Earnings Labs

Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG)

Q2 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 9, 2016

$266.38

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Sally, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Cheniere Energy, Inc. Second Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. I will now turn the conference over to Randy Bhatia, Director of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Randy Bhatia - Director-Finance & Investor Relations, Cheniere Energy Partners LP: Good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to Cheniere Energy's second quarter 2016 earnings conference call. The slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call can be found on our website located at cheniere.com. Participating on the call this morning are Jack Fusco, Cheniere's President and Chief Executive Officer; Anatol Feygin, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development; and Michael Wortley, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind all listeners that our remarks, including answers to your questions, may contain forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from what is described in these statements. Slide two of our presentation contains a discussion of those forward-looking statements and associated risks. In addition, we may include references to non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA, net loss as adjusted, and net loss per share as adjusted. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measure can be found in the appendix of the slide deck. As part of our discussion of Cheniere Energy, Inc.'s results, the call may also include selected financial information and results for Cheniere Energy Partners L.P., or CQP, and Cheniere Energy Partners LP Holdings, or CQH. On this call…

Operator

Operator

Certainly. Your first question comes from the line of Christine Cho with Barclays. Your line is open..

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for hosting the call. I guess I wanted to start with where you left off, Michael. Can you remind us what the credit rating agencies are looking for with respect to a potential upgrade to investment grade for SPL? And you've done some bond issuances to term out the credit facility but given the anxiety with the energy tape and leverage of maturing companies in general, obviously your leverage is often a topic that's brought up by investors given all the contracts roll off in a short time period. And I know it's 20 years out and who knows what the world will be like then but what do you think are the steps the company needs to take today to alleviate some of those concerns that weigh on the stock every time commodity prices are down? Michael J. Wortley - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Hey, Christine. So I think the first thing, the agencies are looking for derisking of the construction process. So we talk about our projects are financed with investment grade credit metrics. They are, they have. Where the agencies are looking for a debt service coverage ratio of something north of 1.4, our two projects are using conservative assumptions, more like 1.6, 1.7. So it's really just a matter of time for us getting there. So S&P has said they want to see two Trains up and running and then they'll consider us. And the next upgrade from S&P will put us at investment grade. So that's anywhere between now, given that we have two Trains running and the startup of Train 3, which is in the first half of next year. So I think we're in that neighborhood at this point and it's just a matter of time.…

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you. And then, I guess my follow-up, you guys have had Train 1 running for a couple of months now. Bechtel has had a strong track record in bringing on Trains at a level higher than the design capacity. Do you guys have a good sense for what the effective capacity is for Train 1 is yet? And what would you say were the biggest surprises and/or challenges with bringing Train 1 up to where it is today? Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, Christine, this is Jack. So first off, thanks. And thanks for recognizing it's your follow-up question, because the queue is really backing up. So I want to make sure we give everybody an opportunity to ask a question on the call. But we are very pleased with the performance of Train 1. But we're right in the middle of doing, and conducting our testing and getting comfortable with the Train. So we're not going to commit at this point of what we think the design capabilities are of the Train. But you should rest assured it's in very good hands, that the Cheniere operating team is in my classification doing exactly what we need to be doing. They're operating it extremely well, and the handoff from Bechtel has went extremely well. So we're very pleased at this point but not ready yet to commit or comment on the total capabilities. But thank you.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ted Durbin with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Theodore Durbin - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks. I just want to talk about the long-term and the near-term contracting strategy. I guess the first question is would you be willing to give on the 350 (sic) [$3.50) that you signed up a lot of your recent contracts on if you saw that some of your competitors were signing up capacity in a more meaningful way? And I guess the follow-up to that, is your appetite to contract out more than the, call it, 87% 88% of the existing Trains that you have under contract? Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Ted. It's Jack. I'll give you my piece, and then I'll turn the call or the question over to Anatol. So as far as our prospects on long term contracts or the 350 number (sic) [$3.50] we're going to do whatever makes financial sense. So the way I think about our contracting efforts is there's going to be a portion of whatever the 87% and above is that we feel comfortable that we're going to want to term out. I believe having stability in the cash flows is more important to Cheniere than trying to play some spot market or basis spreads throughout the world on the LNG complex. So you should expect us to be very aggressive with our marketing and our contracting efforts going forward. And Anatol? Anatol Feygin - Senior VP-Strategy & Corporate Development: Yeah. Thanks, Jack. Thanks, Ted, for the question. As we said in our prepared remarks, this is a cyclical market and right now we have a fair amount of supply coming on. We are very encouraged by the demand response…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Jeremy B. Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Good morning. Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Jeremy.

Jeremy B. Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Jack, I just wanted to touch base on the opportunity for cost savings and improving operational efficiencies there. I'm just wondering, I know you're early in your tenure at this point, but could you provide any more thoughts as far as what type of scale or magnitude this could present? Or is it more just about kind of shaping a more return-focused culture in general for Cheniere? Any thoughts there would be helpful. Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Jeremy, so we're in the process right now of trying to get our budgets in order. So it's a little longer process that we're going through. So we're talking about staffing plans first. We're going through a zero-based budgeting process that Michael and his team are going to kick off here very quickly for next year. And we'll go through what do we need to be successful here at Cheniere if we're focused on being the best LNG provider in the space? And that process I'm hopeful will deliver some significant results for us. And you should expect us, when we give guidance, to actually give you what we believe a run rate on our G&A budget should be going forward. I'm not capable or willing at this time to actually answer your question directly on this call as far as what I think the magnitude is going to be, but you should expect it from us in the near future.

Jeremy B. Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Makes sense. That's fair. Thanks for that. And just wondering if you could comment philosophically speaking with the structure. Calpine never employed the yieldco structure or anything like that. And I'm just wondering, philosophically, what you think about the MLP structure here? I know you've talked a bit about simplifying the family structure. That could take a lot of different iterations. But just wondering, philosophically thinking, how you think about the importance of the MLP structure? Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Wow. So I mean, not only in my career have I never been involved in an MLP or a yieldco, I've never paid a dividend either, Jeremy. So this is all new for me and a learning process. It's exciting. I mean, I am appreciative of Michael and his team trying to get me up to speed on all the nuances with the Cheniere capital structure, which is very complicated. But I think there's a place and a role for the MLP structure. I am pleased and very supportive of trying to get to an investment-grade rating down at SPL, which will be a first in my career also. I've never been associated with anything that's been remotely close to investment grade. So this is an exciting time for me as well as for the company. But I don't have any philosophical positives or negatives against any of the different structures. I've just never had an opportunity to actually employ any of them in the past.

Jeremy B. Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Thanks for your thoughts there.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of James Carreker with U.S. Capital Advisors. Your line is open.

James Carreker - USCA Securities LLC

Analyst · U.S. Capital Advisors. Your line is open.

Thanks for taking my questions. Understanding that it's just the five cargoes that have hit the income statement, I was wondering if you could just provide just a little color on the 10 or so pre-commissioning cargoes and how those sold and what prices you're seeing, margins, things like that? Michael J. Wortley - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yeah. I mean I'll take that. We sold them all over the place, I mean really all over the globe, South America, Middle East. India took a cargo, some in Europe as well, Portugal. So they really – we were excited to see they went to a lot of places and not a lot of traditional markets, also. And then on the pricing side, our guys, as Jack said, did a great job putting the cargoes away and I'd say we got market price. So if you look at what South American prices were or JKM during that time, it was in that neighborhood.

James Carreker - USCA Securities LLC

Analyst · U.S. Capital Advisors. Your line is open.

Okay. And then I guess for the balance of the year going forward on the marketing side, you had some sales done I think in the 2014 timeframe. Are those going to start hitting, I guess, in Q2, Q3, Q4? Have some of those already hit? I guess a little color on what you might see for the rest of the year on marketing? Michael J. Wortley - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yeah. I mean, the answer's yes. I don't want to get too granular into that kind of stuff, but one cargo did hit this quarter that was sold a couple years ago. So that one showed up, and then there'll be more later this year. And then the bulk of them are next year.

James Carreker - USCA Securities LLC

Analyst · U.S. Capital Advisors. Your line is open.

Okay. So for the most part, this year's going to be spottish type marketing sales? Michael J. Wortley - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: I wouldn't say that. I mean there are some cargoes that have been put away couple years ago that are going to go today. There will be the occasional spot cargo. And remember we're in commissioning, so sometimes the production guys show up with a cargo on short notice. Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Go ahead, Anatol. Anatol Feygin - Senior VP-Strategy & Corporate Development: And also, just obviously, BG pre-commercial cargoes are going now as well, as Michael said. So that's the bulk of the volume that you'll see moving out of the plant for the balance of the year.

James Carreker - USCA Securities LLC

Analyst · U.S. Capital Advisors. Your line is open.

Thank you. And then if I could just follow up real quickly on – I was wondering if you could maybe bridge the gap a little bit on the delta between LNG's EBITDA and CQP's EBITDA for the quarter and what's driving the delta there? Michael J. Wortley - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yeah. There's a lot of cost stuff at CEI, G&A or otherwise, that aren't borne by the partnership, right? I mean, we have the marketing business up at CEI. We have a group of folks running our Corpus project. And so that's what's driving the difference.

James Carreker - USCA Securities LLC

Analyst · U.S. Capital Advisors. Your line is open.

Okay. And I mean, is that a good run rate delta? Is that the right way to think about it? Michael J. Wortley - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Yeah. I mean, it'll be a function of what our cost structure ultimately is. But, yeah, I think so.

James Carreker - USCA Securities LLC

Analyst · U.S. Capital Advisors. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Alex Kania with Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Alex S. Kania - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks. Good morning. A question on the El Campesino contract. What are the remaining regulatory approvals that you might need there in Chile? I'm just curious about maybe a little more granularity on maybe the timing of the FID. Anatol Feygin - Senior VP-Strategy & Corporate Development: Thanks, Alex. This is Anatol. Thanks for the question. So the project, the way to think about it is actually two projects. There's the terminal and the power plant. Our partner in Chile is doing a fabulous job of moving this through its paces and through the regulatory process. It is a very robust regulatory process with lots of involvement, lots of comment periods, and so on. Just yesterday, we received a favorable vote on the power plant itself. That vote has already taken place for the terminal. We are very comfortable that we will reach FID on this project in the second half of this year. And again, it's moving through the paces of a commission vote, a recommendation that's issued, comment period on that recommendation, and then ultimately, the permits issued for the terminal and the power plant. And we expect that in the next few months.

Alex S. Kania - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein. Your line is open. Jean Ann Salisbury - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Hi, guys. At low global LNG prices, it should make sense for Cheniere to continue to sell as long as you're profitable on a very low cost basis. So I have an estimate of a variable OpEx, but what would be helpful is your perspective on how easy or difficult it is to run these Trains at 70% or 80% utilization. Are there high costs associated with that which might make Cheniere's willingness to lift (47:00) go to an even lower price than it might appear? Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi. No. It's not. And I mean the variable cost should be relatively constant throughout the Train and the Train's production. Jean Ann Salisbury - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Okay. Thank you. And then I just wanted to follow up on your comment earlier about wanting to term out some of that spot. I guess most market observers think that the LNG market is oversupplied through the end of the decade. Buyers maybe come back in mass in 2018 or so. Is that the timeframe of what you're thinking? Or are you targeting earlier and that's exactly what you mean by not trying to time the spot market? Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. So first off, as far as the LNG market is concerned, we went through and I spent a little bit of time on my prepared remarks talking about the 45 months for Train 1 and the 49 months for Train 2, and that was not by accident. So if you think about the amount of time and effort it takes to build a Train, those folks that are thinking they're going to need LNG in 2021 are late. So if you think the market, like WoodMac and some of the others consultants have talked about, starts to get very tight again in 2021 to 2023. They better start talking to us sooner rather than later or we won't have any to sell them. And that's kind of what we're seeing and feeling with our marketing efforts, that there's much more interest, again, a lot of discussions with our core customers about the next decade. So Anatol, do you have anything to add? Anatol Feygin - Senior VP-Strategy & Corporate Development: No. I would just add to the previous commentary that we are early in the process of putting the Train through its paces. We're about to start doing that for Train 2. To the extent that, from a marketing standpoint, we're comfortable with ratable volumes being available for medium-term transactions, that's clearly something we would consider at that point. Jean Ann Salisbury - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Great. That's really helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Fotis Giannakoulis with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Fotis Giannakoulis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yes. Hello. And thank you for taking my question. You talked about the number of potential FSRU projects that are out there and the fact that most of the consultants are agreeing that the market is going to tighten after 2020, 2021. What would it take for you to take additional FIDs? Is this just timing more long-term (50:00) contacts? And I wanted to ask if you would be willing to move laterally in the value chain and potentially participating in some of these projects? Anatol Feygin - Senior VP-Strategy & Corporate Development: Thanks, Fotis. It's Anatol. As Jack mentioned, we are big fans of this Chile project construct. We want to enable our downstream partners to have a very successful and profitable project and we are at the ready to provide them with term supply. So to the extent that that requires us supporting the developer to some modest extent downstream of our value chain, we are happy to entertain that. And with a proper risk mitigation and return profile that's something that we clearly would consider as we have in Chile and we are pursuing those constructs really on a global basis. So as you are, we are fans of the FSRU as a component of this value change solution. We are very encouraged by how rapidly they come to market and can absorb meaningful amounts of volumes and we look forward to incremental term supply deals that ultimately will come with incremental liquefaction that's constructed on our side of the value chain. So we like what we see and we think as the market continues to grow, we'll see more of those…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Sunil Sibal with Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open.

Sunil K. Sibal - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning, guys, and thanks for hosting this call and taking my question. So a couple of questions from me. I think you mentioned previously that you are expecting a four-week turnaround on Train 1 and taking care of some items there. I was kind of curious, how should we be thinking about these kind of turnarounds or maintenance activities on a more normalized run rate going forward? Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: First off, it's a four-week outage for Sabine and it's to correct a design issue that we've had with our process flares, Sunil. So you shouldn't read anything more or less into that. We're taking care of it now so we don't have to continue to take care of it in the future. There is normal maintenance, but the Trains have significant redundancy built into them, so it shouldn't impact us like this in the future going forward, if that's what you're asking.

Sunil K. Sibal - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open.

Yeah. No, that's fair. So basically then one turnaround per Train every three years or something is the normalized expectation? Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: One – I didn't hear that.

R. Keith Teague - Executive Vice President-Asset Group

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open.

One turnaround per three years. I mean the production capacity is more than sufficient to meet our contractual obligations. I don't know how... Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Go ahead.

R. Keith Teague - Executive Vice President-Asset Group

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open.

This is Keith Teague, just commenting that our production capacity is sufficient to meet our contractual obligations. The outage and turnaround schedule itself has a number of variables, and I don't know to what extent going forward we're going to be publicizing our maintenance plans. This last time around it got into the market so we're talking a little bit about it now. But we're comfortable with the maintenance planning that we've got in place and our ability to meet our contractual obligations.

Sunil K. Sibal - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open.

Okay. Got that. And then just one clarification with regard to your discussions with the rating agencies. I was just curious, in addition to the construction schedule, are there any other requirements with regard to amortizing features on the debt which will facilitate your transition to an investment grade? Michael J. Wortley - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: No. I mean those features are built into the existing debt we have, those bonds we've put in. They require certain debt incurrence tests to us which meet the IG thresholds that they're looking for. So no, it's just getting the early Trains up and running, which is what will give them ultimate comfort to move the rating.

Sunil K. Sibal - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open.

Okay. Got it. Thanks, guys. Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your questions today. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Jack Fusco. Jack A. Fusco - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes. Thank you all. I just wanted to close with saying I really appreciate all of your support and your interest in Cheniere, and we look forward to working together here in the future. So thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your time and participation. This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.