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Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG)

Q2 2018 Earnings Call· Thu, Aug 9, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Cheniere Energy Second Quarter 2018 Earnings Call and Webcast. Today's conference is being recorded. And at this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Randy Bhatia, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Randy Bhatia - Cheniere Energy Partners LP

Operator

Thanks, operator. Good morning and welcome to Cheniere Energy's second quarter 2018 earnings conference call. A slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call are available at cheniere.com. Joining me for 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 and 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 risk. In addition, we may include references to non-GAAP measures, such as consolidated adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure can be found in the appendix of the slide presentation. Also, please note that today's call is neither an offering of securities nor solicitation of a written consent in connection with the announced transaction between Cheniere and Cheniere Energy Partners LP Holdings, LLC or CQH. The information discussed today is qualified in its entirety by the registration statement and consent solicitation that Cheniere and CQH have filed with the SEC in connection with our proposed transaction. The shareholders of Cheniere and CQH are urged to read these filings carefully, because they contain important information about the proposed transaction between Cheniere and CQH. 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 L.P., or CQP, and CQH. We do not intend to cover CQP or CQH's results separately from those of Cheniere Energy, Inc. The call agenda is shown on slide 4. Jack will begin with an overview of the quarter and give an update on 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. After prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. I'll now turn the call over to Jack Fusco, Cheniere's President and CEO.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you, Randy, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us this morning as we review Cheniere's results for the second quarter 2018. This was another great quarter for the company and a good start to the full year of 2018. Our strong financial and operating performance in the first quarter continued in the second quarter. We generated revenue of over $1.5 billion and consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $530 million for the quarter. In the first half of 2018, we have generated almost $4 billion in revenue, over $1.4 billion in EBITDA, and over $350 million in distributable cash flow. Michael will discuss our financial results in more detail, but our results in the second quarter give us tremendous confidence heading into the balance of the year. And today, we are reconfirming our full year 2018 consolidated adjusted EBITDA guidance of $2.3 billion to $2.5 billion and are revising our distributable cash flow guidance upwards to $400 million to $550 million. Operationally, during the second quarter, we produced and exported 61 cargoes from Sabine Pass, and our year-to-date total is now over 150 cargoes loaded and exported. In 2Q, LNG from Sabine Pass reached several new countries for the first time, that's Colombia, Israel and Panama, bringing the total countries and regions across the globe where our LNG has reached to 28. We've continued to see robust and durable pricing in the LNG market even during the second quarter, which is typically impacted by seasonality and can be a trough period for LNG prices. We have been talking about a structural shift in natural gas in key demand centers around the world which has been a meaningful driver in the LNG markets for some time now. And we continue to see evidence that this is playing out as we expected…

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. The strength in LNG demand that we saw in the winter season continued virtually unabated through the second quarter. The net vol on LNG grew by approximately 12 million tonnes in the first half of 2018, with nearly all demand growth concentrated in Asia. Chinese LNG demand alone grew by more than 8 million tonnes in the first half, exceeding 24 million tonnes, an increase of more than 50% from the first half of 2017. After a very strong winter, the country's demand held firm in the second quarter as it continued implementation of and compliance with environmental policies. China continues to increase gas and LNG imports and became the world's largest importer for the first time in May, with about 10.5 Bcf a day of total LNG and piped gas receipts. In South Korea, continued economic expansion, coupled with limits on coal burn, have led to increased gas consumption resulting in an 18% year-on-year growth in LNG demand, with Mackenzie forecast that South Korea will retire 4 gigawatts of coal and 5 gigawatts of nuclear capacity between 2024 and 2031, which makes us believe LNG will play an increasingly critical role in the country. India's growth in 2018 has also been impressive. Refineries have been the key sector supporting recent growth as there has been a drive to replace fuel oil. Fuel oil has historically been used as both a refinery fuel and as a feedstock for electricity generation, but gas is taking market share away from liquid fuels in that sector. With at least an additional 40 million tonnes per annum of regas capacity planned by the early 2020s, India will have the infrastructure needed to continue growing well into the next decade. This will be especially critical for total Indian gas…

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks, Anatol, and good morning, everyone. First, I will go over some highlights from our second quarter financial results, and then provide an update on our recent financing activity and our guidance. Turn now to slide 14. For the second quarter, we generated consolidated revenue of $1.5 billion, operating income of $336 million, and consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $531 million. Second quarter results were supported by robust and resilient marketing margins through the shoulder season as Jack and Anatol discussed. Our performance in the second quarter was in line with our forecast and expectations, and we remain on target to meet our reiterated full year EBITDA guidance, which I will discuss more in a few minutes. Year-to-date, we have generated consolidated revenue of almost $3.8 billion, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of over $1.4 billion, and distributable cash flow of over $350 million. We exported 219 TBtu of LNG from Sabine Pass during the quarter, none of which were commissioning volumes. These volumes were approximately 25 TBtu lower than during the first quarter, due primarily to timing of plant maintenance and some seasonality impact to production. Approximately 85% of the volumes exported during the quarter or 186 TBtu were lifted by our third-party long-term SPA customers, and the remaining 33 TBtu were lifted by our marketing function. With the primary SPAs now in effect for all four trains in operation, we anticipate that volumes available through our marketing function will remain relatively stable for the remainder of this year and in early 2019 until the completion of Sabine Train 5 and Corpus Trains 1 and 2. For the second quarter, we recognized in income 230 TBtu of LNG produced at Sabine Pass, consisting of 222 TBtu loaded during the quarter, plus 11 TBtu or three cargoes loaded in the prior quarter that…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we will begin our Q&A with Christine Cho from Barclays.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks for all the color this quarter. With all of the Permian gas pipeline projects that are supposed to deliver gas near your neck of the woods in Corpus Christi, can you just remind us where you stand with gas procurement for Corpus Christi, and how you could potentially take advantage of that spread similar to what you're doing in the Mid-Con with your Midship pipeline?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Of course, Christine. Thank you. We feel very good about the quarter and about our execution for the first half of this year. I'll ask Anatol to address your question directly on the gas supply for Corpus.

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks, Christine. We are, as you know, a very large player in gas procurement, and Midship was a bit of a unique situation where we didn't feel like there was a great solution that allowed us to access SCOOP and STACK, and so we got involved and wired that in an optimal way for our access. In the case of the Permian, as you pointed out, there is a tremendous amount of effort to develop the infrastructure that heads southeast, and we are involved, as you would imagine, in all of these projects and all of these discussions and are working on what is optimal for us to ensure that Corpus Christi remains very well-advantaged and very well supplied. So, in terms of the leading projects, I can say that we're very close to all of those and are engaged with both the producers and the sponsors of the projects.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

How much more gas are you looking to procure for Corpus? Can you provide...

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

I'm not sure – so we have a plan that ensures that we have not just the capacity but also the molecules that we will need and that the molecule aspect of it is a range over the coming five-year or so period. And we, again, work with the – with our producer partners to ensure that we have secured those supplies on the capacity that we have to access the facility.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

But strategically, we're very focused on Corpus Christi. We think there's a huge opportunity for us to significantly grow that site and that's what we filed at FERC.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

I guess my question is more around have you already procured gas for Corpus? I'm assuming you have.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Of course. Of course.

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. Of course, we have. We're supplying Corpus today, right? So we have procured various amounts of just – it's a question of at what point in time are you asking about, we don't have molecules secured for year 12, but we have all of the gas that we will need for the near and medium term, and that is a sliding scale as you move further out in time.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then can you give us some idea of when and what we can expect for the Train 6 EPC? And would you do a Limited Notice to Proceed, similar to what you did on Corpus Train 3? And when would you feel comfortable starting that?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Well, first off, I think our relationship with Bechtel continues to get stronger, and I think that's evidenced by our ability to execute on our trains and bring them in kind of significantly earlier than what was – even was guaranteed and even on the accelerated schedules that we have published before. I think and I believe that the Limited Notice to Proceed strategy that we invoked on Corpus Christi Train 3 was extremely successful. Not only did it give us a head start on Train 3 as far as a full FID, but it also ensured that we locked down our pricing with Bechtel as we were negotiating our SPAs with our customers so we can ensure that we locked in our margins for our shareholders. And you should expect us to invoke that again with Train 6, and then continue with our additional growth plans. So, today, though, we're not ready to announce anything on Train 6.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then last one for me, can you give us an update with the midscale permit timeline? There's just been a lot of headlines around FERC. They're going to be delayed. They're not going to be delayed. They're understaffed. They're hiring consultants. So, any insight based on your own interaction with FERC would be helpful.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

I'll tell you, Christine, as you know, I have a very long relationship with FERC, having been in the power industry for most of my career and life for that matter. And it's a little bit in flux right now. I was sorry to see Commissioner Powelson resign. I think time will tell. When he gets replaced, we'll see what transpires there. But I would expect FERC to be extremely focused on processing permits and allowing construction projects and jobs in America to continue as rapidly as possible. But right now, I think it's a little uncertain as far as the exact timeline – approval timelines coming out of FERC.

Christine Cho - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Yes.

Operator

Operator

Okay. And we'll move on to our next question from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Jeremy Bryan Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Good morning.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Good morning, Jeremy.

Jeremy Bryan Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Thanks. I wanted to start off with guidance here and just make sure I understood everything that was happening. If I take the midpoint of your guide and I see what's achieved this year, it seems like there's going to be a decline in 3Q and 4Q EBITDA relative to 2Q. And so, I was just wondering if you see any kind of headwinds or maintenance in the business that would be impacting it, especially since the fourth quarter presumably should have some better margins that can be recognized in CMI there?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Hey, Jeremy. It's Michael. No, we don't really see an impact, I mean, going forward, we're at a little north of $1.4 billion. As Randy said and I said, expect performance to be pretty ratable over the year. We're only at 10 – about 10 marketing cargoes a quarter, so marketing margins, while impactful, don't have the impact they had in the first quarter. So, yeah, I mean, I think we see a pretty steady 3Q and 4Q. Next year will be a totally different story once the next trains come on, but for now, pretty ratable.

Jeremy Bryan Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan.

That's helpful. Thanks. And just wanted to go back if the commissioning cargoes you're talking about are in 4Q this year, would that tend to make us think that the – fully coming online is going to be early in 2019 – is there any reason that there's more of a 1Q bent versus a 2Q bent given this development?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Yeah. I'd say, Jeremy, we are working very closely with Bechtel to make sure that we conduct the commissioning safely and rapidly, and I'm guardedly optimistic that we'll continue to outperform. So, our strategy is to under-promise and over-deliver.

Jeremy Bryan Tonet - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Sounds good. That's it for me. Thanks for taking my questions.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Michael Webber with Wells Fargo.

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Hey. Good morning, guys. How are you?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Good morning.

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Jack, just to start off with – I guess with the tariffs. I know it's pretty recent. There's not a lot known now, but do you have a sense yet around implementation, around whether that would actually impact FOB cargoes or swaps? And then I guess within that context, if it's still unclear, how do you proceed at CMI in terms of the dynamic books there? I know you guys came in for 10 vessels earlier in the summer, kind of starting that program a bit earlier. Does this give you pause around continuing that as you kind of ramp up into a seasonal period? I'm just curious if there's no color around that yet, how do you foresee it in terms of positioning CMI for peak season?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Well, no, I mean, Michael, that's a – it's a very good question – but I have to assure you, from Anatol's slide, you see demand for LNG is extremely strong and growing worldwide. So, it will find a home. And we talked with – Jeremy had asked the questions on the commissioning cargoes – we need ships if we're going to commission two trains at the same time which we are, Train 5 at Sabine and Corpus Christi Train 1. So we need access to shipping to get those molecules from the site around the world. We're working extremely closely with our Chinese customers and counterparties to just make sure that we continue to build on our relationship and we solidify that relationship. The early contracts of PetroChina are heavily weighted towards the winter. We're hopeful that the U.S. and China can come to some resolution quickly. I've come out publicly. I was on CNBC and I said I don't believe in trade wars and I think tariffs are not productive, and I hope the two countries can come to a resolution. But we have a good product. We have a product that's in demand and it's a flexible product that can be sent anywhere, and we're going to be prepared to do that.

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Okay. That's helpful. And then, just as we think about Sabine 6 and you think about the potential subset of buyer there, I know there's probably – if you look at it today probably oversubscribed in terms people who are digging into it. What percentage of that group would you say are Chinese? And then even just a range – just a broad range in terms of the list of potential buyers. And then, maybe what are they saying in your conversations around the tariffs? Is it impacting the way they think about their timelines?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

No. And, well, I'll tell you, Sabine 6 is going to be an extremely competitive LNG project and I feel – and it should be in all rights the next Gulf Coast project to FID expansion because there's just a lot of benefits that we have on that site and on that train. I'm not going to divulge who our prospective clients are. I think Ramsey who runs our origination staff worldwide would cut my head off for doing that. So, I'm not going to say who we're talking to, but I would expect and I'll just say I would expect there to be a good contingency of Asian clients.

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Okay. That's helpful. And then just one more quick one if you'll indulge me, and I apologize if I missed this, but in terms of SP3, it's only down for a couple of weeks. But can you guys quantify the volumes and the additional costs associated with that couple of weeks of downtime in the quarter?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

There wasn't any real impact of foundation customers, but...

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Yeah. I mean, marketing lost a few cargoes, we'll say, and on the cost side, not material.

Michael Webber - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Okay, great. All right. Thanks for the time, guys.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Fotis Giannakoulis with Morgan Stanley. Fotis Giannakoulis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yes. Good morning and thank you. Jack, I would like to follow-up on the previous question about the tariffs. And I'm just trying to understand what would be the impact on future growth of Cheniere and other U.S. projects. Is there – will this tariff make the U.S. volume less flexible? Would they add any additional cost if they are implemented?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

The tariffs, whether you look at it from a long-run perspective or a short-run perspective, right, you could see that the tariffs are imposed by China are really – shouldn't impact U.S. exports, right, because it's a tax on the Chinese consumer rather than an obstacle for us, right, to sell LNG worldwide. So, while it may slow down discussions with other Chinese counterparts for additional growth, it's not going to have any impact on Cheniere or on the long-term contracts that we currently have entered into. Does that help, Fotis? I don't know if I've quite... Fotis Giannakoulis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Yes. I'm trying to understand that if the traders or the BGs of the world, they are buying U.S. volume, they will have a difficulty or additional cost in selling U.S. volume after they buy it. Obviously, they are not going affect your current contracts, but I'm wondering if your customers, they will have any impact.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

It's probably best addressed to Shell than it is to us, but I don't know, Anatol, do you have anything?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

No. Thanks, Jack, and thanks, Fotis. The flexibility of the business model and the ability of these cargoes to respond to these changing conditions I think is one great aspect of sourcing volumes from the U.S., right? Whatever happens, as Jack said, to the Chinese consumer and to the importer of record, the growth in demand for LNG globally is helping absorb all of this incremental volume. So, how it is optimized again globally, that's where we and our business model and our marketing function and our offtakers can make sure that it goes to the best highest value added market. How China will resolve these issues on its side is TBD. Fotis Giannakoulis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you, Anatol. I'm trying to understand, do you – are you aware that if Chinese are considering trying to back more strongly in non-U.S. projects like Russia or Mozambique? And if you can also comment about the proposed U.S. sanctions to Russia and how that will impact the potential expansion of competitive products in Arctic?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Do you want to?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. So, Fotis, I guess, we have very good productive discussions, as Jack said, with lots of counterparties all over the world, including Asia, including China, and those discussions are ongoing. If you look at the value proposition of sub-$3 Henry Hub delivered into China, it is extremely competitive with current pricing and even forward pricing. So, that unquestionably is a huge advantage to our hand. Now, there are, as you know, very worthy global competitors. No one can compete with Qataris upstream costs. So, we fully expect to be competing with those projects, with pipeline projects, et cetera, and we think we'll win more than our fair share because of the value proposition and the flexibility that our commercial offering has. Fotis Giannakoulis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: And can you talk a little bit about the U.S. sanctions or potential sanctions on Russia and the investments in energy projects that was released this morning?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

No.

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

No.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

No. Sorry, Fotis. Fotis Giannakoulis - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Thank you very much, both.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers.

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

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Good morning.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Good morning, Craig.

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

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Recognizing it's a balance sheet issue, not an income statement one, during perhaps three to five months of commissioning process for Corpus Train 1 and Sabine 5 through the winter, can you opine on perhaps through commissioning what kind of average project utilization against the 4.5 mtpa nameplate we might see over a three to five month commissioning process?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Yeah. Hey, Craig. It's Michael. I think it's easier to just think about the commissioning process as kind of five, six, seven cargoes per train, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. Utilization is all over the place obviously. So, you can just put those cargoes into the winter market and calculate the margins and should be a very nice cash windfall for the company, but no P&L impact.

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

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Sure. Okay. I mean, if we're limited to that kind of mid to slightly higher single-digit cargoes, that certainly suggests you can have these things on very early fully commissioned. Fair enough?

Michael J. Wortley - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Well, no. It takes a while to make the first cargo, so utilization is low. So, I mean, the commissioning process is going to be multi-month period.

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

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Okay. Understood. I just want to ask, tell me if I'm wrong, I want to kind of simplify this whole tariff issue, obviously it's not good, but is it fair to say that if it doesn't impact the underlying economies, this is just rearranging the deck chairs, and to a degree, it's most efficient to deliver American LNG to China, and now that doesn't happen. And you're talking about some inefficiencies of maybe $0.10, $0.20 that the Chinese consumer net pays, and maybe some U.S. spot exporters losing margin to the benefit of exporters from Australia, Qatar and elsewhere? I mean, is it fair to describe it that way?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

I think that's a reasonable stab. Again, it's very early on. How exactly it impacts the U.S. exporter to the tune of a $0.10, I'm not sure, right? There are lots of different ways that the Chinese entities can handle this. And it's entirely possible that it is – that it does not actually reverberate into the LNG supply chain. But you're absolutely right that I think, as Michael asked, there are lots of credible competitors in the world, and you should fully expect them to go into Beijing offices and say, hey, we don't have this issue, right? So, it is clearly something that we will be working with. And as Jack said, we're fundamentally against the tariffs. We're fundamentally pro-free trade. And we think that the U.S. LNG product offering is a win-win for both sides and fortunately embedded in it is the flexibility and the economic viability that has made us successful so far.

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

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Great. And Anatol, one last follow-up for you. I don't want to use up all my ammunition for tomorrow, but I asked last quarter about the trends in overseas investments and new storage, particularly China, and we're hearing more and more about that now. And I'm wondering if you're starting to believe that this may have moderating prospects for wintertime price spikes relative to the last two years.

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Yes. So, China, of course, just like India and Asia overall, continues to grow its gas business pretty dramatically. To your point, there is a directive in China to increase the amount of storage to 10% of their domestic market. We don't see that 10% level being reached anytime soon, right, because they're – developing storage there is very challenging, expensive, time consuming and the market is growing so rapidly. So, they're about 10 BCM today, plan is to roughly double that by the end of this decade and increase it to 30 BCM by 2025. That's still – that's a Tbtu of working gas capacity in a rapidly growing market. It will help PetroChina and others smooth out their seasonality which in the main coastal cities can be as high as a 5:1 ratio of winter demand to summer demand, but we think that they'll still continue to have a very peaky winter requirement.

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

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Great. I appreciate the help. Look forward to seeing you.

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst · Tuohy Brothers.

Likewise. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

We do ask that in the interest of time, you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question. We will move on to Ryan Levine from Citi.

Ryan Levine - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning.

Ryan Levine - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

What are the key milestones to launch the LNG futures contract, and what impact do you see this having on Cheniere's marketing business at Sabine?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Well, that's really a question for the CME, right? It's their product, their launch. There are lots and lots of steps to go through for a product launch. And as you saw, to the extent that it is successful, we are, under certain conditions comfortable with Sabine Pass being used as a physical delivery point. But again, that's a question best asked of the CME, and it would provide another vehicle for liquidity and price transparency in the LNG market, obviously.

Ryan Levine - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. I mean, do you think it would help you in marketing future trains out of Sabine or is it just more just supportive of the overall LNG market?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Well, those two are linked, and we do expect to have some commercial benefits to the extent that this thing is launched, becomes liquid, and is something that will have the ability to enhance our commercial offering.

Ryan Levine - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then just one additional, just to confirm, in terms of the contractual provisions of your Chinese contract, am I correct in hearing that there's no provisions in that contract that would be altered by any tariff change between the two countries?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

That's correct.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

That's correct, yeah.

Ryan Levine - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah, great. Thank you.

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks, Ryan.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein. Jean Ann Salisbury - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Good morning. Have you seen any tick up in conversations from European buyers for contracting future trains? I know that it's been in the headlines a bit recently, but I wonder if it's too early to forecast whether it will materialize.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning, Jean Ann. We are very blessed to have a full contingent of European buyers already that have helped us with getting Cheniere started. And our conversations there have been robust. But I don't know, Anatol, do you want to comment if we've seen an uptick on that...

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

I guess it depends relative to where you measure. I couldn't say that the uptick in discussions with European buyers is meaningfully different than uptick in discussions with global buyers overall. Clearly, we are today and have been engaged in a number of discussions. There are a number of dynamics, as you know, playing out in the legacy markets like Europe with a substantial amount of existing long-term contracts expiring late this decade, early next. And that's been a driver of a lot of our conversations historically, and continues to be, now augmented with reasonable economic growth and a lot of the coal and nuclear dynamics that are playing out on the continent and in the UK. Jean Ann Salisbury - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Okay. No, that's fair. And my other question is that Venture Global, which is using a little different mid-scale technology than your existing trains, has made a lot of sales recently. Should investors worry that they may have a structurally lower cost than others in the market and might be bringing down the price that customers are willing to contract for? Can you comment on if this is anything that you're seeing in the market?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

I'll tell you, we are extremely pleased with our business strategy, our ability to execute our strategy, the results that we've gotten, have been able to achieve over the past few years for our shareholders. And having looked at our strategy very recently, we don't think we need to make any major changes. We think our runway to grow our business is long and big and deep, and our conversations with our customers have been very positive. So, we feel like our headwinds are down. So, we've tried to make it look easy. It's a very complicated business. These are extremely large engineering and construction projects, and we continue to hope to over-perform and outperform. Jean Ann Salisbury - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Thank you. That's helpful. That's all from me.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Pavel Molchanov with Raymond James. Pavel S. Molchanov - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Thanks for taking the question. One more about China, if I may. Even before the latest tariffs came in, there was a statement by some of the crude oil buyers in China that they were being instructed to effectively curtail purchases of U.S. crude as a preemptive trade measure. Have you seen any evidence that there is political pressure on any of the LNG buyers in China to either curtail purchases of U.S. LNG or at least not to sign additional contracts for LNG?

Anatol Feygin - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

No. We haven't. I mean, it's a very important market for us. As you know, we've opened a Beijing office. So, our folks in Beijing are busier than ever, and we hope the two countries can work through the differences rapidly, and we think we're the solution, and we're going to continue to try to work towards that end. Pavel S. Molchanov - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. And then kind of a follow-up on the competitive landscape, supposing for a moment that the tariff does not go away in the foreseeable future and kind of becomes part of the industry landscape, what effect do you think this would have on greenfield LNG project development, whether in North America or some of the overseas projects that have been geared towards China as a customer?

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. It won't affect Cheniere. I'm glad that we're through with the $30 billion construction effort, and now we can reap the rewards for that effort. But there's a lot of headwinds, right, on just infrastructure overall. You've got steel tariffs; you have rising interest rates, and these are very capital intensive projects. So, it's a big push. I don't know if I would focus just on China for that matter. But it won't – it's not going to impact our growth plans. Pavel S. Molchanov - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: All right. Appreciate it, guys.

Operator

Operator

And it appears we have no further questions in the queue at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to our speakers for any concluding remarks.

Jack A. Fusco - Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Analyst

I just want to thank everybody for their support of Cheniere, and I wish you a safe rest of the summer. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference. We appreciate your participation today.