steels have been erected, and the next major construction milestone is the first above-ground piping, which is scheduled to be installed this month. With regard to our future growth, our line of sight on the phase one expansions at both Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi continues to improve. As we disclosed on our last earnings call, we are budgeting for limited notices to proceed this year on the first phase of the Sabine Pass expansion, Train 7. We are working closely with Bechtel to finalize the EPC contract and would expect to begin issuing LNTPs shortly thereafter, which should be seen by the market as a clear signal that we are on track to reach FID.

At Corpus Christi, we are making excellent progress on our development of the CCL expansion project. We were pleased to receive our scheduling notice from FERC last week, supporting our expectation of FERC approval on that project in the first half of next year. We are extremely excited about these phase I projects, which we believe represent the most compelling risk-adjusted infrastructure investment opportunities on the Gulf Coast, or maybe all of North America, and are expected to accretively grow the Cheniere production platform by approximately 10% each.

Turn now to slide six, where I'll discuss my key strategic priorities for 2026. My priorities for 2026 are simple, execution, growth, and capital allocation. I'll drill down briefly into each. First, on execution. My priority is to maintain our track record of delivering top-tier safety metrics while furthering our operational excellence program and being a trusted and reliable supplier to our customers. In dealing with some operational challenges last year, the team has responded with determination and resolve, and its efforts are paying significant dividends. The team has increased the utilization across both sites by identifying root causes and innovating solutions to address the issues impacting reliability, not just the symptoms.

In addition, the team has increased production through identifying and executing on debottlenecking opportunities while seamlessly executing on our planned maintenance activities. We are focused on managing our platform in a market with elevated volatility. Despite the volatility, our coordinated teams across the globe have done an excellent job managing our positions and assets, ensuring we deliver on our obligations to our customers while optimizing the portfolio through volatile domestic gas markets like we saw during Winter Storm Finn, as well as very volatile international gas and shipping markets that have prevailed since early March. Next on growth.

With Trains 1 through five of stage 3 substantially complete, our immediate priority is a safe completion of Trains 6 and 7. As I just mentioned, these trains have accelerated since last year, benefiting from lessons learned on the first trains as our partnership with Bechtel has not only resulted in early operations of the trains, but also shorter timelines on both commissioning and ramp up to full production. I expect those learnings to continue in order to benefit mid-scale Trains 8 and 9 as those trains move deeper into construction later this year. On our SPL expansion and CCL expansion, we are aggressively executing project development work streams across regulatory, financing, commercial, and EPC contracting as FIDs on those projects come into focus.

Last week, we received our scheduling notice from FERC on the CCL expansion project, a critical step in the FERC process, and it is aligned with our expected timeline of FERC approval in the first half of 2027. Finally, on capital allocation. We had a major update on the last call with the achievement of the original 2020 Vision Plan, the new $9 billion authorization the board approved during the quarter for share buyback, and our new share count and run rate DCF targets. We are in an enviable capital allocation position, enabled by our incredible long-term contract portfolio that provides decades of cash flow visibility, our brownfield growth opportunities, investment-grade balance sheet, and opportunistic repurchase plan.

In February, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of our first cargo, and next week will mark my 10th anniversary at Cheniere. I'm extremely proud of the many incredible milestones we've accomplished together in that time. While these anniversaries offer the opportunity to look back, I prefer to look forward. What we have in front of us are incredible opportunities. An opportunity to creatively grow Cheniere in the near term and secure the next phase of growth beyond that. An opportunity to grow our platform by another 20%, benefiting Cheniere stakeholders while providing the world with more of the secure and reliable energy it needs to improve lives, grow businesses, and help emerging markets emerge.

I'm incredibly excited about these opportunities, and we are laser-focused on turning them into achievements in the coming years. With that, I'll now hand it over to Anatol to discuss the LNG market. Thank you again for your continued support of Cheniere.

Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide eight. The past quarter has been defined by geopolitical disruption, most notably the escalation in the Middle East and the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has put significant strain on global energy markets, including, of course, LNG. While the situation remains fluid, our commercial focus is twofold. First, supporting our customers through near-term volatility. Second, understanding what these disruptions mean for longer-term LNG market structure and contracting.

We continue to hope for a safe and timely resolution, including the return of Qatari and Emirati LNG volumes to global markets. Coming into the year, the industry was expecting a roughly 40 million tons LNG supply growth. This expected supply growth continues to be offset by the halt of Middle East LNG flows through the Strait, which removes approximately 7 million tons of supply each month. Additionally, U.S. exports were temporarily reduced during Winter Storm Finn to help balance the domestic gas market. In late March, Australia's approximately 9 million MTPA Wheatstone facility and other gas processing plants experienced a multi-week outage following Cyclone Neville.

In aggregate, these disruptions displaced nearly 8 million tons of supply in the first quarter alone. With tanker and LNG vessel traffic through the Strait remaining constrained with limited visibility on timing of normalization, approximately 7 million tons of LNG supply per month, or approximately 100 cargos, continues to be disrupted. The immediate effect of the crisis was a sharp repricing across regional gas markets. Given most Qatari volume is sold into Asia, we saw the JKM TTF spread flip in a way not seen since the third quarter of 2023, creating a strong pull for LNG into Asia.

Destination-flexible U.S. cargos responded as expected, with flows re-optimizing toward Asia to capture higher netbacks. This is exactly the flexibility the market relies on in periods of imbalances or distress, underscoring a key advantage of U.S. LNG in the global gas market. While today our customers are squarely focused on replacing near-term lost volumes, the flexibility and security of U.S. LNG through long-term contracts is being highlighted in our commercial conversations and negotiations today. On the demand side, impacts have been more gradual. Middle East cargos that were already on the water continued to arrive through March, which delayed the full physical effect of the supply disruption.

Asia's LNG imports were 5% higher year-over-year for January and February, but started decreasing in March, dropping by 1.5 million tons or 7% year-over-year, with import declines in price-sensitive markets expected to continue in April. Now several months into the disruption, we're seeing clear differentiation across markets in Asia to cope with the supply shock. China has again demonstrated system flexibility, halting spot purchases and redirecting cargos to markets of higher need. Price-sensitive Qatari-dependent markets such as Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh have taken measures to reduce demand and seek alternate fuel sources.

While higher affordability markets, including Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand, have stepped in to procure replacement cargos, and we have been actively supporting our customers navigating this volatility. In Europe, the situation is increasingly tight as storage levels exiting the winter are near five-year lows with a deficit of 13.2 BCM, about 10 million tons or approximately 150 cargos of LNG equivalent versus the five-year average. While the region is relatively less exposed to disrupted Middle East LNG flows compared to Asia, the absence of Russian pipeline flows and the impending ban on Russian gas and LNG add further pressure.

To reach adequate storage levels ahead of next winter, Europe will require almost 10 million tons more LNG than last year to reach minimum storage levels of 80%, and approximately 15 million tons more year-on-year to reach historical levels of 90%. This highlights Europe's dependence on LNG and intensifies the competition for marginal LNG supplies with other basins, especially as we look ahead to winter. Europe's imports grew 12% to approximately 40 million tons in the first quarter, despite a month-on-month drop in March, which remained flat year-on-year as more cargos started heading east.

Across global markets, pricing dynamics evolved in two distinct phases in the first quarter. At the start of the year, benchmark gas prices were moderating, reflecting expectations of that forecast 40 million tons of incremental supply to enter the market. First quarter JKM averaged $10.40 MMBtu, and TTF $11.60, down by roughly 30% and 20% year-on-year respectively. Following the disruption in the Middle East, we've seen a clear repricing, with prompt pricing and forward curves moving higher by $3-$4 in MMBtu. Despite the disruption of comparable magnitude, these prices still reflect much lower levels than 2022.

Following the onset of the Russia-Ukraine War, which we believe stems from the market's expectation that the disruption will prove temporary and potentially quick to resolve. The Henry Hub curve, by contrast, has remained relatively flat, reinforcing its position as a stable pricing anchor. Let's turn to the next page to expand on what this means longer term. Uncertainty around the disruption in the Middle East remains high, and we continue to hope for a swift resolution with limited lasting structural impact. However, even under that assumption, the supply outlook over the next few years has shifted.

The industry has effectively lost two liquefaction trains in Qatar, representing approximately 12.8 million tons per annum of capacity, which could be offline for up to five years. We're also likely to see delays to major expansion projects in the region of both North Field in Qatar and Ruwais in the Emirates. As shown in the chart on the left, even if flows normalize into the summer, most, if not all, of the previously expected growth in 2026 will be absorbed. Directionally, 2026 is much tighter than previously forecast, and now 2027 has become more structurally constrained, especially considering the record low storage position and supply dynamics across Europe heading into the 2026 winter.

I just discussed, likely creating a similar scenario ahead of winter 2027, before eventually net supply growth resumes as new projects in the U.S. and smaller ones elsewhere commence operations and ramp up production the rest of this decade. We expect the market to return to a more well-supplied position as new supplies start fully offsetting volume losses and Qatari projects get back on track after that. Timing matters. In most scenarios, the near-term buffer has been greatly reduced, while the broader trajectory after the next year or two remains relatively unchanged. The LNG market is still expected to grow to approximately 600 million tons by around 2030.

As new supply comes online, we would expect that growth to help moderate prices. This would be particularly welcomed by price-sensitive markets that have been constrained in recent years by sustained higher prices. Importantly, demand growth continues to be driven by a diverse set of markets, from established importers in Asia to emerging consumers in South and Southeast Asia who need to supplement rapidly depleting domestic fields to continued demand support in Europe, where the complete ban on Russian molecules has and continues to create a structural demand anchor for the LNG market.

At Cheniere, our focus remains consistent: providing reliable, flexible, long-term LNG supply to a broad and growing set of global markets, and doing so through a mix of direct relationships that expand access while maintaining the credit profile in our customer portfolio required to support long-term investment. It is these strategic relationships that underpin not only our current business and infrastructure investments, but also our expansions. With over 35 long-term creditworthy counterparties, we remain resolute in our commitment to them and our differentiated track record of performance, which is recognized and appreciated by our customers, particularly in volatile market conditions like these.

That differentiation on reliability is a significant commercial asset, and we're leveraging this as we engage with customers today with a focus on commercializing the balance of CCL Train 4 now that SPL Train 7 is sufficiently commercialized. While the disruption we're seeing today is significant and it's difficult to fully assess in real time, over the long term, events like these tend to become relatively small inflections in a much broader, longer-term growth trajectory.

From that perspective, the underlying need for reliable, long-term LNG supply and the agreements that enable it is only being reinforced. With that, I'll turn the call over to Zach to review our financial results and guidance.

Thanks, Anatol, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss our financial results and improved outlook for the full year. Turn to slide 11. For the first quarter 2026, we generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of over $2.3 billion and distributable cash flow of approximately $1.7 billion. Compared to the first quarter of 2025, our first quarter 2026 results reflect higher volumes of LNG delivered thanks to the substantial completion of Trains 1 through four last year of Stage 3, higher contributions from optimization upstream and downstream of our facilities, and the one-time alternative fuel tax credit during the quarter. We recognized in income 646 TBtu of LNG produced from our facilities in the first quarter.

While meaningfully higher than 1Q of 2025, first quarter of 2026 volumes were impacted by in-transit timing dynamics that favored 4Q 2025 and 2Q 2026. Looking to the balance of 2026, it's likely 1Q will be our lowest quarter of volume recognized this year as asset production the remainder of the year is expected to benefit from the rest of Stage 3 coming online, including mid-scale Train 5 at the end of 1Q and Train 6 expected to produce first LNG imminently. In addition, there are no major turnarounds planned this summer, and lower ambient temperatures should benefit 4Q, making the last quarter of the year likely our highest quarter of LNG produced and recognized in income.

Additionally, for the first quarter, we generated a net loss of approximately $3.5 billion, which is primarily the result of the unrealized non-cash derivative impact predominantly related to our long-term IPM agreements and the mismatch of accounting methodology for the purchase of natural gas and the corresponding sale of LNG. The derivative accounting treatment, coupled with the long-term duration and international price basis of our IPM agreements, result in fluctuations in fair market value from period to period as LNG curves move, which you may remember similarly impacting our GAAP net income results in 2021 and 2022.

The surge in international gas prices and increased volatility during the quarter drove the unrealized non-cash losses and our overall net loss for the quarter. Adjusting for these non-cash, unrealized derivative losses and the associated impacts to income tax and non-controlling interest, we generated positive adjusted net income of approximately $1 billion for the quarter. This adjusted net income figure is aligned with our EBITDA and DCF and more representative of our financial performance in the quarter. To be clear, as we deliver on our IPM agreements that are accounted for as derivatives or economic hedges that mitigate future cash flow volatility.

We expect these non-cash, unrealized mark-to-market losses to unwind over time and generate mark-to-market gains as we realize the intended and corresponding fixed liquefaction fees from these contracts that pass through the LNG market price exposure to our IPM counterparties. While IPM agreements may contribute to variability in our reported GAAP net income, those agreements most importantly provide a stable, long-term cash flows similar to our SPAs that help support our contracted infrastructure platform and cash flow visibility for decades to come. As Jack and Anatol noted, our business model is built to thrive regardless of market environment, and the same goes for our capital allocation plan.

During the quarter, we deployed approximately $1.2 billion towards our capital allocation pillars of accretive growth funded with equity cash flow, shareholder returns in the form of buybacks and dividends, and balance sheet management. In the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 2.7 million shares for over $500 million, highlighting the opportunistic nature of the program considering the movement of our share price over the quarter. Given the volatility in the shares year-to-date, our disciplined value-based repurchase plan is working as designed, and we continue to opportunistically deploy the remaining over $9 billion under our current authorization.

According to the framework, which guides repurchase activity, working towards our current target of 175 million shares outstanding around the end of the decade. For the first quarter, we declared a dividend of $0.555 per common share, representing a payout of over $116 million for common shareholders. We remain committed to growing our dividend by approximately 10% annually through the end of this decade. Shareholder returns achieved through the combination of our dividend and opportunistic share repurchase plan are a key value proposition for our investors, providing them with a stable and growing dividend and increased ownership in Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi over time.

While maintaining the financial flexibility essential to our long-term capital allocation plan. Moving to the balance sheet, we repaid over $250 million of our indebtedness with cash on hand during the quarter, fully redeeming the remaining SPL 2026 notes and amortizing a portion of the SPL 2037 notes. Additionally, in March, we issued $1 billion of 2036 notes and $750 million of 2056 notes at CEI, making our inaugural 30-year issuance and extending our maturity stack into the second half of this century, alongside a growing list of our long-term LNG contracts.

With a portion of the proceeds, we prepaid the $550 million drawn on our Corpus Christi term loan, while also canceling an additional $600 million of unused commitments. We continue to maintain substantial liquidity with approximately $1.8 billion in consolidated cash and billions of dollars of undrawn revolver and term loan capacity throughout the Cheniere complex. In the quarter, we continued to receive recognition from the credit rating agencies as Moody's upgraded its ratings of our unsecured notes at CEI and CCH to Baa2 and Baa1, respectively, each with a stable outlook. We are now high triple B at both projects and mid triple B or better at the unsecured corporate levels by all three credit rating agencies.

During the quarter, we funded approximately $1 billion of growth capital across our business as we continue to progress the construction of stage 3 and mid-scale 8 and 9, development of the SPL and CCL expansion projects, as well as our Gregory Power plant to support incremental power needs at Corpus over time as the mid-scale trains are completed. Of the $1 billion of growth CapEx in the quarter, approximately $300 million was equity funded and approximately $700 million was efficiently debt funded as planned via our delayed draw Corpus Christi term loan, as well as from a portion of the proceeds from the recent CEI bond raise.

We do expect to increase our spending on Train 7 at Sabine Pass later this year, as we have budgeted for potential limited notices to proceed to Bechtel ahead of our expected FID early next year, which is why we are retaining cash at CQP by flexing the variable component of the CQP distribution this quarter. Looking ahead, we remain well-positioned to fund our disciplined growth objectives comfortably within our cash flow forecast, while retaining our strong investment-grade credit metrics and our significant financial flexibility for shareholder returns through cycles.

Turn now to slide 12, where I will discuss our upwardly revised 2026 financial guidance and outlook for the year. Today, we are increasing the midpoint of our guidance ranges for full year 2026 consolidated adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow by $500 million and $400 million, respectively, bringing expected consolidated adjusted EBITDA to $7.25 billion-$7.75 billion and distributable cash flow to $4.75 billion-$5.25 billion. We are maintaining our CQP distribution guidance for the year of $3.10-$3.40 per common unit. These increases are attributed to a few key drivers, including an increased production forecast for the year, an improved margin outlook, and contributions from optimization activities already locked in year to date, both upstream and downstream of our facilities.

As Jack mentioned, thanks to increased utilization of our existing trains as a result of continued debottlenecking and resiliency efforts related to feed gas composition variability, as well as accelerated timelines on the remaining trains at Stage 3, we are increasing our 2026 production forecast by approximately 1 million tons to approximately 52 million-54 million tons for the year, unlocking incremental volumes available for CMI this year. With this increase in continued forward selling by our team over the quarter, we still forecast less than 1 million tons or less than 50 TBtu of unsold open volumes remaining in 2026.

Therefore, we currently forecast that a $1 change in market margins would impact EBITDA by, again, less than $50 million for the full year. Despite having very little open exposure for the balance of the year, we are maintaining the $500 million guidance range as results could still be impacted by a number of factors, particularly given the sustained volatility in the global energy markets, but also variability in our production forecast. The ramp up and specific timing of substantial completion of trains 6 and 7 at Stage 3, the timing of certain cargoes around the year-end, contributions from further optimization activities during the balance of the year, and the impact Henry Hub volatility can have on lifting margins.

As we progress through the year and lock in some of these variables, we will look to tighten these ranges as we have done in years past. Our first quarter results, coupled with our revised guidance ranges, once again underscore Cheniere's ability to leverage our platform, respond to market signals, and unlock optimization opportunities throughout our business, while still maintaining our highly contracted business model built upon a foundation of long-duration, fixed-fee cash flows from creditworthy counterparties. Our conviction in which has only been reinforced as we look forward to funding additional accretive brownfield growth at both Sabine and Corpus.

While concurrently growing shareholder returns in the form of buybacks and dividends that can be relied on year-after-year. These dependable cash flows are essential to the over $50 billion natural gas infrastructure platform we have developed over the last decade plus, as well as our disciplined all-of-the-above capital allocation framework, and the durable through-cycle value of this approach has only been enhanced in the wake of the current market environment. Looking ahead, we remain focused on maintaining safe and reliable operations to ensure we can continue reliably delivering flexible, secure LNG, as well as meaningful long-term value to our stakeholders around the world for decades to come.

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 one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure that your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up before rejoining the queue. Again, you may press star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal. We'll take our first question from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Thanks for all the color today. Just wanted to expand a bit on some of the remarks. Anatol, just wondering, you know, in the customer conversations at this point, you know, given the disruptions in the Middle East, just, you know, how you describe the tone or appetite for U.S. LNG, given the reliability in Cheniere's track record there. At the same time, kind of contrasting that to, you know, somewhat higher prices and how that impacts demand for LNG overall. Just wondering, you know, how those two factors have kind of flowed through conversations.

Yeah. Thanks, Jeremy, and good morning. We're in a very enviable position as the plants run better, as you see, we have some additional volume, we only have these 3 dozen kind of critical long-term counterparties. We're able to really focus on supporting the these key relationships, that's what we've been doing over the last couple of months. As you can imagine, the initial reaction by a number of these players is to ensure that there is ample supply as this 7 million tons a month is replaced to keep the lights on literally in the short run.

Clearly, our ability to support them is something that's helping to broaden and deepen the relationships, and is certainly a tailwind to a number of those engagements. In terms of longer term, sorry, your second question. Yeah. We'll see. I think even amongst ourselves, we disagree somewhat. I think that just like COVID, when you look in the rearview mirror that, at that 2020 disruption, it is a small blip. It changed the dynamic purely by kind of delaying what we're expecting by somewhere between 12 and 18 months, the overall trajectory remained the same. We expect this issue and hope that this issue is similar. Again, we're in a great position.

We need to support our growth ambitions with relatively modest incremental commercial agreements, and clearly we've proven that this is a very affordable, reliable, and Cheniere is a great counterparty to help support those long-term ambitions by our customers.

Got it. That makes sense. Just want to turn to operations and execution. If maybe you could expand a bit more on, you know, the Corpus expansion seemed to be tracking a bit ahead of expectation for timeline there. At the same time, you know, being able to eke out a bit more capacity. Was just wondering if you could talk through what the bottlenecks you were able to accomplish there, and what more could be possible.

Yeah, Jeremy, thank you. As I said in my prepared remarks, I'm extremely pleased with what we've been able to do in operations and production engineering. At Corpus, you know, not only have the trains been coming in significantly above the guaranteed schedule from Bechtel or before the guaranteed schedule from Bechtel. On our ramp-up, it's been higher and steadier. The team has really learned how to make those smaller mid-scale trains hum, and that's producing some very good quantities for us. I would expect that those learnings to continue to work their way through six, seven, eight, and nine at a minimum. That's been very helpful.

The other thing that's been helpful is we figured out two different operational modes to handle variability of feed gas at both Sabine Pass and at Corpus Christi. We've actually worked with some good suppliers of solvents to come up with some creative ways to use solvents to mitigate the need for defrost. All of those things, there's 100 different things in our toolkit right now that we use every single day, and they all seem to be adding up to some meaningful amounts of additional production. That's what you're seeing from from us on on this raise of guidance.

Jeremy on the growth and the expansion, just to put into perspective, right now on the whiteboard is SPL Train 7. You could tell from the CQP DPU guidance and where we ended up with Q1, we're reserving cash as we're in good shape to start LNTPs later this year and be in a position with a permit to FID that project early next year. In terms of the Corpus expansion, that's a bit behind just because we didn't file for the permit until after we officially announced FID and NTP on Trains 8 and 9. That's in good shape and tracking to receive a permit, let's say, mid to late next year.

In the context of the previous question to Anatol Feygin, like we can be very disciplined on the SPAs considering we have approximately 10 million tons of SPAs today that haven't been used yet to underpin or underwrite an FID project. That's more than enough to cover the SPL Train 7 project, plus the debottlenecking. We're obviously in good shape on even the first train of the first phase of a Corpus Christi Liquefaction expansion. We can stay quite disciplined, not just on how we grow and the parameters that we hold ourselves to that are like leaps and bounds beyond anyone else in the industry, especially in North America. Then we can be disciplined on the SPAs and eventually move forward and create some value for the company long term.

We'll take our next question from Spiro Dounis with Citi.

Thanks, operator. Morning, everybody. Maybe just picking up on some of those comments as we think about the contracting outlook. There does seem to be some expectation that we're now gonna see perhaps a wave of contracting for U.S.-sourced LNG. Understand your point that a lot of the focus, you know, so far has been, you know, filling that near-term supply. Is the market wrong in maybe expecting some sort of contracting wave? Maybe just based on your discussions, you know, would you be surprised if Corpus 4 phase I is not underwritten with SPAs by year-end?

Hey, thanks, Spiro. I think your overall thesis is correct. You know, there aren't that many options as we've discussed, you know, forever, and even in these prepared remarks, we keep demonstrating that this is a great place to source volumes, right? Those, the customers that are lifting from us FOB, at today's NYMEX economics are lifting roughly $6 at $6 in MMBtu, and with the reliability and flexibility that we've demonstrated over a decade. If not now, if not us, you know, whom and when? That said, as we've also discussed and Zach alluded to, this is a very competitive market.

We are in a market today where there are some credible projects that are moving towards FID and a lot of projects that have FID that have spare capacity that has yet to be placed into the market. We're fortunate in that we will continue to not participate in that in that commoditized race and we'll, as Zach already alluded to, pick and choose with whom we want to continue to partner. You know, crystal ball-wise, I think you'll continue to see from us the same thing that you've seen for the last four or five years, which is additional volumes with existing customers. I make a joke that I'm kind of in a race with Shell.

Shell keeps buying our counterparties and decreasing the number of our counterparties, and we keep trying to add some more long-term contracts with the Cheniere premium built in. We're optimistic. We have made a significant dent into Corpus Train 4, and whether it's, you know, year-end or by the time we're ready to FID, we think we'll be in a very good commercial position to support that.

Got it. Maybe don't put the crystal ball away just yet. Just did wanna touch on LNG prices here. As you think about Europe needing to refill that storage, and all your comments sound like there's a pretty aggressive ramp in cargoes that needs to happen to do that, and perhaps it even extends into 2027. Curious, are you surprised that prices have not been stronger here? When would you think you could start to see that play out in the curve? When you look out beyond 2027, 2028, we haven't seen it move all that much. Do you think it's appropriately reflecting some of these lingering supply issues?

I, and I think I could say on behalf of the team, we are astounded that prices are where they are, that prices in Europe and Asia are backwardated into the winter, right? U.S. is up 50%, right, into the mid-$4s in the winter. The world gas market is strangely backwardated. Europe is in a very difficult position with really adjusted for flows, record low storage, banning Russian gas and the Indian subcontinent, the price-sensitive market has already been turned off. We're gonna be in an environment in Q3, Q4, we think, where there's very aggressive competition for those volumes globally.

China has done an excellent job of using its storage and domestic production to be a relief valve again, and I think the current situation is masked by the fact that we're in the shoulder period, and the physical disruption of deliveries from the Strait being closed really only started to be felt a month ago. We are we're very constructive on where prices will go into the second half of the year. As you already alluded to, that probably reverberates into 2027, which again will just highlight how attractive the long-term SPA from Cheniere is to those that can meet Zach's stringent credit requirements.

Our next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bank of America.

Hi, good morning. I think you've suggested in the past that after Sabine Pass 7 and Corpus 4, in the blue sky growth case, future trains beyond 75 MTPA would be more likely to be at Corpus. Can you talk about the trade-offs between your two sites for expansion, both for the potentially next two trains, Sabine Pass 7 and Corpus 4, and then beyond that?

Yeah. Hi, Jean, it's Jack. Corpus has been blessed with having another 500 acres of basically untouched land. We bought that land from the old Sherwin Alumina site. We've been working on that property to make sure that it's environmentally ready to go. It has great access to the water. It has a power plant that sits literally right next to it, which is our Gregory power plant that we own and control. It has a lot of and it's close to the Permian. It's a 40 mi straw to Sinton, our Sinton station, for gas supply to Agua Dulce. It just has a lot of benefits that I could see us continue to grow that site.

If we switch to Sabine, while we still have property, we have a lot of wetlands property that we'd have to mitigate appropriately, that adds cost to it. There's a few other nuances that we would have to do, but on the positive side, we have three berths already at Sabine. It's not out of the question, but I do think additional growth after the first phases will probably happen at Corpus prior to Sabine, just my gut. That is way down the road from where we are today.

Great. Thank you. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

We'll take our next question from Jason Gabelman with TD Cowen.

Yeah, hey, thanks for taking my questions. First on the 2026 EBITDA guidance. You know, I think you typically are a bit more conservative early in the year, ahead of summer maintenance season. Given that it seems you're guiding to lower maintenance this year, is there a bit less conservatism baked into the plan at this point? My follow-up is maybe just on what you're seeing across the world from governments in response to higher global gas prices. You know, it's the second kind of period of high prices and very volatile prices in the past five years. Have you seen any reaction, especially from the Asian countries, to perhaps pivot more towards long-term planning for coal and renewable power over gas? Thanks.

I'll take the first one on EBITDA. I know I hear a lot of analysts say that we're often conservative early on in the year, but I'll say like what we basically I don't know if this is different than most companies. We don't overpromise. When you look at our proxies and where we set budgets and targets for the company, it's very consistent with our initial guidance. The reason we were able to raise it this time is quite a few things like production coming through in a way, not just with mid-scale trains coming online quicker and ramping up quicker, thanks to like just the teamwork with the Bechtel folks of handing it over.

It's all the resiliency work we've done since last year that's boosting the production guide for the year. That's adding with margins, let's say in the $9-$10 range, $400 million. That doesn't sound too conservative. That just is what it is with where the current base case is on production. You add in, margins are up since the last call, on less than a million tons. That adds $100 million. Optimization. We don't bake in optimization that hasn't been locked in yet. We've been pretty clear with that on our guidance calls. We're able to add another $100 million.

Henry Hub has actually come down since February a bit for the rest of the year, which offset that and was why we raised it by $500 million. Do we feel good about that range? Very much so, but there's still some moving parts in that. Like, if Henry Hub moves by $0.50 either way with how much LNG we're producing, like that's a $100 million swing. If Train 6 and 7 of mid-scale move by a half a month, that's like a $50 million swing. We have about $50 million or less for every $1 move on those CMI margins, which seem pretty volatile at times. On top of that is just overall LNG production.

If we add an extra 10 TBtu, that can be $100 million+. O&M for the scale that we have, that's usually ±$20 million a year. When you add all that up, that's why we stick to a $500 million range. Again, this company doesn't like to overpromise. We prefer to overperform.

Yeah, Jason. On your question about pivoting away from gas. Really haven't seen that yet now. It's fairly early in this disruption. I do think that the market, having experienced it in late February, was thinking that the resolution is going to be fairly quick. We were skeptical, and it still seems like the market thinks that this gets resolved in weeks, and we don't see normalization for months. After the Ukraine war, you did see two governments and plans shift away from gas. Again, we're not seeing that. Just to put into context, those entities that can transact on a long-term basis are seeing gas prices on a delivered basis from us that are well within, if not below their planning ranges.

Those places that, again, are creditworthy and are capable to transact on a long-term basis and are not whipped around by spot prices, really have no reason to reconsider. In the grand scheme of things, don't forget that our product, LNG, is only about 3% of primary energy. It's not a solution for the world. It's just a very elegant way to complement things like reliability, things like intermittency, things like emissions. Again, we're still optimistic that this will be in the rearview mirror soon, and the world will continue to grow to the 700 million ton plus market that we expect in 2040.

Makes sense. Thanks for all of the color there.

Our next question comes from Alexander Bidwell with Webber Research & Advisory.

Good morning. Appreciate the time. Sorry, excuse me. Want to take a look at the future expansions at Corpus and SPL. We've been seeing a ramp in labor competition across various projects in the U.S. Gulf. Do you expect that to have a knock-on impact in terms of EPC costs for the future Sabine and Corpus expansions?

No. I think the timing of our FID will work very well with Bechtel's current schedule and their growth projections. We haven't seen an issue with any of our mid-scale 5,000 workers there. I don't see a problem, Alexander.

I think there is a nice cadence with mid-scale completing stage 3 this year and then 8 and 9, and then eventually the ramp up starting next year and into 2028, 2029, with Sabine 7. Then again, after that, there's also the ramp up with CCL4. The cycle is in our favor, that it's slightly off from many of these projects that have FID'd recently or are desperate to FID right now.

Thank you. Appreciate the color there. Just I guess to follow up on the mid-scale train performance, can you guys give us a sense of where I guess the natural differences have been in terms of OpEx and maintenance thus far versus your traditional large-scale trains?

Oof. Alexander, I think it's a little too soon for us yet. I would say they've been a little bit equal, maybe a little higher on the mid-scale as we continue to debottleneck. It's hard for me to segment sustainable operations and maintenance versus some of the debottlenecking activities that we've been doing on the individual trains to get more output out of them. Give us a little more time with having the operations under our belt, and we'll try to help with some transparency there.

One note I'll make, though, is that the mid-scale trains will require more power. You'll just see that incrementally in cost of goods sold related to those. Even though as we scale that up, it's gonna be pretty straightforward and pretty consistent with the other 15 million tons at Corpus. Get a little more scale beyond just five trains and they'll get relatively close. It'll just be in different buckets to an extent as it requires more power.

All right. Thank you. I'll turn it back over.

We'll take our next question from Manav Gupta with UBS.

Good morning, guys. You are one of the few midstream companies that besides dividends also rewards shareholders with buybacks. I'm just trying to understand, given the current environment and the amount of free cash you're generating, how are you thinking about stock buybacks here?

Well, I would say today we feel very much so like, we're enjoying the stock buyback. With that said, I'll say a few things. First and foremost, around our buyback, it's meant to be opportunistic and disciplined. Our stock basically varied between, like, $200 or less to $300 in Q1. We bought over a half a billion dollars at $202. That shows the discipline and opportunistic nature of it. We did buy back over $1 billion in Q3 and Q4, but that had a lot to do with the fact that we bought back less than $700 million in the first half of last year, and we rolled over the allocations.

Cheniere Energy (LNG) Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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