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Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG)

Q4 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 21, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Cheniere Energy Fourth Quarter and Full 2017 Conference Call. 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. Please go ahead, sir.

Randy Bhatia - Cheniere Energy Partners LP Holdings, LLC

Management

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Cheniere Energy's fourth quarter and full year 2017 earnings conference call. Slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call can be found on our website at cheniere.com. Participating on today's call are Jack Fusco, Cheniere's President and Chief Executive Officer; Anatol Feygin, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer; and Michael Wortley, Executive 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 2 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 consolidated adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow. 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, today's call may also include selected financial information and results for Cheniere Energy Partners LP, or CQP, and Cheniere Energy Partners LP Holdings, LLC, or CQH. On this call, we do not intend to cover CQP or CQH's results separately from those of Cheniere Energy, Inc. After prepared remarks, we'll open the call for Q&A. As shown on the agenda on slide 3, Jack will begin with an overview of the fourth quarter and full year, and then give an update on construction and operating progress at our liquefaction projects. Following Jack's comments, we will hear from Anatol on our commercial activities, and then from Michael, who will review our financial results. I will now turn the call over to Jack Fusco, Cheniere's President and CEO.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Randy, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us as we review Cheniere's results from the fourth quarter and full year 2017, and provide you with our improved outlook on 2018. By most conceivable relevant measures, 2017 was a breakthrough year for Cheniere. We achieved significant milestones operationally, financially, commercially, and just about everywhere in between. We have demonstrated our commitment to execution, operational excellence, financial discipline and, in doing so, we have delivered on our promises to our customers, employees, and stakeholders. We did so in the face of some challenging circumstances in 2017, most notably, Hurricane Harvey. So I'm especially proud of our workforces' resilience and dedication, which are key factors in our record 2017 results and improved outlook for 2018. Entering 2018, I'm more excited about Cheniere's growth prospects than at any time since joining the company. As the market continues to exhibit strength and demand for our product, in some cases, it's even better than we even anticipated. We've recently announced three new long-term SPAs, which we expect will support our growth plans at Corpus Christi. First, in January, we executed a long-term SPA with Trafigura. And earlier this month, we executed two long-term SPAs with China National Petroleum Corporation, or CNPC. We have recently executed another medium-term contract to provide CNPC additional cargoes in 2018 through 2020. These CNPC transactions, in particular, demonstrate Cheniere's strategic positioning, our ability to execute, and value proposition that is difficult for many to match. These long-term SPAs build upon Cheniere's growing activities and presence in China, including more than 35 cargoes of LNG delivered from Sabine Pass, the opening of an office in Beijing, and a broad and intense effort involving Cheniere employees from across our offices in Beijing, Houston, Washington, London, and Singapore. We are honored…

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide 9. Loadings and deliveries from Sabine Pass accelerated during the fourth quarter as production at the plant continued to ramp with the start-up of commercial operations of Train 4 during the quarter. The substantial completion of Trains 3 and 4 in 2017, each well ahead of schedule, facilitated the export of more than 200 cargoes for the year, a significant increase from the 56 cargoes exported in 2016. The cargos were delivered to destinations all over the world with Mexico, South Korea and China as the top-three destinations for deliveries in 2017. This, in line with the recent trends in the global market, reflecting Asia as the most dominant source of LNG demand growth. About 45% of the cargoes were delivered to Asian markets while 14% were delivered to Europe, mostly into the premium markets on the Mediterranean. Northwest European market demand for gas was primarily satisfied via record pipeline gas flows from Norway and Russia, which helped free up volumes to balance the LNG market, again especially in Asia. Fewer cargoes were exported into the Middle East and North Africa, reflecting lower demand in the peak summer season in that region and a decreased pull from Egypt as the country ramps up production from its new offshore gas deals. Latin America took in about 30% of the deliveries as Mexico's needs remained strong throughout the year. Now, let me update you on some of our key takeaways on global LNG supply and demand dynamics as we exited 2017. Let's turn to slide 10. 2017 was a strong year of supply growth for LNG. The industry produced about 30 million more tonnes than it did in 2016. Australia and the U.S. accounted for approximately 75% of the supply growth. The…

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Anatol, and good morning, everyone. I'll start this morning by highlighting some key components of our fourth quarter and full year financial results and will then give an update on tax reform impact to Cheniere. I'll cover our revised 2018 guidance and, finally, some of our near-term financial objectives. Turn now to slide 13. As Jack said earlier, 2017 was a breakthrough year for Cheniere and our financial results clearly reflect that. We reported consolidated revenue of over $5.6 billion, including over $1.7 billion in 4Q. I'm pleased to report consolidated adjusted EBITDA of just over $1.8 billion and distributable cash flow of over $0.6 billion for 2017, both metrics well within the revised guidance range we provided on our 3Q call. Guidance is a principal tool we use to provide transparency of our operations and expectations, and we aim to consistently deliver on the guidance we provide to the investment community. We exported 734 TBtu of LNG from Sabine Pass during 2017, including 51 TBtu related to commissioning. Approximately 35% of the total volume, 252 TBtu, was exported in the fourth quarter, including 7 TBtu related to commissioning. Of the volumes exported during the fourth quarter, over 60% of the volumes, approximately 155 TBtu, were listed by our third-party SPA customers, with the remainder listed by our marketing function. The marketing function had access to substantial production volumes in the fourth quarter due to the early completion of Train 4 and is expected to continue to have access to those volumes until the GAIL SPA commences March 1. During 2017, our long-term foundation customer SPA with KOGAS reached DFCD, as did our SPA's with Gas Natural Fenosa and the Train 2 portion of BG Shell SPA. Though considerable amount of our results for 2017 are related to cash…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, sir. And we'll take our first question from Matthew Phillips with Guggenheim. Please go ahead, sir.

Matthew Phillips - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Thanks. Morning, guys. So given the increase, 12 million tonnes or so, that China has taken in, in 2017 versus 2016, how do you see the market landscape setting up for this year and especially as we head into winter given that coal parity is wider? And I guess just in terms of the factors that caused the increase this winter, do you expect significant repeat of that into 2018 and 2019?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Hi, Matt. This is Jack. I'll start and then I'll have Anatol finish. First, I'm extremely proud of my team. We saw an opportunity in China over a year ago. We've been talking about China with all of you for an extremely long period of time. We saw that it was a structural change in China that it wasn't dependent on weather. So yes, it was cold in China and in Asia overall. But that's not what was driving the high LNG prices and China's demand for LNG. It was their Blue Sky initiatives. So in China, they are serious about minimizing their coal-fired power production and coal-fired heating to increase their air quality. And having been there multiple times, I can tell you they need to be extremely serious about it. The air quality in Beijing has a long ways to go yet to where it's healthy to breathe. So, we saw the structural change. We think it's there for the long term. We've positioned ourselves appropriately. We have our Beijing office that is actually staffed by Chinese nationals. With that, I'll let Anatol fill in any of my gaps.

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

No gaps. Nice work, Jack. Thanks, Matt, for the question. Yeah. As we've said to you guys, we were optimistic as the market absorbed these volumes at more attractive and – more attractive prices and sort of more reliable supply. But we are, as Jack said, seeing very substantial structural change as we see that China – especially the China coastal market that we expect to extend from the kind of Central and Northeastern part of the country down along the coast into the South to continue to be one of the big drivers. Emerging Asia is the growth engine for the LNG market and China is the single biggest piece of that. And as Jack said, the successes that they've had on the environmental front, while a long way to go, Beijing reduced its air pollution by over a third in a year. And that was largely a function of shutting down the five large coal plants in the city limits and that success has not been lost on the rest of the country. And that's why we mentioned things like China increasing its regas capacity, promulgating new regulations and opportunities to continue to have gas gain market share en route to their 15% overall goal. So we're quite optimistic on that market, as Jack said, and have a great team in place to take advantage of that.

Matthew Phillips - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Got it. Thanks. And on CMI, I mean, you all shipped around 26 or 28 or so third-party cargoes for last year. I mean, how should we look at procurement costs for those cargoes? And how do you expect the landscape to shake out there? I mean, do you expect third-party cargoes to continue to be a big piece of CMI in 2018 even if you're fully ramped up?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

In general, I would characterize those as opportunistic for a number of different reasons. I'd say it's safe to assume that those numbers will decline in – for a couple of reasons, one is because CMI's overall volumes will decline, so the opportunities to optimize around those positions will be fewer as all the SPAs commence. But you should expect us to continue to take advantage of opportunities that the market presents. That's one of the advantages we have in the integrated model. And the amount of shipping that we control and the amount of volumes that we deliver to our customers will always present some opportunities, but it is not – I would say, it's not a key leg to the stool.

Matthew Phillips - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Understood. Last one for me. What was the gas procurement cost versus Henry Hub during 2017?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

It was better than we had modeled originally, but we'll just leave it at that. The team did a great job of supplying the plant with record volumes and we fully expect their good performance to continue.

Matthew Phillips - Guggenheim Securities LLC

Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Matt.

Operator

Operator

And our next question will come from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Jeremy Bryan Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Good morning. Just wanted to circle back to CCL Train 3 FID here, and as I understand it – if I have my understanding right, it seems like you have sufficient commercial support here based on what you've outlined at the Analyst Day to move forward. Is there anything left besides lining up the financing before you would go forward in FID 3 here? And could you just refresh us that if you keep signing up contracts at the rate that you're doing can be another train after this, so would the next train make more sense at Corpus or Sabine, if you could help us out there?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Hi, Jeremy. This is Jack. So, no, we feel that we have enough contracts to commercialize Train 3. And as Michael said in his remarks that he's working diligently to get the financing wrapped up, so we can go into full FID on Train 3. If you go out there, you'll see again that we've already started with the foundation work and some of the groundbreaking work. And there's a lot of synergies with being able to transfer the workforce from Train 2 right over to Train 3. It depends, right. Sabine 6 is shovel-ready. There's still some crews there. It would be a logical next extension of Cheniere. We would call it Train 9. So, if the market continues to grow the way it has been in demand and the product that we have, we're very hopeful that we can launch right into having two trains FID.

Jeremy Bryan Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

That'd be great. And just looking to the guidance here. It seems like you had a lot on the water at year-end and that played into kind of the revenue recognition with CEI. So I was just wondering, as far as the guidance change, is it solely kind of the recognition of those cargoes in 2018 or are there other factors in play like the DAC (37:06) or anything else that kind of played into the guidance change there?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Yeah, Jeremy. It's Michael. Yeah, the DAC (37:14) drove, I'd say, 90%, 95% of the change. We had modeled a lot of cargoes on the water in our original guidance. As I said in the remarks, that's a little bit higher. We're talking maybe a cargo or two that flopped over into 2018. It's more pricing moving up. And I talked about a budgeted margin number of $1.50 to $2 on the last call. That number is more like $2.50 to $2.75 now, given the violent move, mostly in the winter, but also in the shoulder and summer months as well, that curve moving up. So, yeah, I mean, that's the bigger driver.

Jeremy Bryan Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

That's all helpful. Thanks for taking my question.

Operator

Operator

And we'll hear from Christine Cho from Barclays.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Hi, everyone. I thought that Korea is looking like it might take over the top destination for U.S. LNG from Mexico. Is that mostly from the Korea gas contract, or have you guys been delivering there from CMI on top of that? And is that more seasonal or the start of something structural similar to China? Any update you guys would be able to provide on additional SPAs that could come out of there despite the industry view that demand is mostly flat to down longer term?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Christine. It's Anatol. They pointed the finger at me for this one. So, KOGAS, a very large contract. Obviously, as we annualize that, it will mean more volume going to Korea. We did do spot cargoes into Korea before the start of that contract and to support their requirements. With their change in leadership, you saw kind of late Q1, early Q2 of last year, a very aggressive discussion about Korea's gas requirements and how its power would be procured moving forward. I would say relative to those very aggressive sort of pro-gas expectations, the numbers have been tempered somewhat, but it still looks to us like a meaningful incremental gas market, especially as you move out two to three years and some of their plans on nuclear retirements play out. In terms of Mexico, we still think that that's going to continue to be a very attractive market. Obviously, for us, it's in our backyard whether it's East Coast or West Coast. As you probably know, we're, on any given day, the largest LNG user of the Panama Canal and are very comfortable with supplying the West Coast of the Americas. And it's really up to CFE and what kind of requirements it will have. I think, structurally, as we move over time over the next two to four years, some of the infrastructure projects will ultimately come on and it will be a market that shifts more towards pipe gas as opposed to LNG. But we do think there will always be a role for LNG, and we think we're well-positioned to continue to serve CFE's and PMI's requirements.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then what's the increased LNG from the U.S. to Asia, which is a pretty long route, doing to charter rates? I think you guys have three ships on a five-year basis. Should we think that you guys will continue to do the remainder with short-term charters or will you be terming some out?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Christine, we actually had 23 ships on the water by the end of last year. And so, we have been very aggressive with that (41:03).

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

But that's mostly short term, no?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

It's short, medium and if you want to call it, long. It's all of the above.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Okay. And just...

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

It's going to be – as far as shipping and logistics, the one thing that I learned about this business over the last year-and-a-half is that it's a big effort, right? It takes a month to get to Asia when you go through the Panama Canal. So, it requires a pretty good base of shipping. And I feel very comfortable that our team manages it very effectively.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And one last accounting question for me. Does your tax guidance assume Corpus Christi 3 gets built? And is that CapEx eligible for 100% bonus depreciation?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

No and yes.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

It's not in our numbers, but, yeah, we expect it to be eligible.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

And what kind of impact would that do to when you pay your taxes, if that were to be included?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

I guess it would push out the day we're a full taxpayer at 21%, but that's already so far pushed out, and I don't think that it's really material.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

It wouldn't do anything to when you start to pay cash taxes?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

No, because writing off Train 3 would create more NOLs. And those new NOLs are subject to the 80% limitation. So...

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And from Wells Fargo, we'll have Michael Webber.

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Good morning, guys. How are you?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Good, Michael. How are you?

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Good. Jack, I wanted to circle back to CC3 and then maybe how your commercial conversations evolve. You're 60-odd percent covered. You're looking to finalize financing, obviously, or it would seem like you would need to have kind of fixed the volume there to kind of nail down the actual pricing on that financing, because it would certainly play a role. So I'm just curious, in terms of your ongoing commercial conversations then, once you kind of closed CC3 at that point, how easy is it to transition those conversations to Sabine 6? Are you at a point now where most of your ongoing commercial conversations from here on out will be around Sabine 6? And would you continue to use CMI or can you use that as kind of a landing pad for these kind of 1 to 1.15 mpta (sic) [mtpa] contracts to then kind of disperse accordingly?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

That's exactly the way we think about it, Michael, is number one, we don't think about it as a percentage of cover for the actual production of the Train. I think the way you said 60% covered, we look at the cash flows and the stability of those cash flows, and the creditworthy counterparty, and if it's financeable or not, right? But yes, it's our intent to be a portfolio provider of LNG. So, our entity is a CMI entity, and that gives us the right to deliver from either of our sites, and we like that flexibility and optionality. So you should expect us to continue to do these contracts through CMI. And then as you heard from us, we feel like we're completely commercialized on Train 3. You should expect us to look to build other trains in the portfolio and Sabine 6 is the next one under my sight (44:53).

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

So, say there's a – I'm sure there were a handful of commercial conversations that were kind of ongoing and then you just happened to get a couple over the line before others. There's no difficulty in kind of shifting that towards kind of Sabine 6 kind of being the kind of the end result. We shouldn't expect any kind of lag or anything along those lines?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

It's dependent on what the customer needs, right, and when they need it by. So if it's a contract with a creditworthy counterparty that we could use to help finance Train 6 rather than use incremental volumes that we already have in the portfolio, then we're going to use it to help us continue to build out our sites.

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

And just maybe a follow-up on Sabine 6, and I know it's a bit unfair to kind of put the cart in front of the horse. You're still finishing Corpus 3. But, Jack, is it fair to think about Sabine 6 as maybe more complex from a commercial perspective in the sense that maybe is it reasonable to think you could use that as an opportunity to maybe bring more parties to the table, potentially simplify the structure? And maybe does that just get a bit more complicated? And do you view that more as a complication or more as an opportunity?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

My intent is to create value for my shareholders, long-term value, so that while the capital structure is complicated, it's not going to hinder us from doing what's right for the investor base. And again, we feel like at Sabine 6, just like at Corpus 3, there's a lot of utilities, et cetera, that we've already invested in, that would make that a very competitive Train, and we want to capitalize on that and earn the maximum returns we can for our shareholder base. So, it's not going to influence our decision-making of what entity that sits in, if that's your question.

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Yeah. No. I appreciate it. It was worth a shot. Thanks for the time, guys.

Operator

Operator

We'll next hear from Ted Durbin with Goldman Sachs. Theodore Durbin - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Thanks. Here's another one where I'll take a shot and see. When you look at the contracts you've got on Corpus 3, would you say you're trending more towards the lower end or the higher end of that $400 million to $600 million of EBITDA guidance you put out there?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Yes. I'd say, aim in the middle. It's a range. We're comfortable with it and you guys usually take the midpoint and we're cognizant of that. So... Theodore Durbin - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Okay. Understood. The...

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

And Ted, it's our intent as soon as we get the financing done, then we'll come out with revised run rate guidance for you all. Theodore Durbin - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Understood. As we look at the CNPC contract, any color on whether it's more front or back-end loaded? I guess I was unclear on the 1.2 million tonnes. How much of that comes in the 2018 to 2023 timeframe versus the out years?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

There's actually three contracts. So there, we just we just executed another contract with CNPC. So I view that relationship as a very long-term relationship. We want them to be successful in what their environmental initiatives are. So, we actually have volumes that are going there, as we speak, and that start in 2018, go through 2018, 2019, 2020 and then continue on for the next 25 years. So, we're not going to give into any specifics as far as how much is front-end loaded and how much is back-end loaded. But I just think it's just the beginning of a very long-term relationship with a counterparty that we feel very comfortable with. Theodore Durbin - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: That's great. And then, can you give us any color on the 2 million tonnes that you hedged over 2018 to 2020, the timing of when you're putting those on? Are they weighted more to a particular year versus another one?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Yeah. There are several deals in there, they're roughly ratable over that period. We did some cargoes over sort of a seasonal period and some cargoes completely ratable throughout the year. So, you can think of that as relatively evenly dispersed between 2018 through 2020.

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

And it's Michael. I'd add that those are physical deals. So, we do a little bit of financial hedging, but that's not really our business. We're out doing physical deals. It's much easier on the balance sheet. Theodore Durbin - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Yeah. And is it fair to say that those were all put on fairly recently, say, in the last three months or did you have some prior hedges on before this disclosure (50:03)?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Really started doing those late Q3. Theodore Durbin - Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC: Okay. Got it. That's helpful. That's it for me. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

We'll hear from Faisel Khan with Citigroup.

Faisel H. Khan - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Good morning, gentlemen. On Corpus Christi Train 3, I just want to make sure that with the primary metric that the board needed to sort of, I guess, move to FID or one of the metrics, was it just the $400 million to 600 million in EBITDA, was that sort of the target metric that you guys were looking at or they were looking at, too?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

No. It's Michael. It was really returns-based, as Jack said earlier. And there are several things that we look at and show the board. And we talked about a 10-year unlevered payout on a contracted basis at a very minimum. But you can look at it as, basically, we want to make a decent return on a contracted basis only, and we want to make much better returns, putting in a reasonable number for the unsold capacity. And that's where we ended up here and it was, I think, an easy decision.

Faisel H. Khan - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Okay. So the only limiting factor at this point to reach FIDs is with the financing. Is that a fair statement?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Absolutely. And we kicked off the financing last year knowing and feeling that those contracts were imminent. So we're in a position to launch that transaction in a matter of weeks. So, we'll wrap this thing up over the next couple, three months and be on our way.

Faisel H. Khan - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And Mike, I think I missed some of your comments on the taxes at CQH. So, can you just give us those numbers again? Did you say that you expect not – when do you expect that CQH will pay income taxes, that number has moved out a bit further?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Early 2020s.

Faisel H. Khan - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Early 2020s. Okay. Okay. Got it. And then in the fourth quarter, how many commissioning cargoes did you produce?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

In the fourth quarter, I think it was a couple.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

So two. Two, Faisel.

Faisel H. Khan - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Got it. So it wasn't a significant sort of debit to PP&E,, it was a small number.

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Yeah.

Faisel H. Khan - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

And then just – okay. Then in terms of – and you guys have talked about hedging out some of your supply. What sort of liquidity, Mike, are you looking at? Just like, are these physical hedges with customers or are they – are you using financial hedges that, I guess, to the extent you can see JKM and Sling and those sort of indices?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Yeah. As I said, the 2 million tonnes are physical transactions. We have some capacity to do some financial hedging. We do that from time to time, but that'll be a pretty small part of our business. There's plenty of physical demand out there that's much easier on our balance sheet. And so that's what we're trying to do.

Faisel H. Khan - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Makes sense.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Faisel.

Faisel H. Khan - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Got it. Thanks, guys, for the time.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Okay.

Operator

Operator

With Tuohy Brothers, we're hearing from Craig Shere. Please go ahead.

Craig K. Shere - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning. How has the Waha Basis blowout impacted both your Corpus Christi marketing efforts and your expected EBITDA contributions from Train 3?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

I'm looking at Anatol on that one, Craig.

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Thanks, Craig. So, we are the 800-pound gorilla in gas procurement these days. And obviously, we're looking at all of the different basins in search for the most attractive economics. But as you know as well as anybody, Rome is not built in a day. So, it takes some time for those economics to reverberate into decisions and ultimately into contracts. But it's certainly a nice tailwind as we look at supplying Train 3 and supplying the portfolio, in general. So, it's clearly a benefit to our efforts on the gas procurement side. And we continue to support the producer community with the attractive solution of moving its volumes to Corpus Christi.

Craig K. Shere - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst

Is it safe to say that the 1.15 times Henry Hub energy supply is not sacrosanct as you firm up these contracts – incremental contracting?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

So the 1.15 times, which was a really good early estimate, we've talked to you guys about at Analyst Day that the 10% of that is for fuel and shrink and the ops team is doing a fantastic job and doing marginally better than that. And 5% was for the variable cost of gas procurement. And while Corpus is a challenging market to serve, as you said, the development of the associated gas in the Permian is a benefit and will make meeting that 5% hurdle marginally easier.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Craig, are you asking if we had to change our pricing structure to get the incremental contracts?

Craig K. Shere - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst

Well, I'm trying to get a sense if given everybody's expectations of lower basis that you're able to get maybe more attractive liquefaction fees relative to people's expectations in this current market by showing people that they have this lower feedstock.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Well, okay, remember now, you're talking about international utilities that are not, in most cases, really familiar with the U.S. overall. But the ones that are, we're asking them to make a very long-term bet, right, 20 to 25 years. But I think our pricing structure is more than adequate for us to be able to do incremental transactions. And I think the fact that the U.S. has got a very competitive gas supply situation is a competitive advantage for us near term, and it's up to us to make sure that we can deliver on all of that for our customers.

Craig K. Shere - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Last very quick question. I try to track the C-Corp only operating cash flow minus CQP and ex-working capital. And it looks like that operating cash flow in the fourth quarter was down a fair amount from the third quarter. Is it just those pre-sold Asian cargoes that were deep in the money from a couple of years ago are rolling off or are the split's kind of getting thinner as you get just over $3 and pay all that to CQP? What's driving some of that?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

I think it's the 12 cargoes on the water, which CQP recognize those, because they recognize that revenue when the cargo is loaded at the dock. But on a consolidated basis, we don't recognize that until it's unloaded. And so, that's probably the difference. There's not a good rule of thumb there that changes pretty wildly given the quarter. So...

Craig K. Shere - Tuohy Brothers Investment Research, Inc.

Analyst

Understood. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll next hear from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein. Please go ahead. Jean Ann Salisbury - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Good morning. I know that you're evaluating your mid-scale LNG project. Can you give us an indication of if we should expect your cost there to be lower than competitors proposing similar projects, if you decide to go that route?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

We're actually filing in for a permit for a mid-scale application. So what we're trying to do is make sure we have all the tools in our tool kit depending on how the market continues to develop. So, the way we view it is, it's a different paradigm because it's electric-driven not gas-driven. It's smaller, so there's more of the equipment to get the same amount of tonnage out. So if we have customers that need large quantities, 1 million tonnes or more, we would probably stick with our traditional LNG train, the larger train. If we had customers that started to develop that with smaller quantities, 0.5 million to 1.0 million tonnes, that needed it now and we didn't have access, we would probably go to a mid-scale. So for us, I don't think you're going to see a big variance with any of them at the end of the day because infrastructure costs are so expensive in this business that there's going to be a material difference in capital costs around the board. There's no smoking gun. There's no Moore's law. There's none of that stuff in the good LNG liquefaction business, but it's just more on commercialization. Jean Ann Salisbury - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Okay. That makes sense. Thank you. And then, just a quick one, do customers strongly prefer undisclosed contract terms and is this what we should expect in the market, going forward?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

I think the answer to that is yes. And you can imagine certain customers are very keen on having those commercial terms remain as undisclosed as possible. Jean Ann Salisbury - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Okay. Fair enough. Thank you for taking my question. That's all for me.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Okay.

Operator

Operator

We'll next hear from Pavel with Raymond James. Pavel S. Molchanov - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Thanks for taking the question. Just two quick ones from me, kind of related point, does the offtake agreement or duty offtake agreements with PetroChina limit you from pursuing similar types of contracts with other Chinese buyers? And if they do not preclude that, are you in discussions with other prospective Chinese customers?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Pavel, no, it does not limit us from any other discussion with any Chinese buyers, and you should assume that we're all over that market. Pavel S. Molchanov - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. That's it for me. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

We'll next hear – with Morgan Stanley, we have Fotis Giannakoulis. Fotis Giannakoulis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yes. Hi, gentlemen, and thank you. I saw that the two contracts that you signed, actually the three contracts that you signed are with completely different type of customers. And I'm trying to understand if the commercial discussion that you have, they are skewed more to one category or another. I'm talking about between end-user sort of Chinese buyers or traders. And how do these discussions differ between one another in terms of pricing structure and the way that the SPAs are structured?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

Fotis G, as we will call you, it's Anatol. Thanks for the question. We have some hard and fast rules that our customers needs to be creditworthy and dimensions like that. But other than that, as Jack said in his remarks, we have a lot of tools in the portfolio to offer products to a full range of customers, FOB, DES, portfolio players, end-users. And to your question, we're very proud of the fact that we can come up with the right solution to effectively service all of them. So we will continue that engagement. The first deal at Sabine was with the single largest LNG portfolio player and we've got a long history of working with all types of customers and we'll continue to prosecute all of them. Fotis Giannakoulis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you, Anatol. Is there any – in the first contract, you talked about some flexibility that you can provide to the customer. Can you give us a little bit more color what this flexibility means? Is it in terms of pricing structure? Is it in terms of volume? Anything that you can share with us.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

No. Fotis, I would say that most of our customers don't want us to talk about their specific contracts. We're very creative and aggressive on our contract negotiations. And you're going to see the result of that when FID the train and we give some run rate guidance forecasts going forward. But we're not going to get into any of the details of the contracts. Fotis Giannakoulis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate.

Operator

Operator

It appears there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference back to our presenters for any additional or closing remarks.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Management

I just want to thank everybody for your support of Cheniere. Again, we had an incredible year in 2017. We're just getting started. We're looking forward to 2018. And we appreciate all of your support and interest. So thank you all.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.