Earnings Labs

Cheniere Energy, Inc. (LNG)

Q4 2023 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 22, 2024

$266.38

+2.69%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+0.03%

1 Week

-1.57%

1 Month

+1.05%

vs S&P

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day. And welcome to the Cheniere Energy Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call and Webcast. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I’d like to turn the conference over to Randy Bhatia. Please go ahead.

Randy Bhatia

Management

Thanks, Operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Cheniere’s fourth quarter and full year 2023 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; Zach Davis, Executive Vice President and CFO, and other members of Cheniere’s senior management. 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 two 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 three. Jack will begin with operating and financial highlights, Anatole will then provide an update on the LNG market, and Zach will review our financial results and 2024 guidance. 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 Fusco

Management

Thank you, Randy. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today as we review a successful 2023 and discuss our outlook for what is setting up to be a very busy and promising 2024. In 2023, we drove exceptional results across the key strategic priorities of the company and we did so while reinforcing our track record on safety, execution and operational reliability. I’m extremely proud of my 1,600 Cheniere colleagues across operations, engineering and construction, origination and others who continue to be driven by excellence and take pride in solidifying Cheniere as best in class across our platform. We made significant strides despite some persistent macro headwinds and increased uncertainty in 2023, each largely driven by conflict, geopolitics and the evolving regulatory landscape, particularly right here in America. I’ll touch on the latter in a moment, but the macro backdrop for LNG today provides a blunt yet clear reminder of the criticality of secure and stable energy supply and the value of a reliable and customer-focused operator who consistently delivers on its promises to its global stakeholders. Please turn to slide five, where I’ll renew some key operational and financial achievements from the fourth quarter and full year 2023 and introduce our 2024 financial guidance. We generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.65 billion in the fourth quarter, bringing our full year total to approximately $8.8 billion, the high end of our most recent guidance range. We generated approximately $1.1 billion of distributable cash flow in the fourth quarter and $6.5 billion for the full year, which is above the high end of our guidance range. Looking back at the original guidance provided for 2023, we beat the midpoint of each of those guidance ranges by over $500 million, once again illustrating the volatile nature of current global natural…

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. The global LNG market continued to rebalance throughout 2023 as Europe navigated its energy crisis and Asia adapted to the delicate new market equilibrium amid some regional economic headwinds. Global LNG trade grew by approximately 3% from 2022, adding 10.5 million tons of supply to the overall market. Aside from 2020, global supply growth has not been this low since 2011 through 2015 period. Nevertheless, this increase in supply was broadly matched by an increase in Asian demand, which grew approximately 4% year-over-year to approximately 263 million tons per annum as the region furthers its post-pandemic return. On the supply side, only one new train came online in 2023 globally, the third train at Tangguh LNG in Indonesia. Most of the growth in LNG output last year actually came from the continued ramp-up of existing projects in the U.S. The U.S. exported 86 million tons last year, becoming the world’s largest exporter in 2023, ahead of Australia and Qatar for the first time, and more than half of those volumes were produced by Cheniere. In the fourth quarter alone, U.S. exports reached record highs of nearly 24 million tons, contributing to the global market’s rebalancing. Despite persistent geopolitical unrest globally and the continued phase-out of Russian pipe gas in Europe, spot price levels have decreased this winter compared to last year due to a combination of mild weather, macroeconomic fundamentals, high storage levels and sufficient LNG supply availability. In the fourth quarter, TTF averaged $13.66 an ounce and JKM $14.97, both significantly lower than levels seen in the previous two years and both have continued to trend down through the first quarter of this year. Henry Hub benchmark also decreased in the fourth quarter, falling to an average of $2.88 an ounce. For the…

Zach Davis

Management

Thanks, Anatol, and good morning, everyone. I’m pleased to be here today to review our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results and key financial accomplishments and introduce our financial guidance for 2024. Turn to slide 12. For the fourth quarter and full year 2023, we generated net income of approximately $1.4 billion and $9.9 billion, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1.65 billion and $8.8 billion, and distributable cash flow of approximately $1.1 billion and $6.5 billion, respectively. With today’s results, our full year consolidated adjusted EBITDA results were at the high end of our most recent guidance range and we exceeded the high end of the range on distributable cash flow, mainly attributed to higher margins captured on open capacity and optimization upstream and downstream of the plant. In addition, we have now reported positive net income on a quarterly and cumulative trailing four-quarter basis five quarters in a row. As compared to 2022, our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results continue to reflect a higher proportion of our LNG being sold under long-term contracts with less volumes being sold into short-term markets, as well as the further moderation of international gas prices relative to what we experienced in 2022. These impacts were partially offset by certain portfolio optimization activities that our teams were able to achieve throughout the year. During the fourth quarter and full year, we recognized in income 618 TBtu and 2,353 TBtu of physical LNG, respectively, which included 607 TBtu and 2,318 TBtu from our projects, a record for the full year, and 11 TBtu and 35 TBtu sourced from third parties, respectively. Approximately 90% and 87% of these LNG volumes recognized in income were sold under long-term SBA or IPM agreements, with initial terms greater than 10 years, respectively. While we have many…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] We’ll go first to John Mackay with Goldman Sachs.

John Mackay

Analyst

Hey. Good morning. Thank you for the time. I appreciate the color you guys gave on the 2024 guide and that you’re already above the kind of 9-train run rate, but maybe you could just spend another minute talking through what kind of gets you to the low-end of the range versus the high-end of the range. It’s about the same $500 million range as you gave for 2023, but there were more open volumes unsold at that point. So maybe just kind of walk through those dynamics? Thank you.

Zach Davis

Management

Hi, John. It’s Zach. And I’ll just say the $500 million range is basically we’re keeping the same cadence that we’ve had for the last couple of years with the $500 million. It’s still under 10% of the EBITDA. But it’s safe to assume that we’re going to start right now around the midpoint of that range and from there, I would say there’s a few variables, even though the open capacity is so small and $1 CMI move in margins is only $15 million. With most of the year still ahead of us, $1 move in Henry Hub can move EBITDA in the lifting margin by around $100 million and just year-end timing of deliveries, that can move things around $100 million as well, even though a lot of those end-of-year cargoes are even locked in at pretty attractive rates by the team. When it comes to the upside and downside to the high-end and low-end, on the low-end, it would really have to be something unforeseen today operationally that got us that close to the low-end considering how locked in we are. So it would be maybe a longer maintenance cycle than we even had last year, which we don’t foresee or a tougher hurricane season or something of that sort. On the upstream -- on the upside, I’d just say, we’ve been very clear from the get-go. We don’t guide on optimization upstream and downstream of the plants that’s not locked in. So as that accrues, ideally through the year, even though margins are lower, Henry Hub is lower and volatility has moderated, that should help us get to the upside and the, yeah, we’ll stay optimistic on seeing if we can get a couple more cargoes out through the course of the year.

John Mackay

Analyst

I appreciate all that detail. Maybe just a follow-up and maybe this one’s for Anatol. There’s been obviously a lot of focus in the market on the next three years, three-and-a-half years for the LNG market with U.S. and Qatar supply coming online and the demand picture maybe not warming up as fast as we would have hoped. Understand the kind of long-term dynamics you talked about earlier in the call, but maybe just spend a couple minutes walking through what you see as this kind of medium-term outlook and maybe what the supply-demand balance looks like around the back half of this decade? Thanks.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Sure. Thanks, John. Thanks for the questions. I’ll start kind of in reverse order. The market will grow what the supply allows it to grow, right? So the 10.5 million tons was a function of that supply coming into the market and being placed where it was most needed at the margin. The things that are encouraging to us and we see as kind of inexorable trends are the commitments to gas and the investments in long-dated infrastructure. Not a month goes by that we don’t add a couple of regas terminals and things like gas-fired power plants are very difficult to get, turbines are difficult to get for years and that is a function of the deployment of that infrastructure globally. So we prefer a world where LNG is in those high-single, low-double-digit rates where returns for us are attractive but reasonable and the consumers can get their hands on these attractive BTUs. And as we mentioned in the prepared remarks, are competitive with coal and other generation sources. So we remain very optimistic. You’ll see volumes going into South and Southeast Asia. You’ll see the marginal kind of elastic demand come back into the market. We’re already seeing that even in the early days post the Chinese New Year and we think that these are trends that will last for decades and decades to come and we have kind of those commercial -- the commercial engagements with those types of counterparties that are continuing apace. So we think the market will enjoy absorbing this volume and whether it comes online on schedule or if things are modestly delayed as they have been historically, we think that the market will show robust growth and ability to absorb this next wave.

John Mackay

Analyst

That’s great. I appreciate the time today. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We’ll go next to Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

Hi. Good morning.

Jack Fusco

Management

Good morning, Jeremy.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

I just wanted to kind of unpack a little bit more on your earlier comments there. When you talked about beating the midpoint at the prior guidance range, I don’t know if it’s a $0.5 billion or so. Just wondering, what type of quantum of optimization Cheniere has been able to realize because of volatility in the market, both upstream and downstream operations? What’s that number look like?

Zach Davis

Management

It’s been in the hundreds of millions of dollars, Jeremy, in terms of the optimization. And I’d say hundreds of millions of dollars, both in the upstream and downstream side. Mind you, Henry Hub was significantly up in 2022, moderated a bit last year and it’s even further down today. So we’ll see how much can be there. And then on the other side, yeah, we have a ton of IPM deals, DES deals. So we’ll optimize those as we see fit and subcharter out any of our length in our shipping portfolio, which in the past has added hundreds of millions of dollars. Mind you, even that market has moderated as well in terms of the volatility. But when you add those two things together, it would really take, yeah, great execution and some opportunistic moments throughout the year for us to get to the high end of the range.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

Got it. So just to be clear there, then, hundreds of millions of dollars of synergies or optimization, rather, upstream and downstream, both we’ve seen historically. And that’s not really baked into the guidance as we see it today, because the guidance really just locks in what you’ve already locked down. Is that the right way to think about things?

Zach Davis

Management

Yeah. That’s right. We were pretty clear for quite some time now, as we thought about this year, it’d be the closest we would be to the run rate and considering how proactive we were going into this year, and now that we’re only down to 15 TBtu, we’re still above the midpoint of the run rate range for 9 trains and we don’t even have the TUA from Chevron anymore. So this is -- where we expected it to be, it was baked into the 2020 Vision and the $20-plus-billion of cash flow through 2026 and we’ll see how things play out on the optimization side, but it’s not baked into this guidance today.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst

Got it. Very helpful. So a lot of upside potential, but not baked into the guide. Very clear there. Thank you very much.

Jack Fusco

Management

Thanks, Jeremy.

Operator

Operator

We’ll go next to Brian Reynolds with UBS.

Brian Reynolds

Analyst

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Maybe to talk about just the distribution cut on the variable side, if you could just help talk about sizing and timing of that, and ultimately, how it relates to translating into the 15 MTPA expansion, assuming like an 850 build. So it seems like there’s still a little bit of variable component in the guidance above that 3.1 kind of run rate. So just kind of curious how you came to that number and how we should think about pre-funding, just given it could be $10 billion to $15 billion for the SPL expansion? Thanks.

Zach Davis

Management

Sure. So as we thought about the variable adjustment, I would say, over the last two years, we were incredibly efficient with our cash inside the CQP. And with the distributions, including the variable being over $4 both years, we probably distributed out almost $700 million more than even the run rate DCF per unit guidance that we give. So now it’s time, as we’re getting closer to officially filing with the FERC for the Sabine expansion and are targeting that 2026 FID, that we’re going to start retaining some of the cash and bringing down the variable. We’re saving around, let’s say, $700 million. And a large portion of that will actually just go into paying down a bit of debt that’s coming due, giving us this flexibility financially to add leverage capacity once we FID the project, stay with that, let’s say, 50-50 debt-to-equity during construction and maintain the base distribution throughout while still being investment grade at Sabine and CQP. So we’re trying to thread a needle there, and to do that, we need to start planning now. Mind you, some of the cash that’s retained is also going into development of supporting the feed and getting Sabine expansion ready for FID and there’s even $100 million or so baked in there for debottlenecking purposes. We think we’ve found some ways to get to the higher end of the 4.9 to 5.1 range on the first exchange that hopefully can pay dividends to us in the coming years. So there’s a few things in there, but it is mainly debt pay down in the near-term to add leverage capacity and flexibility in the long-term. Mind you, it’s still $2 billion of distributions coming out of CQP this year with $1.2 billion of that going to CEI. But if we can pull all this off and build this project and get to that over $5 DPU, we’re talking about almost $2 billion of consolidated EBITDA and we’re talking about almost a $1 billion of DCF to CEI. So it’s a win-win for all parties.

Brian Reynolds

Analyst

Right. Makes sense. Appreciate all that. My second question just around maybe further optimization. I know for the SPL expansion, it seems like there’s some capital efficiency and optimization opportunities with boil-off gas and some other things. But as we think about existing asset base, I think, you talked about 45 MTPA being a good run rate. It seems like 2023 was above that. As we look ahead to 2024, have we squeezed out all the optimization on the existing asset base or are there some new technologies or engines that could help further drive efficiencies and optimization on the existing asset base going forward? Thanks.

Jack Fusco

Management

Brian, this is Jack. While we’re not going to guide upwards of the 45 million tons today, I’m always amazed at what my operations folks can deliver. So whether it’s optimizing the trains or our maintenance schedule, we -- they have just constantly outperformed. So we’re looking now, as Zach mentioned, at $100 or so million for debottlenecking. One of the things I find really promising is, we’re looking at a new technology of our fin fans. Those are the fans that we use to cool the refrigerant that liquefy the natural gas and we think there’s a big opportunity there. So we’ll be trying that out in earnest this year and I hope to have more news for you on later calls.

Brian Reynolds

Analyst

Great. Appreciate it. Have a great rest of your morning.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We’ll go next to Theresa Chen with Barclays.

Theresa Chen

Analyst

Good morning. Going back to Jack’s comments on the evolving regulatory backdrop, with respect to the DOE pause, I’m just curious how this impacted conversations with customers, both within the context of commercializing your expansion projects, but also in relation to the broader commitment that the U.S. Government has to LNG exports and the perception of your global customers and the credibility and competitiveness of the U.S. LNG industry. Any salient commercial color you can provide would be great?

Jack Fusco

Management

Theresa, I think, I’m going to just start with some overall comments, and then I’ll turn it over to Anatol. But I have to say this isn’t really new. We’ve been through multiple administrations here at Cheniere. We’ve been through multiple studies on the public interest in exporting America’s natural gas. What is shocking and new is over the last eight years, I think, Cheniere has proven all the benefits to America and to our allies over exporting U.S. LNG. And I find it appalling that we need scientists to tell us theoretically, using theories and hypotheses, of the benefits or not. But as you know, we know that there are -- those benefits are factual, they’re proven, they were witnessed by the world. So I really look forward to seeing this studies report. I look forward to the comment period so we can get the record straight and accurate. I’m hopeful that cooler heads ultimately prevail and that the facts will be evident and this pause will be a distant memory. But with that, I’ll turn it over to Anatol. He can tell you a little bit about what our conversations have been with our customers.

Anatol Feygin

Management

Yeah. Thanks, Jack. And thanks, Theresa. Just to pick up where Jack left off, this is the third time the DOE is doing this study. And I would say, to Jack’s point, the first two are a distant memory as the U.S. goes from kind of mid-90s of millions tons per annum of capacity today to close to 200 million tons per annum. We still think -- really believe that the U.S. will be the market’s first 200-million-ton exporter and we will navigate this with the DOE. A lot of the things that we have been doing for the last four years or five years on our LCA and on our environmental science and tracking the emissions profiles, providing the cargo emission tags, are all things that are new in the equation. And then, of course, just the quantum of LNG exports from the U.S. and gas dedicated to LNG exports is a new component in this equation. So we -- to Jack’s point, we look forward to DOE’s methodical kind of science-based review and updating its profile. But we are confident and we relay the same answer to our customers in our commercial engagements, that we are confident that Cheniere will be able to navigate whatever comes out of the DOE and continue to prosecute expansions on our timeline. So this is not new. Every time there is a pivot, whether that is a modest pivot or a more major pivot, we have these discussions, but we’ve navigated them for a decade plus and are confident we’ll continue to do so and that’s exactly the message that we give to our customers and we obviously firmly believe that.

Theresa Chen

Analyst

Thank you. And Anatol, going back to your comments related to the elasticity benefits in the market currently, as price-sensitive buyers increase interest. Can you elaborate on that and what do you think the magnitude of that demand can be if prices remain low?

Anatol Feygin

Management

Yeah. Look, the market -- it’s hard to say that these are kind of unprecedented dynamics in the sense that the amount of infrastructure that has been brought online over the last three years to five years is unprecedented over that period. So we talk about the amount of liquefaction capacity that’s coming online in the back half of this decade, but again, not a month goes by that there’s not a new regas terminal Europe added five, Southeast Asia has added four, Europe will now add Alexandroupolis in Greece in the coming days or weeks. So the ability to consume this volume is enormous and we’re approaching a scale now relative to the current 400 million tons of exports, which obviously will grow of almost 1300 million tons per annum of import capacity. So markets like India, which have rebounded strongly as prices moderate, are now in a position to import more than twice as much volume as it imported in 2023. That was not a position that India was in in early 2020, when prices were low and it was a price elastic consumer. So I think you’ll see that price elastic demand function really surprised to the upside as Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, India, et cetera, are all in a position to take meaningful incremental volumes. So quite optimistic on that front and I think we all see these liquefaction numbers coming. And again, historically, they have surprised to the downside in terms of schedule and utilization. So we’ll see how the world rebalances, but it certainly has the capacity to consume essentially whatever number you think will be added to the supply side.

Theresa Chen

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We’ll go next to Spiro Dounis with Citi.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst

Thanks, Operator. Good morning, team. I want to go back to the 2020 Vision, if we could, Zach. It’s for about one and a half years into that program, and you mentioned tracking on or even had a plan to-date. But I guess if we just shift the focus to the forward outlook and think about that outlook for 2025, oh, sorry, 2024 through 2026, how does that compare to what you envisioned back in 2022? You sort of set that $20 billion target. I imagine some puts and takes since then, Stage 3 maybe coming on early, not sure where you had the LNG curve then, just trying to understand how much conservatism you imputed there.

Zach Davis

Management

Sure. So I would just say we’re still at $20-plus-billion of available cash through 2026, and there are some puts and takes. We’ve made some more money in years like the past year. This year was always planned to be highly contracted. And then we assumed guaranteed completion dates for Stage 3, meaning not even -- Train 7 wasn’t even going to come online until 2027, outside of that period of time. So all in, we’re still over $20 billion. We’ve deployed over $8 billion. So about 40% in about 30% of the time. But the main thing to focus on is really that excess cash and how we’re going to deploy that going forward. And as you can tell, with some of the debt pay down, which will be less than we even did this year, staying inside of CQP, CEI is going to mainly be focused on catching up on the buyback and completing the equity funding of Stage 3. At this point, we’ve done over $2 billion of buybacks, but we’ve done over $3.5 billion of debt pay down. So there’s still a $1.5 billion, give or take, that still needs to occur for that catch up of the one-to-one. So we’ll be pretty focused on that this year. Case in point, the program was set up to be opportunistic at times like this and that’s why the shares outstanding is trickling down. And by the end of the year or early next year, yeah, we’ll probably have to upsize the plan again and keep on marching on this long-term path to eventually 200 million shares in the long-term run rate.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst

Got it. That’s helpful, Zach. Thank you. Second question, just given your, I think, one of the largest buyers of natural gas, just curious how you’re thinking about the supply over the next few years. I think right now, producers understandably retrenching, just given where pricing is. At the same time, we’re hearing from some midstream companies that there are pockets of shortages in the Mid-Atlantic just due to the rise in data centers and other types of electric needs. So curious as you think about that outlook when all this energy capacity comes online in the next few years, do you think the producers are going to be able to stand up and sort of deliver on all that supply?

Anatol Feygin

Management

Thanks, Spiro. This is Anatol. I’ll jump in. Look, we’re very comfortable with and confident in the resource and the economics of developing that resource in this nation. The challenge we have, which we’ve highlighted multiple times for years, is building infrastructure. And I think it’s going to be a long time before anybody attempts another Mountain Valley Pipeline or equivalent out of what is an incredible resource in the Northeast, in the Marcellus and Utica. That said, you know us and we take very seriously and as a sacrosanct gas supply and the infrastructure needed to supply our facilities for decades to come and that’s one of many reasons why the U.S. Gulf Coast is our home and we’re very confident that Louisiana, Texas, Mid-Continent can continue to develop the resource and the infrastructure necessary to get it to us. Jack mentioned the ADCC pipeline that’s moving well, obviously. Permian continues to grow and we’ll need more intrastate infrastructure. We will need more interstate infrastructure as you probably saw we filed for together with our SPL application. So we’re confident that the Gulf Coast will continue to be well supplied, but obviously, would prefer that other resource in the country was able to get to market as well.

Spiro Dounis

Analyst

Got it. Helpful color as always. I’ll leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We’ll go next to Tristan Richardson with Scotiabank.

Tristan Richardson

Analyst

Hey, guys. Just one for me this morning. Follow up on a prior question about distribution levels of CQP. I mean, I think, that the philosophy of a base plus variable is relatively new going back to 2022. But is there a potential here that you could rethink that philosophy with the focus on retaining more cash in anticipation of the proposed SPL ex?

Zach Davis

Management

I think what we planned in 2022 was planned for distributing out a lot of cash efficiently in 2022 and 2023, and then being in a position where we can do a mega project inside an MLP. So when we set the $3.10 distribution as the base, we intend to uphold that. Obviously, this year, we’re actually even above that. We had enough cash to be able to meet our objectives going into developing and preparing for the Sabine expansion. And so we’re going to distribute that out to CEI and our unit holders. But when it comes down to FID-ing the project in the next couple of years, the goal is to maintain the base distribution, stay investment-grade everywhere and fund the project within cash flow. So this all kind of works, which is pretty amazing for an MLP, but one with six trains fully up and running, it works quite well. And then as you think about the $3.10 base distribution or the $3.25 this year, yeah, again, we’re still talking about $2 billion of distribution and an over 6% yield. So we were cognizant of making sure that that was competitive and kept us going in the right direction with our unit holders and our own stake in CQP.

Tristan Richardson

Analyst

I appreciate it, Zach. And then maybe just to follow up on the 2024 guide, I think in the prepared comments, you highlighted a higher proportion of bridging volumes as one of sort of the upward items in the guide versus the 9-train runway. Can you talk about how maybe mechanically bridging volumes work and how that can kind of contribute more to that upside?

Zach Davis

Management

Sure. Those bridging volumes are basically long-term contracts that helped us underpin or FID Stage 3 that have already begun before Stage 3 has begun. So those bridging volumes are in our 200 to 250 range and why we went into this year 97%, 98% contracted. So when we think about the bridging volumes, though, in the context of having some near-term volumes on a 15-year to 20-year deal, if the curve is liquid, we will get value for the curve and blend it over the 20 years or the 15 years. So those margins are incrementally up to a deal that might start with a CP of a train up and running, but we’re only talking about nickels and dimes here.

Tristan Richardson

Analyst

No. That’s great. Thank you. Appreciate it, Zach.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We’ll take our final question from Ben Nolan with Stifel.

Ben Nolan

Analyst

Yeah. Thanks. Hey, guys. Well, for my first one, as we think about how the year plays out and appreciating that virtually everything is fixed, is there going to be any sort of cadence to how the EBITDA and the cash flow comes through or should it be pretty linear, do you think?

Zach Davis

Management

It’s never perfectly linear. We produce more in the winter months at the sites. So with that, you should expect slightly more EBITDA in the colder quarters versus the summer or the shorter seasons. But basically, it should be a year of $5.5 billion to $6 billion to EBITDA and why we don’t guide on a quarterly basis. But we expect 45 million tons and we are now 99% contracted and the optimization, I’m not forecasting that today. So that’s probably the only thing that could create some variability quarter-to-quarter.

Ben Nolan

Analyst

Okay. I appreciate that. And then for my follow-up, just on the regulatory side, obviously, this is the third time we’ve been going through this process. Curious if you guys think the hurdle is getting increasingly more challenging for new projects or is it -- do you think that all of this rhetoric is changing how Washington thinks about the business?

Jack Fusco

Management

No. Well, first, the hurdle has always been high, right? This is a very capital-intensive business. It takes years to get one of these across the finish line. It’s a balancing act between capital costs and SBAs and contracted amounts and financings and everything else. We make it look easy, Ben, but it’s not. The only positive thing in the past was the regulatory certainty around America and contract sanctity. And while I think this is politically motivated, I’m hopeful that at the end of the day, we go back to where we were before, which is we let the market dictate which projects will survive and which ones won’t. And that’s where we’ve always been and the market’s been extremely efficient at who they’re going to bet on and I would bet on Cheniere every single day.

Ben Nolan

Analyst

All right. Well, and I appreciate you guys putting me in. Thanks.

Jack Fusco

Management

Thank you and thank you all for all of your support.

Operator

Operator

That will conclude today’s call. We appreciate your participation.