Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Excelerate Energy Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Bruno, and I’ll be the operator of today. [Operator Instructions] I would now hand over to your host Craig Hicks, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Yesterday afternoon, we released our fourth quarter and full year 2022 earnings press release, along with the presentation that our President and Chief Executive Officer, Steven Kobos; and our Chief Financial Officer, Dana Armstrong, will speak to this morning. I would like to remind everyone that we will be making forward-looking statements on this call that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Our actual results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, and we make no obligation to update or revise them. During the call, we’ll also discuss several non-GAAP financial measures. We have provided a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures at the back of the presentation. With that, it’s my pleasure to pass the call over to Steven Kobos.

Thanks, Craig, and thank you all for joining us this morning. Excelerate Energy delivered strong financial results in the fourth quarter is capped off an impressive year as we continued to demonstrate the strength of our business model. Our proven ability to deliver consistent earnings growth across market cycles gives us even more confidence in our plan to maximize value for shareholders. As this past year has shown, having flexible access to cleaner and more reliable energy has never been so critical. At Excelerate, we play a unique role in delivering essential energy solutions for our customers, while at the same time supporting the decarbonization efforts of countries across the globe. Today, we are well-positioned to build on this momentum and capitalize on the increased demand for LNG. You’re seeing this play out with our recently announced 20-year LNG Sales and Purchase Agreement with Venture Global, with the commencement of downstream gas sales in Europe, and with the extension of our agreement with the Dubai Supply Authority. Material progress we’re making on LNG procurement and downstream gas sales, this syncs well with the timing of our new build FSRU order with Hyundai Heavy Industries. We’re currently marketing that ship as part of an integrated infrastructure offering. The 2023 financial guidance, which we announced yesterday, Dana’s going to cover this in more detail, but it reflects the confidence we have in the business and our value creation strategy. On this morning’s call, I want to focus my remarks on our strategic growth outlook and the progress we are making on our commercial opportunities. As a global energy company, we are focused on enhancing energy security and accelerating the transition to a clean energy future. Our strategic goals at Excelerate include operating a profitable and growing fleet of FSRUs, growing our existing…

Thanks, Steven, and good morning. We are very pleased with Excelerate’s performance in the fourth quarter and for the full year 2022. Our fourth quarter adjusted EBITDAR was $98 million, an increase of $12 million are up about 13% over the previous quarter. The sequential increase was driven by the commencement of the Finland Charter and the sale of a partial commissioning LNG cargo into Finland. On a full year basis, adjusted EBITDAR for 2022 was $331 million, well above the high end of our guidance range due to the LNG cargo sale in Finland and over performance in Brazil during the fourth quarter. As compared to the prior year, our adjusted EBITDAR was up $40 million, an increase of 14%, primarily data having a full year of gas sales at the Bahia terminal in Brazil, which was partially offset by LNG marketing and supply activities in 2021 that did not reoccur in 2022 along with higher SG&A to support our transition to public company structure. We are proud of the success we had during our first year as a public company, which reflects the commitment and dedication of the entire Excelerate team. As of year-end 2022, Excelerate has $517 million of cash and cash equivalents on hand and no outstanding borrowings under our revolver. Our gross leverage ratio was 2.2 times at the end of the year compared to 2.5 times at the end of the third quarter. On a net debt basis, our leverage ratio 0.4 times. Now, I would like to provide a few comments on our recently announced amended credit facility. Last week, we announced the closing of a $600 million amended and restated senior secured credit facility, which consists of a refinanced $350 million revolving credit facility and a new $250 million term loan. The…

[Operator Instructions] We have our first question comes from Devin McDermott from Morgan Stanley. Devin your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey good morning. Thanks for the helpful of data for taking my questions. So my first one, Steven, you made an interesting point in your prepared remarks about Bangladesh returning to the spot market and buying some LNG. And if we think more broadly high prices over the past year plus of constrained buying across a lot of more price-sensitive to markets. It seems like many of those staring to come back and participate in spot purchases again and resuming some level of demand growth. So my question is, can you talk in a little bit more detail about the Asia Pacific growth opportunity broadly. Are there other markets that you’re looking at or other opportunities that you’re seeing to further the innovative terminal model there.

Sure. Thanks for the question, Devin. We remain excited about APAC. Obviously, 2022 was all about the war in the pivot to Europe, but we haven’t taken our eye off of APAC. And we are pleased that – to see these markets we enter as buyers. So it’s not to say these are ideal prices for these markets, but they are prices at which it makes sense to enter the market and buy spot cargoes, and that’s great for a number of reasons. First, a couple of them reflect the fact that there really has yet to be demand destruction. You’re seeing the appetite to get as much LNG as they can once prices have moderated. And we do think the lessons learned from 2022 in the region in general, are that they need to enter into longer-term pricing, acquire those molecules. Yes, we are active in the region. We do have one of our, I guess, in fact, our largest office outside of Houston is in Singapore, and we are scouring the region because people are starting to think about what comes next, and I assure everyone that LNG is still vitally part of the mix in APAC.

Great. That’s helpful and good to hear. My follow-up is on Bangladesh. It sounds like we’re getting closer to the finish line on the Payra FID. I was wondering if you could just walk us through the remaining milestones and expected time line there? And then also, where do we stand on a potential expansion at LNG?

Sure. The Payra project, I would say anyone wants to hear it, it’s at that point where there are lots of lawyers involved. And we’re trying to get to the term sheet phase as – I think never a good thing. But we’re trying to get to the phase where we have the term sheet and hand that lays out the deal. We continue to invest on that project to do the necessary engineering work in the background. We’ve spent roughly about $5 million to date. We remain bullish on that. So, I do think the next thing you’re likely to hear would be as soon as we can actually conclude a term sheet with the government. In terms of Moheshkhali or MLNG our existing project there. It’s really about how much LNG the government is securing. We remain in negotiations with them for additional volumes my comment in the prepared remarks was simply to say that we expect Bangladesh government to enter into long-term contracts in 2023. But I don’t want to speak necessarily as to when they will conclude those. Those long-term contracts obviously would likely commence in 2026, 2027. But they are thinking about it. And they understand that to be part of that mix and to secure those volumes that are predictable and affordable that they need to act and they need to act this year.

Great. Thank you.

Thanks, Devin.

Our next question comes from Craig Shere from Tuohy. Craig your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi thanks for taking the question. First, could you walk us through this German charger suspension in support of the latest Argentine Bahia Blanca deployment. So does this just provide you a temporary higher total return on that FSRU? Or is the German charter basically pushed out. So if it is suspended for three months or so, four months then does the five years get extended? Or just in that short period, you’re just serving a customer when the Germans don’t necessarily need and maybe making an extra $1 or $2?

Thanks, Craig. I’ll let Dana speak to the extra $1 or $2, but we do see this as a win-win-win when for the German government in terms it moderates their expense the summer or the southern winter, depending upon where you live, win for us and further uplift for the Excelsior and obviously, a win for Argentina, as further energy security and balance to their system during their Southern Hemisphere winter. So it is an uplift that we’re receiving as part of what we’re doing this summer rather than an extension to the charter, but there is definite uplift. What I’d tell everybody out there though is this is nothing new. We have an effort to optimize fleet over the years, we have routinely, I guess, you could call it, or vessels from customers and put it where there was maximum uplift for Excelerate. So you should see – you should see that optimizing of the fleet as being part of – it’s just our core approach to business. Anyway, we’re very pleased about it because that involved Excelerate cooperating with two sovereigns and we are the company that can do that.

Yes. Craig, just to speak to the economics, you’re correct in your assumption that it does provide an uplift. It’s a modest uplift. So it will be a suspension for a couple of months and will return to earning revenue in late Q3 and if we look at what we would have earned in Germany versus what we’ll earn for 2023 with the suspension agreement and with the Argentina project, it’s going to be roughly $5 million to $6 million uplift to our EBITDA by having the seasonal service are. So it’s a good new start. And then, of course, we’ll start the revenue again in late Q3, with Germany.

Great. Thank you for that. And can you elaborate, maybe I missed it, but could you provide a little more color on the overperformance in Brazil in the quarter?

Dana, do you want to take that one?

Yes, I can take that one, Craig. So we renegotiated that contract with Petrobras as we found that in November of 2022. And under our new contract, we have – is similar to the other contract where we’re obviously vacant a fixed rate per MMBtu, a fixed capacity fee, regardless of how revenues we’re going to generate stable credible margins under the new structure and the new contracts, depending on the volumes they take that rate per MMBtu may fluctuate. So sometimes you may see higher margins when we see lower revenues. We did that new contact structure. So basically, have some – achieved some favorability under the new contract structure that allows us to get more favorable margins even with lower volumes. And so that’s what we saw in the fourth quarter.

Thanks for the explanation.

Sure.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from David Havens from SMBC Nikko. David, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning everyone. I want to start on CapEx. And the first question on that being, what have you invested to date in the Payra project as well as Vlora and then I know you touched a little bit on CapEx and earlier comments for 2023, but can you kind of give us a little bit more detail or a sense of what 2023 CapEx, organic CapEx could look like with the assumption that Payra does begin to move forward, you get some of those contracts across the goal line.

Thanks, David. Dana will be coming to you on this when we get into the specifics. But David, in general, I think, I guess, on an earlier question, I mentioned spin today, but that’s a historical spend, not necessarily this year, last year, any other year are out of pocket on Payra takes about $5 million, as I said. And frankly, we will be limiting the spend on that. So we do have funding that’s enough to really allow us to price and to have a sensible commercial negotiations, we need to, on an informed basis. So that’s just kind of skin in the game. I think, Dana, what we alluded to in the prepared remarks were our views on maintenance CapEx for the year. Is that right? And I don’t know that we are guiding yet on Payra or Vlora anything else until definitive agreements are we?

Yes, that’s correct, David. So the maintenance CapEx, the $15 [ph] million to $35 million that we guided that’s dried off and it’s spare parts, vessel equipment, things like that. It doesn’t include any growth CapEx. We’re not yet guiding on growth CapEx. That’s something, we want to have a little bit more certainty about before we guide on that. So as Steven said, for Payra, what we spent year-to-date, it’s a little bit under $5 million. That’s not classified as CapEx. That’s just project development spend. And then I’ll be in a similar situation with the Vlora project development. We did spend some CapEx, gross CapEx last year on the power barges. But on the big overall Vlora project, just like – the growth CapEx, it’s something we’ll continue to guide on once we have more visibility and more information. But we’re not going to start capitalizing on either Payra or Vlora or any of our growth projects until we’ve got more certainty around the projects. So you’ll see that build in a development spend for right now.

All right. I’m sure. Thanks. And my follow-up is, as you guys address your need to source LNG, how should we think about the additional [ph] long-term SPAs that you might sign? And do you have a geographic presence for the origin of that LNG?

I’m sorry, what was the last part of that question, David? Do we have a geographic what?

Preference to the origin, whether it be the United States, Qatar, wherever?

Sure. Look, we are excited about the opportunity with Venture Global and Plaquemines Phase 2 and the fact that Venture Global took FID on Plaquemines Phase 2 within – gosh, within a couple or three weeks of our announcement of the SPA. We’re excited about that. We thought it was a good opportunity. We saw low risk to those volumes. They’ve already executed with the same team before, and we thought it was a good add to our portfolio, the first to add to it that said, you know very well. We have a global footprint. We have global ambitions. And while we may very well wish to source additional U.S. volumes, we want a diversified LNG supply portfolio, and that’s why we remain and continue discussions with suppliers around the world. We are determined that if we build this diversified LNG supply portfolio, with strong partners, it doesn’t matter where the strong partners are. But with strong partners like VG, it’s going to allow us to offer more flexible, more cost-effective products to existing and new customers. And based upon the locations, we’re somewhat agnostic in geography. I will tell you, in 2021, we sold four spot cargoes into Bangladesh, which were all sourced physically from the United States. So there really is no limit to where we can deliver these recently contracted volumes, but we’re going to keep our eyes open for opportunities that make sense and are accretive around the world.

Okay, thank you.

We currently have no further questions. I would like to hand back to our CEO, Steven Kobos, for final remarks. Please go ahead.

Hey, thank you again to everyone who joined on today’s call. I’m proud of the progress we have made to date. And I want to thank the entire Excelerate team for making our first year as a public company a great success. As you’ve heard today, we are continuing to execute the strategic plan that we presented to investors last year. Although we’ve achieved several strategic objectives, we know there is still much work to be done. I’m going to look forward to providing you with additional progress updates in the coming months. But until then, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Craig Hicks, our VP of Investor Relations. Thanks again.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s call. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.