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Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 25, 2020

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Cheniere Energy Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Earnings Call and Webcast. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference over to Randy Bhatia, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Randy Bhatia

Management

Thanks operator, good morning everyone. And welcome to Cheniere’s fourth quarter and full year 2019 earnings conference call. The slide presentation and access to the webcast for today’s call are available at cheniere.com. Joining me today are Jack Fusco, Cheniere’s President and CEO; Anatol Feygin, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer; and Michael Wortley, Executive Vice President and CFO. 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 risks. In addition, we may include references to certain non-GAAP financial measures such as consolidated adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow. A reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measure can be found in the appendix of the slide presentation. As part of our discussion of Cheniere’s results, today’s call may also include selected financial information and results for Cheniere Energy Partners LP or CQP. We do not intend to cover CQP’s results separately from those of Cheniere Energy Inc. The call agenda is shown on Slide 3. Jack will begin with operating and financial highlights, Anatol will then provide an update on the LNG market and Michael will review our financial results and guidance. After prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. I will now turn the call over to Jack Fusco, Cheniere’s President and CEO.

Jack Fusco

Management

Thank you, Randy, and good morning everyone. I’m pleased to be here today to review our results from 2019, a year marked with significant achievements in milestones across every phase of our business and operations, and to share my continued optimism at the opportunities ahead of us. Slide 5 shows key financial and operating highlights from the fourth quarter and full year 2019. I’d like to highlight a couple of key achievements here. In the fourth quarter of 2019, we generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $987 million, and distributable cash flow of approximately $270 million on revenue of just over $3 billion. We generated net income attributable to common stockholders of $939 million, which benefited from the release of a significant portion of the valuation allowance previously recorded against our deferred tax assets. Operationally, we produced and exported a record 130 cargoes during the quarter, for almost 1.5 LNG cargoes per day across our two facilities. For full year 2019, we generated net income of $648 million, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $2.95 billion, and distributable cash flow of approximately $780 million on revenue of $9.7 billion. We produced and exported over 1.5 quadrillion Btus of LNG from Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi and delivered financial results within the guidance ranges we provided for the year. Our vision is to provide clean, secure, and affordable energy to the world. In 2020, we’re off to a great start, as we recently celebrated the production of our 1000th LNG cargo. Cheniere employees worldwide commemorated this landmark operating milestone, which we achieve faster than any other LNG producer in history. As we look ahead to the balance of 2020 short-term market headwinds notwithstanding, today we are reconfirming our full year guidance, a $3.8 billion to $4.1 billion of consolidated adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash…

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, Jack, and good morning everyone. Please turn to Slide 10. Over 24 million tons per annum of new LNG capacity came into service in 2019 globally adding to the over 40 mtpa that came online in 2018. This newly operational capacity resulted in nearly 40 million tons of incremental LNG in the market in 2019 as compared to 2018, which is roughly on par with the industry’s previous largest single year growth recorded in 2010. The significant increase in LNG supply occurred not only amid warmer-than-normal weather across most of the LNG importing world, but also amid some growing concern about economic growth in Asia’s key economies and ongoing trade discussions. In addition, increased nuclear availability with an Asia’s key LNG importers contributed further downward pressure on total gas and LNG demand. The combination of warm weather, economic concerns and competing fuel factors resulted in lower than expected LNG growth in Asia, which increased less than 7 million tons in 2019. Europe has continued the market balancing role it has played since the second half of 2018. Europe absorbed most of the incremental LNG supply in 2019 for the majority of incremental volumes going to the continent’s most liquid markets in the Northwest and to the Iberian market. Soft market conditions persisted into the fourth quarter and led to record levels of destination flexible U.S. LNG flowing to Europe. U.S. LNG flows to Europe in the fourth quarter were almost 6 million tons more than twice the previous peak in the first quarter of 2019 and approximately half of all U.S. LNG volumes in the fourth quarter flowed to Europe. Strong inflows of LNG meant that gas prices in Europe remained muted and well below the same period in 2018. TTF dropped to an average of just under $4.50…

Michael Lapides

Management

Thanks, Anatol and good morning everyone. Turning to Slide 14 for the fourth quarter, we generated net income of $939 million, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $987 million and distributable cash flow of approximately $270 million. For the full year, we generated net income of $648 million, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $2.95 billion and distributable cash flow of approximately $780 million. as Jack mentioned, both consolidated adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow were within our full-year guidance ranges. during the fourth quarter, net income was positively impacted by releasing a significant portion, $542 million, of the valuation allowance we previously recorded against our deferred tax assets resulting in a tax benefit of $517 million for the fourth quarter and full year 2019. We exported 462 TBtu of LNG from our liquefaction projects during the fourth quarter, an increase of 79 TBtu or 21% over the third quarter, primarily due to a full quarter of volumes from Corpus Christi Train 2, which was placed into service in late August and higher seasonal production at Sabine Pass. for the full year, we exported over 1,500 TBtu or approximately 29 million tons of LNG from Sabine pass and Corpus Christi. For the fourth quarter, we recognized an income 460 TBtu of LNG produced at our liquefaction projects and 9 TBtu of LNG sourced from third parties. For the full year, we recognized an income 1,458 TBtu of LNG produced at our liquefaction projects and 40 TBtu of LNG sourced from third parties. Approximately 72% of the 469 TBtu recognized an income during the fourth quarter was sold under long-term agreements and the remaining 28% was sold by our marketing affiliate either into the spot market or under short and medium-term contracts. Volume sold under long-term agreement increased by 73 TBtu compared to the third…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question will come from Spiro Dounis with credit Suisse. Hey everyone.

John Mackay

Analyst

Hey, everyone. Good morning. It’s John Mackay on for Spiro. Just wanted to start with a macro question. Like we knew 2020 was going to be hard, coronavirus has kind of made it little worse. But I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about whether you're seeing a pickup in demand elsewhere outside of China, given the low pricing? And maybe whether that could drive a faster snapback once we see a recovery?

Jack Fusco

Management

All right. Thanks, John. Anatol, you want to take that one?

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, John. Good morning. Thanks, Jack. Yes. We certainly are. So, the main price-elastic demand we saw in 2019, as we discussed, was Europe, Northwest and Iberian Peninsula. We're continuing to see that, continuing to see further penetration of gas into those markets. And again, we think a lot of that is structural. But we're also seeing other tiers of response. One of the more active markets over the last couple of months has been India, has shown very good appetite at these price levels. And yes, you can say, hey, these are levels which demand is stimulated, but again, I would say that all of this builds an amount of muscle memory that will create structural demand that we don't think will be transient. And then you're seeing some very interesting responses, especially in Southeast Asia, where you're seeing active decisions to curtail domestic production and import LNG at the margin. So, you're seeing a lot of the issues that we've kind of anticipated, especially in these, what we call, displacement markets where you have good regional gas economies with challenging domestic production profiles perhaps shifting and increasing LNG imports more rapidly now that the price signal is in place. So yes, there's certainly a lot of room for optimism.

John Mackay

Analyst

All right, that’s great. Thanks. And then switching gears quickly. On the EIG, and it's repurchase coming in March, does that take away from maybe buyback capacity you are thinking about in 2020? Or are those two separate conversations for you?

Michael Wortley

Analyst

Hey, it’s Michael. Yes. I mean you can – we calculate total liquidity for the year, and this would come out of that. We've said we're going to pay down debt and buy back stock, and this really accomplishes both of those things for us. So, it doesn't count against our $1 billion authorization, but it certainly draws down some of our liquidity.

John Mackay

Analyst

All right. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Michael Lapides with Goldman Sachs.

Michael Lapides

Management

Hey, guys. Just curious, this may be an Anatol question. How are you thinking about when the LNG market globally comes back into balance? Meaning, some folks think that starts to happen in about 2023, other folks are looking at it saying it's beyond 2025. Just curious for your macro view. And then tie that to, if I think about your nine train run rate assumption, what's embedded for kind of the commodity margin on contracted sales for the nine train run rate?

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, Michael. Yes. I – so as Jack mentioned in his remarks, the LNG market has experienced very healthy growth, ballpark doubling every decade. We're at 400 million tons. And nobody, not even us with relatively optimistic outlook, have a doubling over the coming decade, which may prove conservative. Whatever the case is, we know that supply – this supply wave is over now effectively. We have a couple of more trains out of the U.S. left to come on. And then in 2021, 2022, 2023, the amount of volume coming into the market is less per annum than it has been per quarter since late 2018. So we're in the camp that the market will rebalance much sooner than that. Then once you get to the back half of this decade, you will have the result of the FIDs that we saw last year and expect to see this year. So you will have another supply wave. But we think this very much rhymes with what we saw in the 2010, 2011 period, where you had the big Qatari push of supply, coupled with financial crisis and U.S. shale production, you kind of have the same triple whammy playing out now with U.S. and Australian supply wave, two winters that didn't exhibit strong demand, and of course, coronavirus adding on top of that. But we think today, the market is, let’s say, imbalance by single-digit millions of tons per annum run rate. So in a 400 million ton market, that’s a pretty small number, and we think that to the previous question, as we see the supply met with incremental demand functions globally, there’s, again, very good reason to be optimistic over the next six to 12 months. In terms of the assumptions in run rate, once we get up to the 85% contracted, nine train case, we have $2.50 as the assumption for the CMI piece.

Michael Lapides

Management

Got it. And so is that assumption, how you think the futures market will come back into some sort of balance by the time – and I recognize this is multiple years out. It’s 2023 and beyond. Is that assumption is that spreads will widen relative to what the 12 or 24-month kind of futures curve implies?

Anatol Feygin

Management

Well, again, by definition, the answer is yes. I would just like to point out that in late 2018, the forward market, to the extent that there was liquidity sort of three, four years out, was pricing in the mid $3 range. So these things change, as you know, relatively rapidly certainly for the short to medium-term portion of the curve.

Michael Lapides

Management

Got it. Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, Michael.

Operator

Operator

Next question will come from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

Hi, good morning. Just wanted to come back to Corpus Christi Stage 3 here and as that relates to your capital allocation framework. You’ve said growth comes first in the past, but just wondering if it makes sense to kind of delay a decision here, given where the share price trades right now and maybe allocate a little bit more incremental capital towards buybacks as opposed to CapEx there? Just wondering if anything on the margin has changed there, if you could share with us.

Jack Fusco

Management

Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. So just on Stage 3, as Michael said in his comments, that it’s our intent, and it always has been, to make sure that we fully meet our investment criteria before we go forward with FID. So that – the implication there is that we continue to get long-term contracts to support the investment in that facility. I do think that market, because of a whole host of issues that Anatol mentioned, whether it be the coronavirus or a warm winter, the whole sense of urgency from the customers who signed long-term contracts has dropped. And so I do think that market will be tougher for us to go – to continue to get our fair share of those contracts and be able to commercialize Stage 3 at this point. But our capital allocation framework is not based off of Stage 3 per se. It’s based off of our available liquidity and what we feel comfortable putting to work at any given time. So it’s a living active allocation. So you should expect us to modify that as we see the market either get faster or slower on the long-term contracts.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

Got it. That’s helpful. Thank you. And just want to touch on the topic of potential cancellations here, if I could, real quick. And if there were to be cancellations, would that be something you might let the market know in advance without identifying the customer? And just if you could walk us through kind of the mechanics of how much notice they have to give you and how you handle that, that would all be helpful.

Jack Fusco

Management

Yes. So it’s not our intent. First off, the beauty of U.S. LNG is the fact that we give our customers a lot of optionality. So they have the option to pick up their LNG FOB at our docks and deliver it anywhere in the world. No other place is like that other than the U.S. The other aspect of it is we do allow our customers to cancel physical cargoes after they have been ADP’ed and scheduled with appropriate notice. The notice ranges somewhere between 40 and 70 days. We always say 60 days because that’s kind of the average notice. And it will not be our practice to describe to the market what our customers’ books are or what individual customers are thinking. Having said that, there’s been a lot of debate and conversation in the media lately on customer cancellations. So I’ll tell you this one time that we had two customers elect to cancel one cargo each, one cargo from Sabine Pass and one cargo from Corpus Christi in the month of April. So out of the 40 cargoes that we are forecast to produce, it’s a pretty insignificant number. That gives us a great option for CMI. If CMI elects to sell the physical cargo back into the market and also they have to pay our fixed fees, the customers. So – but that’s the magnitude of it, Jeremy.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

That’s helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next question will come from Michael Webber with Webber Research.

Michael Webber

Analyst

Hi good morning, guys. How are you?

Jack Fusco

Management

Good, Michael. How are you?

Michael Webber

Analyst

Good. A lot of macro headwinds right now. And obviously, the fact that you’re able to reiterate your guide and kind of have a stable and, frankly, boring results kind of stands out in a pretty positive way right now. But I do want to follow-up on the last question around customer cancellations. And specifically, maybe a question for Anatol, but – when that happens and the notion of retrading that cargo back into the market, is that – how does that slide in with the rest of the uncommitted capacity at CMI? Because you’ve got a captive freight book, your variable costs there are just going to be forward costs and maybe some ancillary fuel or demurrage if you’re going to use floating stores for it. And the margin there into Europe would still be about $1 on those costs right now. So it’d still be wide open. I’m just curious, where does that cargo then slide in relative to the rest of your CMI book, if it does get – if a customer chooses not to lift it?

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks Michael. Yes. So as Jack said, it is at our option. Clearly, these are cargoes. As you know, CMI plans on lifting its share, which was substantially higher before the DFCD of May 1 for the Corpus Christi Train 2 contracts. And there is some ability to lift those additional volumes, which would be additional volumes for CMI, sort of, a free option, if you will, if the stars align. But you’re absolutely right. The stars aligning means that we need to have shipping in place, and we need to have the ability to take that to market profitably considering the full range of costs and margins that we would incur upstream of the plant and downstream of the plant. So that’s the option that we now have for, as Jack said, those two additional cargoes. And when the time comes, we’ll see if we can make a little bit more money on it. But in the grand scheme of things, it will not be a needle mover.

Michael Webber

Analyst

Fair enough. Maybe just a bigger picture question on that kind of business. When we look at – 95% of 2020 is already booked up. Can you give us some sense of what 2021 and 2022 look like right now? I know that math is a little bit fuzzy because your denominator is going to be moving around a little bit. But how you think about adding coverage to that 2021 and 2022 number? And then maybe specifically, Anatol, to go back to the demand response answer you gave a bit earlier. What kind of demand response are you seeing right now to low commodity prices? I would imagine you see immediate cargoes kind of evaporate, but you – interested in 18 to 24 months commitments for recaptured, maybe even two peak seasons, would ratchet up? So it maybe kind of speaks to what that CMI backlog looks like for 2021 and 2022, if it’s kind of intermediate term business. So just curious how you think about covering 2021 and 2022, where they stand and what that business will probably look like?

Jack Fusco

Management

So Michael, it’s Jack. So I’ll start off. So in February of 2020, we’re not willing to give guidance for 2021 or 2022. So, I appreciate your long-term view of our markets and our business. But you’re probably an outlier as far as that’s concerned. But you all will have to wait for our financial guidance in November of 2020. Hopefully, you see from our actions, not necessarily our words, that we tend to try to underpromise and overdeliver, and we’re very conservative on how we run our book. So with that context in mind, see if Anatol has anything he wants to add.

Anatol Feygin

Management

As Jack said, boring is beautiful, and we are, as you would expect, managing those 2021 and 2022 exposures. The issue, as you well know, the single biggest factor for 2021 is the timing of Corpus Christi Train 3, which is, we said, first half of 2020 business, but as that moves around by months here and there, that will add or take away volumes, which are difficult to manage. But as you also know margins for 2021 and 2022 are much healthier than they are currently, so we are prudently engaged on that front but won’t give you any specifics until later this year.

Michael Webber

Analyst

Just maybe thinking, from an industry perspective, any particular wrinkles you’re seeing from like early in terms of the demand response, maybe kind of people – any interesting wrinkles in terms of the term you think you’ll look for?

Jack Fusco

Management

Well, I think it’s very positive when you read that India has lowered what they’re going to charge at their city gate for natural gas at the city gate. You saw the same demand response at China, where they’re going to lower what they charge their industrial customers at the city gate. Those were all very, very positive. So unlike the U.S. and the UK, which those price signals happen daily, in China and India and most of the south – most of Asia, it happens every six months. So those are really positive signs. And hopefully, that will create more demand product.

Michael Webber

Analyst

Yes, bit of a lag on it. No, that’s helpful. I appreciate the time, guys.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Next, we’ll hear from Shneur Gershuni with UBS.

Shneur Gershuni

Analyst

Hi, good morning, everyone. I recognize that the virus is sort of overshadowing the progress that’s been made in the U.S.-China trade dispute. But I was wondering sort of given the macro backdrop, how do you think about weighing the return profile of FID in CCL Stage 3, going for a faster FID versus delaying an FID, sort of, do you look at trading returns? Do you lower your return profile to accelerate an FID versus delaying it and getting the benefits of deleveraging? Just kind of wondering how you sort of think about that interplay, just sort of given the current macro environment?

Jack Fusco

Management

So first, just to be clear, right, we would not FID until we got enough commercial contracts to support a bank financing to make that investment in that facility. So just – because the implication that we’re going to accelerate it, I don’t quite understand it. So I just want to make sure that we’re all clear on that aspect of it. But Michael, do you want to?

Michael Wortley

Analyst

No, I mean, I don’t have much of saying there. If it meets our hurdles that we reiterated today, it’s a great project. Given where the stock is and all of that, I mean, I think we would try and FID it as late as possible and just give us – free up as much interim cash flow to kind of take advantage of the situation today. Every – I think every six months or so that it’s delayed, it frees up $0.5 billion. So – I mean the ideal scenario for us is to commercialize it, but build it as late in the schedule as we can while maintaining our EPC contract and our cost certainty and all of that. So certainly, it has an effect on how quick we move.

Shneur Gershuni

Analyst

Okay. So that makes total sense. So there would be no changing in your hurdle rate to achieve the contract. Okay. Maybe as a quick follow-up here. I was just wondering if you can talk about force majeure process. Are there any scenarios where a customer can claim a force majeure? I realize you couldn’t claim force majeure because of operational issues at your own facility, but is there a scenario where a customer can claim a force majeure of say storages while in their home markets? Or can we assume, generally speaking, you’re pretty insulated from attempts by customers to force majeure?

Jack Fusco

Management

No. I mean from – in regards to force majeure, right, it’s very, very difficult for a customer to claim force majeure on an FOB product, right, because they’re picking it up from the dock and they can send it wherever they want to send it to the world. So even if they’re full, they still don’t have a force majeure event against lifting at one of our facilities. I don’t know if Michael or Anatol have anything to add.

Michael Wortley

Analyst

The contracts are clear. You can read them. They’re on file. It’s really – if the customer has an issue on an FOB deal with a very specific ship coming in, that’s really was the only window for force majeure. But no other facility in the world, apart from SPL or CCL, as the case may be, can cause FM to be invoked on FOB contracts.

Anatol Feygin

Management

And just to add to what Jack said. The FM in the LNG business is a very serious event that is not entered into lately. You don’t see many of them declared. And as you know, through all of the issues that Cheniere has faced whether it was freeze-offs or fog events, et cetera, we have not missed the foundation customer cargo. So it is a very serious issue, unlike in, I think, a fair amount of North American businesses, FM is invoked relatively frequently as an operational management issue, that is really not a feature of the global LNG market.

Shneur Gershuni

Analyst

Okay. So if I can recap all of your responses here. So no change to hurdle rates, lot of deleveraging opportunity and low risk to a force majeure type of event. Is that a fair characterization?

Michael Wortley

Analyst

No.

Jack Fusco

Management

Yes, it is. Thank you very much.

Shneur Gershuni

Analyst

Perfect. Thank you very much. Appreciate the color guys.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Julien Dumoulin-Smith with Bank of America.

Anya Shelekhin

Analyst

Hey, this is Anya filling in for Julien. So I guess, first question on 2020 EBITDA guidance. You revised the sensitivity to $80 million impact to EBITDA from $1 change in marketing margin. It was $100 million before. Can you talk about some of the other drivers for this change aside from selling forward marketing volumes as you just mentioned? And then, could you also discuss assumptions for pricing that are implied in guidance relative to what we’re seeing in the forwards today?

Michael Wortley

Analyst

Sure. This is Michael. So yes, I mean what brought the sensitivity down significantly is just placing more physical business into the market, either prospectively – mostly prospectively, right? We’re only in February. So that brought it down. What brought it up is production crept up a little bit, our production forecast for the year. So that added to the variability. And then as margins went negative, inclusive of shipping, we lifted some hedges and redeployed that hedge capacity into 2021, where we see much fatter margins and opportunity to lock in. And so that affected the sensitivity a bit. But those are really the moving pieces of that number. In terms of implied – what margins are implied? I mean for CMI’s book, I guess, keep in mind, CMI has got a lot of term business in it now with the deals that’s done with Vitols and Trafis in early cargoes, so that term business is obviously well north of $2. But then the balance inclusive of hedging is still north of $1 in our book, just given how much we forward sold and how much financial hedges we had in place. So those are the assumptions there.

Anya Shelekhin

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. And then second, you narrowed your estimate for – or it seems like you narrowed your estimate for contracted offtakes to 85% from the 80% to 95% range that you had before in the last update. Can you talk about some of the specifics that drove this change in guidance? And what gives you more confidence in that figure?

Anatol Feygin

Management

So Anya, thanks, this is Anatol. I wouldn’t characterize it that way. What we said, you’re probably referring to the K, is that we’re approximately 85% contracted. That’s on our existing platform. That is distinct from the issue that we’ve been discussing about the contractual support we would need incrementally to move forward with Corpus Stage 3. So we haven’t varied our principles on investment, whether that’s Shneur’s question on return hurdles, contracted volumes, the tenor over which we expect to get our capital out of the project, all that remains in place. But if you look at what we have contracted to date on the current nine train portfolio, that’s the approximately 85% number.

Jack Fusco

Management

Yes. And I would just say one more thing that I’m extremely proud of Aaron Stephenson and the operating team because they continue to work on and deliver operational excellence, which some of that is going to be a little bit variable because our production numbers and our debottlenecking efforts have gone so well at our existing facilities.

Anya Shelekhin

Analyst

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Danilo Juvane with BMO Capital Markets.

Danilo Juvane

Analyst

Well, thanks and good morning. One quick one for me. To the extent that you are seeing margins sort of stand out for both 2020, 2021 and so forth, is there any way that you can perhaps increase your volumetric capacity to offset that margin squeeze going forward?

Michael Wortley

Analyst

No. It’s Michael. I mean, as Jack just alluded to on Aaron’s performance, I mean the plants are scheduled to run full out and there’s no really turning them up. I mean our production plan is our production plan. Now we had a huge tailwind last year because we figured out some ways to debottleneck the facilities and our production came in much higher than we expected last year, which did make up for a lot of margin erosion that we saw last year. But probably not an opportunity for that magnitude of move this year, so we’ll see some – a little bit of production increase probably like we’ve already seen, but not a huge magnitude at this stage.

Danilo Juvane

Analyst

Great. That was my only question. Thank you.

Jack Fusco

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers.

Craig Shere

Analyst

Good morning. Congratulations on the strong quarter. Michael, you mentioned $0.5 billion liquidity benefit for every half year delay in FID of Corpus Stage 3. Fully understand that the economics of the contracts applied to that project will dictate FID. But to the extent the upsized nine train portfolio can support the CMI contract signed, isn’t there some wiggle room on when to FID, even if the project could meet hurdle rates? And one final kind of question about liquidity kicker. Since your June 2019 guidance long-term run rate guidance, we now have the early completion of Corpus Christi Train 3 coming up. And I wonder if you can opine on how much flexibility that provides in the budget?

Michael Wortley

Analyst

Well, we’re not putting that one in the bank just yet. But okay, yes, it’s probably earlier than we thought. But remember, we’re having the margin headwind, too. So there’s a lot of things that go into that. I think we’re probably still generally comfortable with the numbers that we put out a year ago with some puts and takes, right, lower margins, more volume, like you mentioned. So we’re probably in generally the same spot. So your first question on contracting is a good point. You make a good point. It’s how we look at it. We look at the entire company’s capacity to serve the contracts that we have, not just – not ignoring the fact that we have some length on the nine train platform, we’re just going to put every new contract at Stage 3. You’re absolutely right. And so we do look at it that way. And we do have some wiggle room, and that’s part of our ability to maybe delay an FID a little bit on the Stage 3 project that is otherwise commercially successful.

Craig Shere

Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Last question will come from Ben Nolan with Stifel.

Frank Galanti

Analyst

Yes. Hi, this is Frank Galanti on for Ben. I wanted to focus on Stage 3 – Corpus Christi Stage 3. I know the focus to keep long-term contracts at reasonable hurdle rates with an eye to keep – an eye to get bank financing. But would you guys be willing to take shorter duration, somewhere around 10 years or lower to your counterparty to underwrite Stage 3?

Jack Fusco

Management

No. We don’t see a necessity to change any of our terms or counterparty metrics at this stage of the game to get Stage 3 across the finish line.

Frank Galanti

Analyst

Okay. And then kind of second question on, with lower Henry Hub prices and lower gas prices generally, have you been having more conversations seeing increased demand for producer pushed contracts?

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, Frank, this is Anatol. So as we’ve said in previous calls, we have very good interest in the producer push construct, but it is a limited sphere of opportunities, precisely because of your first question. We will not be able to achieve our objectives if we let the investment grade aspect of our counterparty slide. And that, as you well know, is a very limiting factor in engaging with the producer community. So there’s a tremendous amount of interest. But by the time you filter through what we need to extract from that contract, you get down into single-digit opportunities, and we are actively pursuing those, and expect that there will be more IPM-type transactions that ultimately support Stage 3.

Frank Galanti

Analyst

Great. That’s very helpful. Thanks very much.

Jack Fusco

Management

Thank you, and I want to thank everybody for all of your support of Cheniere.

Operator

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, this will conclude the conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.