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Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG)

Q1 2022 Earnings Call· Wed, May 4, 2022

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Cheniere Energy Inc Q1 2022 Earnings Call and Webcast. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Randy Bhatia. Please go ahead, sir.

Randy Bhatia

Management

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Cheniere’s first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. The slide presentation and access to the webcast for today’s call are available at cheniere.com. Joining me this morning are Jack Fusco, Cheniere’s President and CEO; Anatol Feygin, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer; and Zach Davis, 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 measure can be found in the appendix to 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 Zach 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. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today, and thank you all for your continued support of Cheniere. I’m pleased to be here this morning to review our first quarter 2022 achievements and discuss our further improved 2020 outlook. Before we begin, I would like to spend a moment discussing the tragic situation that continues to unfold in Ukraine since we last spoke in February. Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Ukraine and broader Europe as they navigate these volatile and uncertain times. At Cheniere, we built strong relationships with and support the communities in which we live and work and that includes those who we supply LNG. Since the beginning of the year, over 75% of cargoes produced by Cheniere have landed in Europe. That amounts to over 150 cargoes of LNG and we are just beginning. As Europe looks to reduced its dependency on Russian energy supplies and the administration looks to support our allies, the relevance and criticality of energy security in the role of LNG and natural gas as a reliable, flexible and cleaner burning fuel, has never been more evident to customers and governments the world over. We have been active participants in the U.S. EU task force on energy security. And we believe that increased cooperation around the world is essential to ensure our allies and partners along with our customers have access to energy in the months and years ahead. For these reasons, I have challenged our operations teams to do everything possible to safely and responsibly produce as much LNG as possible through our continued operational excellence programs, which we will address in more detail this morning. Now please turn to Slide 5, where I will review some key operational and financial highlights for the first…

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks Jack and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide 9. As Jack noted, the global energy and natural gas landscape has faced significant challenges this year. We find ourselves in uncharted territory as impacts from the war in Ukraine filter through gas markets, sparking extreme price volatility, and a renewed focus on security of reliable long-term natural gas supply. In March JKM and TTF daily prices were pushed to new all-time highs with April deliveries reaching approximately $85 and $72 per MMBtu respectively. That being said, since our last call, JKM predominantly traded at a discount to TTF as Europe transitioned from being the market of last resort, once responsible for balancing the global LNG market to the market of greatest need with destination flexible LNG available to respond to the market signal. While geopolitical risk premiums have since subsided front month settlement prices remain elevated given the structural tightness that’s been present in the market since the second half of 2021. As you can see from the middle chart on this slide, LNG supply growth continues to be underpinned by the U.S. with U.S. LNG exports growing 23% year-on-year to 20.4 million tons. This growth has been supported by the strong call on LNG demand in Europe, as well as new capacity additions, including Sabine Pass Train 6. Overall supply grew 6% or 4 million tons year-on-year in Q1 with supply growth from the U.S. and to a lesser extent, Russia offsetting declines resulting from outages in Indonesia and Malaysia maintenance in Qatar as well as gas supply disruptions in Nigeria. U.S. LNG represented nearly half of European LNG imports during the quarter helping meet the needs of our European allies and partners. In fact, Cheniere produced cargos supplied more LNG into Europe than any other country in…

Zach Davis

Management

Thanks, Anatol, and good morning, everyone. I’m pleased to be here today to review our first quarter 2022 financial results. Our key financial accomplishments and our increased 2022 guidance, a testament to the value of our platform and the effectiveness of the entire Cheniere team. Turning to Slide 13. During the first quarter, we generated adjusted EBITDA of $3.2 billion and distributable cash flow of approximately $2.5 billion, both record quarterly amounts. Our first quarter results benefited from the drivers of our guidance increase back in February, namely the early completion and accelerated ramp to full utilization of Sabine Pass Train 6 combined with a sustained higher margin environment across global LNG markets. Additionally, the contribution of a few CMI cargos loaded at year end 2021, but delivered in 2022, as well as incremental lifting margin based on higher Henry Hub prices further contributed to first quarter results. We recognized an income 592 TBtu of physical LNG during the first quarter, including 581 TBtu from our project and 11 TBtu sourced from third parties. Approximately 82% of these LNG volumes recognized in income we’re sold under long-term SPA or IPM agreements. We generated a net loss of $865 million in the first quarter. The net income line continues to be impacted by the unrealized non-cash derivative impact related to our long-term IPM agreements as we have discussed on prior earnings calls. Turning to our progress on capital allocation. We are executing on the plan we laid out in September of last year on a significantly accelerated pace, as higher than expected marketing margins and production are providing a meaningful tailwind to the timeline we previously laid out. During the first quarter, we redeemed or repaid over $800 million of long-term indebtedness bringing the total now to over $2 billion out…

Operator

Operator

Yes, sir. Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And we’ll take our first question from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

Hi, good morning.

Jack Fusco

Management

Good morning, Jeremy.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

Thanks for taking my question here. Just wanted to start off with the guidance in the raise here. I was just wondering if you could maybe help us parse through a bit here, was the guidance raise, if you think about which quarters contributed to it, is that just reflecting the benefits in the first quarter being higher? Or should we think about the next three quarters being a little bit higher, than your original forecast, just trying to understand some of the drivers there?

Zach Davis

Management

Hey, Jeremy, it’s Zach over here. And I’ll just say in the February call, we were pretty much two thirds the way through the quarter. So we pretty much anticipated then with Train 6 already up and running, that we would have a around $3 billion of EBITDA for Q1. So basically what’s that saying is that this $1.2 billion increase is actually going to be spread out more so over Q2 through Q4. And clearly with $8.2 billion to $8.7 billion of EBITDA, $22 to $24 of cash flow. And honestly we’ll be under four times on debt to EBITDA this year at this rate. We’ll be capitalizing on capital allocation for the rest of the year, but to give people a sense of the numbers around the drivers of the $1.2 billion increase. As I mentioned, the 50 TBtu that were open going into the last call with $8 increase selling those cargos through the volatility in the mid 20s, let’s say in terms of net backs, that was 400 million, and then all this optimization on maintenance and the incremental cargos that added over 600 million. And then yes, higher Henry Hub better lifting margin was about the rest. So really it’s coming now you’ll see it in the future quarters this incremental plus billion.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

Got it. That’s very helpful there. Thanks for that. And maybe just pivoting towards the long-term guidance. I keep hearing you guys optimize and squeezing out more production. I’m just wondering your kind of existing long-term run rate EBITDA guidance. Is that still current or should we be thinking kind of an upward bias to that just given all the incremental capacity that you guys keep squeezing out here?

Jack Fusco

Management

Yes, Jeremy. First, I’ll take some of that. I am so proud of my maintenance and operations teams for what they’ve been able to do with these trains. And their focus on maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of the trains to get them to optimal performance has just been fantastic and world class. But as far as the actual run rate guidance, I’ll turn that over to Zach.

Zach Davis

Management

Sure. So yes, though for the rest of this year, and honestly, even next year, we’re seeing netback and let’s say the mid to high teens in our forecast. We’re going to stick with the existing forecast for you all where we had CMI at 200 to 250 [ph] because we can honestly make a very good living building new infrastructure, like Stage III with long-term contracts in that range. Just to put in perspective for Stage III, it’s $7 billion unlevered, six times CapEx the EBITDA and pretty much fully contracted at this point. And we’re talking about double digit unlevered returns. So, for now we’re holding tight with our long-term guidance for nine trains and then with Stage III, but with this extra cash I mean at this point from 2021 to 2024, it’s about $16 billion of available cash. The number’s getting a little silly, so we’ll get you back to this year, which is only, let’s say 5 billion plus. We’ll be bringing down the share count. We’ll be reducing interest expense, and ideally, eventually yes, increasing that guidance, but we’ll stick with what we got today.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

Got it. Going with beat and raises is a good way to go about it. So I thank you for all the color there. Really helpful. Thanks.

Jack Fusco

Management

Thanks, Jeremy.

Operator

Operator

We will now take our next question from Brian Reynolds with UBS.

Brian Reynolds

Analyst · UBS.

Hi, good morning, everyone. And appreciate all the color on the potential capital allocation update later in this year. So maybe to pivot to CCL Stage III, it appears that you guys are targeting a late 2025 in service date. But just given that you’ve given, backed all the thumbs up to start construction effectively. And just given that you guys have brought on a few of your previous trains on nearly a year early, was curious if these mid-scale modular trains have the potential to come online in late 2024 versus late 2025 to take advantage of some of the market dynamics. Just given that the global nat gas market is expected to stay tight through the mid 2020s. Thanks.

Jack Fusco

Management

Yes. Thanks, Brian. And what I’ll say is I’m always impressed with what David Craft and his team at E&C have been able to do with Bechtel and bring our trains in significantly ahead of schedule. And my expectation is still that way. As you know, we tend to be fairly conservative in our guidance and we’ve guided you guys to the guaranteed delivery dates from Bechtel. And as we get sooner into that FID, I will keep you informed to let you know of what our expectations are. But right now that plan is to have the first train producing LNG and a commercial ops by the end of 2025, and then every three to four months thereafter, have another train startup. And – but as you can tell, I think the world of my team and I’m pretty confident we will hit the plan.

Brian Reynolds

Analyst · UBS.

Great, appreciate that feedback. Maybe as a follow-up, curious if you could just provide some commentary on the QMRV program to monitor, GHG emissions. I was curious if you could share some of the early results of the program and whether the data that you were effectively collecting is helping. Counterparties and customers get comfortable with signing up the SPA contracts, specifically those counterparties that were a little bit more hesitant to sign up for long-term deals given the ESG concerns before. Thanks.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, Ryan. This is Anatol. I’ll start this. So it’s still relatively early days. We’re very optimistic. We’re learning a lot, obviously kicks off the third leg of the stool at Gillis and we’ll continue, as Jack said, to drive that and implemented our own facilities as well. One of the things that we’re doing, as you know, is having it done in partnership with universities and academic institutions and making sure that all of the data are verified and properly collected and vetted. So it’s too early to comment on any output, but the effort and the commitment and the obvious engagement that we have with the entire supply chain is critical, as you said, to moving forward and continuing to drive engagement with counterparties. And I think that that’s the way the world is going to go and this will continue to keep us in a great position, leading the charge on all of these fronts and reducing our – ultimately reducing our lifecycle emissions. So too early to give you any specific findings, but we are learning a lot and we’ll have a lot more to say over the coming quarters.

Brian Reynolds

Analyst · UBS.

Great. Looking forward to it. That’s all for me. Have a great day everyone.

Operator

Operator

We’ll now take our next question from Michael Lapides with Goldman Sachs.

Michael Lapides

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my question and congrats on a great quarter and guidance raised. I’m going to come back to the maintenance optimization and I want to tie this into the debottlenecking that you’ve talked about a little bit. Is what you’re seeing is a pull forward of the debottlenecking a little bit, meaning the extra 1 million to 2 million tons a year that you’ve talked about? Or is this simply a delaying some maintenance work from 2022 and maybe doing it in 2023? So kind of just pulling – pushing out that maintenance work so maybe volumes this year are a little bit more elevated, but you kind of lose a little bit of that when we think about next year.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Yes, Michael, this is Anatol. Doesn’t have anything to do with debottlenecking. So our maintenance optimization program, it’s a continuous process. My ops and maintenance teams are constantly working to ensure that that they can maximize production through, I’ll call it, a reliability centered program. So we actually as we get into the year, we start doing more diagnostics on the actual equipment that we’re going to maintain and looking at its performance. And what we found out this year is that we had scheduled in our five year plan to do the maintenance based off of a time-based schedule from the original equipment manufacturers. And now, we’ve went to a reliability centered program and that’s allowed us to extend the useful lives of that – those components. And in this case, it ended up having us produce, as Zach mentioned, over eight cargoes of additional production. And I just think it benefits everybody that we continually challenge ourselves and make sure that we’re maximizing the performance of those components before we change them out. So that’s what we mean by maintenance optimization.

Michael Lapides

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Got it. And there is a little bullet in this in the queue. I’m just curious, do you see now that you’ve got all 6 trains fully running at Sabine that there’s some cost savings, cost synergy opportunities over the next year or so or even longer term, where kind of an average cost per train might come down on the O&M side.

Jack Fusco

Management

Yes, absolutely. I mean you should think of us as a southwest of liquefaction trains, right? We have 9 trains that are the same design, and there should be significant synergies now on parts and labor and operational effectiveness.

Zach Davis

Management

And I’ll just add that if you look at our O&M results and you compare it to Q4 compared to Q1 last year, now that we’re just producing a lot more that that dollar per MMBtu is coming down, and you should expect that for the full year.

Michael Lapides

Analyst · Goldman Sachs.

Got it. Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

Zach Davis

Management

Thanks, Michael.

Operator

Operator

We’ll now take our next question from Spiro Dounis with Credit Suisse.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst · Credit Suisse.

Thanks operator. Good morning guys. Jack, would appreciate your thoughts on the regulatory landscape and U.S. energy policy here more broadly. I think we’ve seen a few branches and positive developments from this administration to support more U.S. LNG into Europe, but feels like that’s kind of stop short of a comprehensive policy to really foster more development. So curious what you’re seeing and hearing from regulators and policymakers both here and in Europe.

Jack Fusco

Management

Well, needless to say that the EU has been very, very helpful and very grateful for what we’ve been able to do and the 150 cargoes that that were produced at Cheniere and sent to Europe. Our relationship with the regulators, FERC, FEMSA, the administration has always been strong. We’ve talked about it before that the Obama administration approved our ability to export and our permits to build the facility. And we continue to work collaboratively with all of them. I was very pleased that we got tank one back in service and that we’re working closely with them on tank three. We’ve got the additional capacity from FERC on our debottlenecking efforts and then we got the DOT non-FTA approval. So we’re getting what we need. They’re very busy these days. We’re having to be patient, but we’ll continue to work collaboratively with the bunch.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst · Credit Suisse.

Great. That’s helpful. Second question, just moving to upstream and working more with E&Ps, seeing a lot more upstream companies express interest in LNG and tapping into that market. Your announcement, of course, with ARC is another great example of that. We do have some E&Ps talking about taking on equity interest in LNG projects directly. And so curious that you described your interest levels from here to take on more E&P customers and if you’d be open at some point even jointly developing something going forward.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, Spiro. This is Anatol chiming in. We love these IPM deals for a number of reasons. Obviously, it’s very much in line with our risk tolerance and the fees that we collect from them. But it’s also the gas supply that comes with it, the operational flexibility that comes with it. And as Zach mentioned, in the portfolios of the projects having a mix of FOB, DES and IPM transactions is a very elegant kind of composition. As you know, we’ve always been limited by the pool of potential counterparties. We’ve expanded that pool fortunately to include now two Canadian producers and the idea that we would more of this that center of the fairway for us. So especially as credit quality improves for the E&Ps that pool continues to increase. So you should expect more of that from us and we think that that’s part of our balanced diet, if you will.

Zach Davis

Management

And then on the partnerships and equity with new contracts, just to reiterate what was said before, but with $16 billion of available cash, 10 plus million tons of contracts already raised pretty much for Stage III. Yes, we’re not going to need many contracts contingent on project equity. And clearly, we’re pretty focused on simplifying the structure as much as possible. So happy to do more IPM deals with creditworthy counterparties and we’ll leave it at that.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst · Credit Suisse.

Got it. Helpful color, guys. Thanks for the time.

Operator

Operator

We’ll now take our next question from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bernstein.

Jean Ann Salisbury

Analyst · Bernstein.

Hi, good morning. Is the run rate for volume that you’ve been at year-to-date like if you’re looking at gas prices and stuff, a good proxy for the year for study state or do you anticipate that there’s more maintenance kind of, not in the winter time that might bring down the average a little?

Zach Davis

Management

Hey, this is Zach, I’ll just stay. I think we produced around 11 million tons across the portfolio in Q1. And at the rate we’re going accounting first, Train 6 coming online in February will be in our run rate range for all the trains this year on an annualized basis. So it might be slightly up just with the colder weather in Q1, but it’s a decent proxy.

Jean Ann Salisbury

Analyst · Bernstein.

Great, thank you. And I know we’re all focused on getting CC Stage 3 to FID but could you talk about the steps that would be required to get a train beyond that to market and whether you’d kind of be comfortable contracting volumes on this theoretical train while it’s still in the FERC process?

Jack Fusco

Management

Yes. So I’ll start and I’ll ask Anatol if he wants to jump in on it. We’ve got very strong relationships with our customers and we pretty much – an ability for us to continue to grow this business. So I feel very comfortable that Cheniere will grow for many, many years hereafter. I think the brownfield aspects can’t be matched. You can see from our Stage 3 that the economics are extremely strong and I think there’s more run rate left.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Yes. Thanks Jean Ann. And in terms of contracting, obviously you’ve seen the activity, it’s been a very strong three and even six months. This is the time when the U.S. product and Cheniere’s product in particular, given its reliability and performance that we’ve talked about stands out. And we have a range of offerings and as the market continues to absorb those volumes and continues to afford us incremental opportunities, we do have the opportunity engage on future projects as well. So we have the ability to serve customers with volumes right now with volumes, of course, of Stage 3 and given the strength of the market, there are discussions on further opportunities as well.

Jean Ann Salisbury

Analyst · Bernstein.

Great. Thank you and congrats on the guidance.

Jack Fusco

Management

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

We’ll now take our next question from Sean Morgan with Evercore.

Sean Morgan

Analyst · Evercore.

Hey guys. So it’s a bit of a continuation on that same theme, but so if we see this really rapidly changing market where a lot of Russian market supply to Europe might be kind of upper grabs and sort of a market share shift, is there – one part is kind of how long would it take to get FERC approvals on an expansion for beyond Stage 3 in terms of whole months. And if it’s going to take sort of a long time, you have potentially this and not trying to minimize the 10 mtpa that is coming on with Stage 3, but if you have this maybe unique opportunity, would potentially buying a FERC approved project, that’s kind of stalled out that you guys are not involved with on the table?

Jack Fusco

Management

Look, you heard from Zach, Sean that we’re building Stage 3 at six times, EBITDA, that creates a significant amount of long-term value. So I do think – there’s the build and buy situation. I’ve seen it my whole career and for the foreseeable future, I just think we can build it faster, better, cheaper than buying it from someone else.

Sean Morgan

Analyst · Evercore.

Okay, great. And then the news on the import/export bank potential involvement, I mean, is that you guys have traditionally been able to finance everything that you wanted to develop on your own, how do you sort of view the involvement potentially by Federal government on building this, is that an opportunity to reduce the cost of capital? Is it advantageous for Cheniere, how do you kind of think about that?

Jack Fusco

Management

Yes, I can only speak for Cheniere, but I’ll just say we’re quite confident just with our bank group, which is a mix of say 30 to 40 project finance and investment banks that in the next couple months, we’ll get binding commitment for $3.5 billion to $4 billion spread, let’s say 1.5% or so. And that’s not going to need any government agency funding support whatsoever or XM support. So we have a bank process that’s already kicked off and we’re going to get what we need really efficiently and quite attractive as well from the regular bank market. So can’t really speak to those that may need that.

Sean Morgan

Analyst · Evercore.

Okay. All right. Thanks a lot, Zach and Jack.

Jack Fusco

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We’ll take our next question from Marc Solecitto with Barclays.

Marc Solecitto

Analyst · Barclays.

Hi, good morning. Just one on my end, as the largest domestic buyer of natural gas, curious is there any insight you have on the recent strength in domestic gas prices and as more LNG export capacity is added, if you think $3 Henry Hub is still the equilibrium point, or does this call on U.S. LNG kind of change that at all, recognizes a multitude of variables that factor into that with domestic production and international pricing. Just curious about any thoughts you might have on that dynamic.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, Marc. This is Anatol again. We still see the U.S. gas market – U.S. and Canadian gas market, I should say, as structurally a $3 to $4 market. We do think that there’s a bit of a latency in responding to these price signals as the curve continues to move up, you’ve see an increase in activity, you’re seeing once again, record production of natural gas that lagged after we had that record production number into late 2019 that has lagged the recovery in LNG exports. But we think that that will catch up in the coming quarters and feel very good about this $3 to $4 level long-term. In the short term, much like there’s not much of a switching capability globally because commodity prices are elevated across the board. The similar dynamic is playing out domestically, right. That we have very high coal prices domestically. So the fuel switching bans are at a point of inelasticity. So we think that there will be a supply response. We think that’s well underway and the curve is sort of pricing that as we get into to the $4 range as we get into the back half of next year and beyond.

Marc Solecitto

Analyst · Barclays.

Great. Appreciate the time.

Operator

Operator

We’ll take our next question from Ben Nolan with Stifel.

Ben Nolan

Analyst · Stifel.

Yes, thanks. Hey guys. So obviously, Corpus expansion is next on the list and the same I’m sure would be true of the FERC process, but I’m just curious, there’s been a lot of activity in the market around Louisiana and other projects and so forth. How are you thinking about – so being past, is there any possibility that you might consider sort of simultaneously developing or expanding both facilities or is it just really Corpus into the foreseeable future?

Jack Fusco

Management

No. I’d say, we have two great sites and two great assets. We have additional real estate at both sites, and it’s not out of the question to see us pivot – either do them both or pivot to back to Sabine. The third birth is coming along very well. I know there haven’t been any questions on it, but we would expect to receive our first shift there, sometime at the end of this year. And then we’ll have more infrastructure there to load additional ships. So we’re very excited about our prospects. But I – Ben, if you can, I got to keep my team focused on making sure we execute what’s in front of us. And we get Stage 3 across the finish line. That’s first and foremost for all of us here. And then we’ll look at additional growth potential.

Ben Nolan

Analyst · Stifel.

Okay. I absolutely understand that, Jack. And then if I could just real quick for Anatol. You’d mentioned a little bit in your prepared remarks that a number of the Asian markets were sort of down a little bit is more the volume, more the LNG was moving to Europe and the prices better. Do you think that there are possibly any long-term implications there? Do you think as a function of what’s happening at the moment that there might be some long-term demand destruction? Just because prices are as high as they are and Europe is buying as much as they are.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Yes. Great and very valid quite. And we keep as close an eye on that as possible. We don’t see anything. In part, it is again, going back to the previous discussion, it’s a competing fuels issue. Like, Australian coal is $16, $17 an ounce, right? So that’s no bargain either. And in fact it is much more expensive than the long-term contracted supply that we and others bring to the table. So we’re not seeing any pivots away from the commitment to natural gas. We still see Asia as the driver of gas demand. Obviously, what’s going on in Europe will change the supply portfolio. But it is not going to meaningfully change the overall gas demand profile and Asia we believe will. And to your part – partly to your question, the contracting activity that you’ve seen over the last three, six months has still been very Asia driven, right? So we expect that to continue. We are keeping a very close eye on that. And at this point, I don’t see any structural shifts in the demand profile going forward.

Ben Nolan

Analyst · Stifel.

All right. I appreciate it. Thank you, guys.

Operator

Operator

And we’ll now take our next question from Michael Blum with Wells Fargo.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Thank you. Thanks for greeting me in here. I’ll just combine my questions into one really. The question is just given the commodity price environment and the geopolitical tensions that you referenced. Can you just talk kind of broadly how you think that all might shape the duration and structure of contracts going forward? And the second part of that, just in light of everything, all your comments earlier about Europe, why are we seeing most of the new LNG contracts get announced come out of Asia? I’ll stop there. Thanks.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Yes. Thanks Mike. It’s Anatol, again. So the fundamental driver to the second part of your question is going back to the previous question, that’s where the demand growth is, right? So if you’re going to underpin your load serving entities that have growing demand, it makes perfect sense to us. And we’ve always seen and said that the majority of the long-term contracts are going to be driven by those structurally short Asian players. The European issues obviously a little too early to call right now, what’s happening and what should be happening is a tremendous focus on infrastructure solutions like that has to come first. We’ve seen these record numbers of imports into Europe and their constraint, right? There’s only so much that you can bring into the existing infrastructure. So that is for Europe to solve first. They’re dedicating a lot of resources. The governments are dedicating a lot of resources to solving these bottlenecks. So we’ll see more our ability to bring volumes into Europe, but how that is commercially underpinned still has yet to shake out. So unprecedented times and challenges, Asia’s going to continue to be the growth driver. And the majority of contracts signed this last quarter were 20 years or longer. So we’ve always believed that 20 year – the demise of the 20 year contract that was greatly exaggerated. And you’ve seen that in the last few quarters really come back again, as you said, driven by the Asian players.

Michael Blum

Analyst · Wells Fargo.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We’ll now take our last question from Matt Taylor with Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co.

Matt Taylor

Analyst

Yes. Thanks for taking this last one. Zach, like you said, your cash flow is starting to look a bit silly here. So with that backdrop, but Jack has your thinking changed at all on broadening your organic development lens? What I mean by that is extending the value chain a bit and developing shorter cycle opportunities. Well, obviously you focused would still be on long-term contracting. But I’m wondering if you guys are thinking through on how to potentially develop beyond just production capacity.

Zach Davis

Management

I’ll go first as CFO, and then let Jack chime in if he wants. But I think we enjoy the sweet spot that we’re in right on the Gulf Coast of Texas Louisiana with Corpus and Sabine. And I’ve mentioned before, we like our debt metrics in the 4x to 5x, not our valuations. So we’re going to stick with just liquefaction on the coast and not go too far upstream. And then downstream, I think we’re the biggest fans of anyone creating more demand for our product. But we’ll let others do that because that’s a very different risk adjusted return prospect.

Jack Fusco

Management

Very well, Zach.

Matt Taylor

Analyst

Yes. Thanks for that.

Operator

Operator

All right, everyone. It does conclude our question – go ahead.

Jack Fusco

Management

No. I just wanted to thank everybody for their continued support of Cheniere. It has been an interesting time to be in the energy markets, and we appreciate all of your support.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude today’s conference. We thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.