Cheniere Energy Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 7, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Cheniere approved the FID on Corpus Christi midscale Trains 8 & 9 under a $2.9 billion lump sum turnkey contract, adding ~5 million tonnes by 2028 and leveraging brownfield debottlenecking to boost run rate capacity by an additional ~1 million tonnes per annum.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company tightened its FY 2025 guidance, raising consolidated adjusted EBITDA to $6.6–7.0 billion and distributable cash flow to $4.4–4.8 billion, driven by strong contract coverage and optimization gains.
  • Negative Sentiment: Despite safely completing the largest-ever LNG maintenance turnaround on Sabine Pass Trains 3 & 4 on budget, Q2 was the lowest production quarter of 2025 due to planned maintenance and seasonal factors.
  • Positive Sentiment: Cheniere signed a new 1 million tonne per annum SPA with JERA—its first long-term contract with a Japanese buyer—and closed an IPM deal with Canadian Natural, further securing future volumes.
  • Positive Sentiment: Recent tax law changes, including 100% bonus depreciation and enhanced export deductions, are expected to lower the effective cash tax rate to under 10% and boost run-rate DCF by $100–200 million.
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Earnings Conference Call
Cheniere Energy Q2 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Day, and welcome to the Second Quarter twenty twenty five Cheniere Energy Earnings Call and Webcast. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Randy Batia, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Randy Bhatia
Randy Bhatia
VP - IR at Cheniere Energy

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Cheniere's second quarter twenty twenty five earnings conference call. The slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call are available at scheniere.com. Joining me this morning are Jack Fusco, Cheniere's President and CEO Anatol Fagan, 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.

Randy Bhatia
Randy Bhatia
VP - IR at Cheniere Energy

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 financial 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.

Randy Bhatia
Randy Bhatia
VP - IR at Cheniere Energy

The call agenda is shown on Slide three. 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 2025 guidance. After prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q and A. I'll now turn the call over to Jack Fusco, Cheniere's President and CEO.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

Thank you, Randy. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today as we review our results from the 2025. Our momentum from the first quarter propelled us forward in the second quarter, which was highlighted by our formal FID on Corpus Christi midscale trains eight and nine project and our upwardly revised run rate production and financial forecast. Our proven growth strategy is built upon leveraging our significant brownfield platform to deliver highly visible, financially accretive growth projects.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

In Corpus Christi, midscale trains eight and nine is further execution of that strategy. In addition, our tireless debottlenecking efforts are bearing real fruit as we're able to increase our run rate production capacity of our existing large scale trains to 5,000,000 to 5,200,000 tonnes per annum each, economically adding about 1,000,000 tonnes per annum of production on a run rate basis. Our intent is to execute our growth strategy with a phased approach. First, on the regulatory front, we will seek to permit the maximum site capabilities for both Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi. These additional development projects represent an opportunity to further leverage our brownfield platform to over 100,000,000 tonnes per annum.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

Second, we will execute our strategy in a financially disciplined way, and we currently have line of sight to grow our operating platform by approximately 25% to a total of 75,000,000 tonnes by the early 2030s and retain optionality for even more brownfield growth beyond this. We're focused on capturing the moment and delivering accretive growth into the next decade. Please turn to Slide five, where I'll highlight our key results and accomplishments for the 2025. In the second quarter, we generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1,400,000,000 distributable cash flow of approximately $920,000,000 and net income of approximately $1,600,000,000 Today, we are tightening our full year 2025 guidance range to $6,600,000,000 to $7,000,000,000 consolidated adjusted EBITDA and raising our guidance range to $4,400,000,000 to $4,800,000,000 in distributable cash flow. Given the financial visibility our highly contracted platform provides, we are tracking well to deliver financial results within these upwardly revised ranges.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

During the second quarter, we successfully completed our large scale maintenance turnaround on Trains three and four at Sabine Pass safely and on budget, extending Sabine Pass' record of consecutive man hours worked without a lost time incident to over 13,500,000 hours. This was not only the largest turnaround we've ever completed, but also one of the largest turnarounds ever executed in the LNG industry. And I'm exceptionally proud of our team for once again demonstrating Cheniere's safety first culture and our execution and operations capabilities. To provide some context, the complex turnaround saw Trains three and four down for a little over three weeks. And during that time, over sixteen fifty contractors were on-site, helping complete over 2,550 work orders and over 17,000 tasks, including the repair and replacement of nearly 1,000 valves and the testing of over 3,500 flanges.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

Mother Nature further contributed to the challenge with some unfavorable weather during that span, but the team once again delivered. In addition to the large maintenance events being passed, we also optimized some planned maintenance at Corpus Christi, accelerating and executing a maintenance turnaround in the second quarter that was previously planned for the third quarter. This work was built into our full year forecast, but did further amplify the seasonality of the second quarter by adding to the impact from maintenance activities in term of both lost production and O and M expense. On the commercial front, I hope you saw this morning we announced a new 1,000,000 tonne per annum SPA with JERA, one of the largest buyers of LNG in the world, and the first long term contract we have signed with a Japanese counterparty. We've enjoyed a long and successful commercial relationship with Jira on shorter term business, and we are excited to expand that relationship with this long term SPA that extends through 02/1950.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

This agreement, along with the Canadian Natural IPM deal signed in second quarter, help provide further certainty on our ability to meet our recently increased run rate growth and financial forecast and support future growth. During the quarter, we continue to execute on our comprehensive capital allocation plan and provided an update in late June in conjunction with the FID of midscale Trains eight and nine, where we now forecast to generate over 25,000,000,000 of available cash through 2030 to reach over $25 per share in run rate DCF. During the second quarter, we deployed another approximately $1,300,000,000 towards our capital allocation priorities. We funded nearly $900,000,000 in growth CapEx, mainly on Stage three and Midscale eight and nine, paid our quarterly dividend and repurchased approximately 1,400,000.0 shares for over $300,000,000 Zach will have more to share on capital allocation in a few minutes. Please turn to Slide six, where I'll provide an update on our construction, commissioning and development activities at Corpus Christi.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

Construction and commissioning continue to progress on an accelerated schedule on Stage three, where the project has reached almost 87% completion, and we are proud to announce that the substantial completion of midscale Train two has been achieved this week. First LNG production was achieved in June, followed by a little over a month of commissioning, almost half the time as Train one as lessons learned on Train one accelerated the commissioning and enhanced the early performance of Train two. I continue to expect the first three trains to reach substantial completion by the end of this year and have increasing confidence that Train four will be in commissioning and producing LNG by then as well. As noted, we made positive FID on Corpus Christi midscale trains eight and nine back in June and have issued full notice to proceed to Bechtel on that project and related debottlenecking under a fully wrapped lump sum turnkey contract. The overall project is expected to add approximately 5,000,000 tonnes of capacity by 2028, and I look forward to updating you on mid scale eight, nine milestones as the project progresses.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

I'm proud of the team coming together to FID one of the most attractive LNG projects in the world, taking advantage of our brownfield positioning with best in class EPC and SBA partners while holding to the Cheniere standard that you have come to expect from us. Last month, we initiated the pre filing process with FERC on our next large scale growth project at Corpus Christi, CCL Stage 4. Similar to the SBL expansion project, CCL Stage 4 is designed to take full advantage of the existing site and in place infrastructure we built in order to enable the most efficient and cost effective incremental capacity possible. CCL Stage 4 is being developed with four large scale ConocoPhillips trains using the optimized cascade design, two full containment LNG storage tanks, one new marine berth and other infrastructure. In addition, in the second quarter, we updated our FERC application on the SBL expansion project, reflecting three large scale trains along with supporting and debottlenecking infrastructure.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

As I previously discussed, we plan to pursue these projects in a phased approach with an initial phase at each site presenting a visible path for what we believe to be the most accretive brownfield growth at prevailing economics in the market today. We are full speed ahead on all key facets of development on these projects. With that, I'll now hand it over to Anatol to discuss the LNG market. Thank you again for your continued support of Cheniere.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to Slide eight. Throughout the second quarter, the LNG market continued to navigate global uncertainty and persistent volatility driven by various trade policy issues, rhetoric and geopolitical tensions. Conflict in The Middle East contributed to gas prices rising in Europe and Asia near the end of the quarter, renewing concerns around infrastructure damage, flow disruptions and security of supply. While these initial concerns have fortunately proved overstated with prices quickly moderating, these events and the subsequent market reaction serve as a reminder of the delicately balanced LNG market today as well as the critical role of destination flexible LNG in addressing regional shortages and maintaining global energy balances.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

During the quarter, these conditions continued to support elevated prices with JKM and TTF each strengthening relative to last year as a result of tighter supply conditions in Europe, lower storage levels and extended periods of low renewable output, all amidst the backdrop of increased geopolitical tension, putting LNG flows at risk for disruption. Monthly price settlements during the second quarter averaged $12.53 an M for JKM and $11.7 for TTF, 3122% higher year on year respectively. However, prices during the second quarter moderated from the first, reflecting not only seasonal changes, marking the start of the shoulder season of course, but also increased confidence in near term LNG supply growth. For the 2025, global LNG imports reached record levels despite the aforementioned market uncertainty. And looking ahead, we anticipate the forecast increase in global LNG demand to be efficiently met by growth in global liquefaction capacity with about 88,000,000 tons of liquefaction capacity projected to come online in 2025 and 2026.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

North American LNG exports in particular continue to ramp up as our Stage three project comes online alongside other LNG projects in Canada and along the Gulf Coast. In addition to helping meet growing global gas demand, we expect this new liquefaction capacity will support improved availability and affordability of gas supply globally, while helping to alleviate the impact of reductions in Russian gas post Europe and gradually moderating the current multiyear cycle of tight balances. We expect a significant portion of these near term increases in global liquefaction capacity to come from The U. S, which highlights the importance of U. S.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

LNG in maintaining global gas balances and its role in mitigating the impact of legacy resource depletion and project development delays elsewhere. Let's turn to the next page to address regional dynamics in more detail. Europe's LNG requirements in the 2025 significantly outpaced 2024 levels amid colder weather, the cessation of Russian pipeline gas flows via Ukraine and lower renewables output in the first quarter driving injection demand in the second quarter. Europe's total LNG imports in the 2025 increased 25% year on year or 13,200,000 tons as availability of supply, especially from The U. S, coupled with the lack of competition for cargoes from Asia helped gas prices moderate towards the end of the quarter despite heightened risk of supply disruptions.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

This increase in European imports year on year was driven by the continent's need to replenish storage levels coupled with an increase in gas fired power generation demand. In contrast to new record high European underground storage levels reached in the 2024, European inventories dropped to comparatively low levels in the second quarter of this year. While the inventory level has improved recently, thanks to the steady stream of U. S. LNG imports, it remains at a 20 BCM or 700 BCF deficit compared to last year.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

To put that deficit into context, it's equivalent to approximately 200 LNG cargoes. We believe Europe's call on LNG and specifically on U. S. Cargoes will remain high, especially if the EU's recent legislative proposal to ban gas imports from Russia by as early as 2026 is passed. By contrast, Asian LNG imports declined 7% or 9,500,000 tons year on year in the first half.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

Almost all of this decline came from China, where total gas demand remained flat year on year for the first five months of twenty twenty five, while domestic production and pipeline imports increased broadly in line with last year's growth. This softened LNG demand during the period was driven by a combination of macroeconomic headwinds, warmer weather, robust growth in renewable power generation, all amid relatively high gas and spot LNG prices with the elevated spot pricing incentivizing the diversion of destination flexible LNG cargoes to higher value markets, such as those in Europe. Much akin to 2022, we're witnessing the impact of China utilizing flexibility in its supply portfolio as a significant balancing force in the global LNG market. As China represents about a quarter or more of Asia's total LNG imports, we continue to monitor how these trends develop throughout the balance of the year. Meanwhile, LNG imports into the JKT region increased by approximately 2% as Korea and Taiwan supported demand.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

LNG imports in Taiwan increased by 15% in the second quarter as the country decommissioned its last nuclear reactor in May and continues to steadily phase out coal fired power generation driving further demand for LNG. LNG imports into South And Southeast Asia declined by 5.4% year on year in the 2025, driven in large part by elevated pricing combined with relatively moderate early summer weather in contrast to 2024 when severe and protracted heat waves across the region drove a surge in imports. Despite the seasonal variability, South And Southeast Asia remain a key LNG market roughly equivalent to China in terms of LNG market size and remains a key pillar of future LNG demand growth in Asia. We expect the recent softness in Asian LNG demand to prove transitory and moderate as key fundamental demand drivers improve and additional liquefaction capacity comes online, which will aid in rebalancing the global gas market and support a more stable and affordable pricing environment over the long term. Looking ahead, we continue to expect Asia to underpin long term LNG market growth, which we will discuss further on the next slide.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

Let's move to the next slide. The long term outlook for LNG demand across Asia remains robust. Asia continues to be the growth engine for all energy sources as the region is expected to account for over 60% of primary energy demand growth globally through 2050 according to the IEA. In fact, Asia is expected to represent nearly 90% of worldwide growth in LNG demand through 2040 as its primary energy needs expand to meet fast growing economies, rapid urbanization, declining domestic gas production and increased power demand. These expectations are clearly shared by key gas market participants in the region as they demonstrate increased commitments to long term gas use through further investment in new natural gas infrastructure, including additional LNG import capacity as well as new multi decade LNG supply contracts.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

The region continues to invest in regas capacity with about two eighty million tons per annum of regas capacity proposed or currently under construction across Asia. This is on top of approximately 115,000,000 tons per annum of regasification capacity that has entered service since the 2020. This increased investment in LNG import infrastructure not only signals expectations of further gas demand growth ahead, but also underscores the criticality of diversification, flexibility, and security of supply for the growing economies in the region. Similarly, LNG contracting activity among Asian counterparties has ramped up significantly in recent years, averaging over 28,000,000 tons of long term LNG contracts executed per annum from 2021 through 2025, more than double the annual average from 2016 through 2020. Within this surge of contracting activity, long term contracts with U.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

S. Projects represent approximately a quarter of these contracted Asian volumes from 2021 through 2025, five times that of the trailing five years, reflecting the growing importance of U. S. LNG in meeting rising global gas demand. As Jack already highlighted, we announced our first long term contract with a Japanese counterparty earlier this morning.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

We look forward to building upon our longtime successful commercial relationship with JERA, one of the largest end use buyers of LNG globally, further supporting its energy portfolio needs with our destination flexible, reliable LNG supply for decades to come. This new SPA marks our tenth contract signed with an Asian counterparty since 2021, as Cheniere represents over 9,000,000 tons of the aggregate long term contracted volumes signed with Asian counterparties from 2021 through 2025. While there's no doubt that the projected growth in LNG demand over the next several decades will be largely driven by growth in the Asia region, we continue to prioritize diversity within our long term commercial portfolio, having signed agreements across a variety of counterparty and contract types from various geographic regions, which underscores the value of both our tailored solutions, which help companies and countries around the world meet their long term energy needs as well as the resiliency of our long term contracted book. With that, I'll turn the call over to Zach to review our financial results and guidance.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Thanks, Anatol, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be here today to review our second quarter twenty twenty five results and key financial accomplishments and to discuss our increased and tightened financial guidance ranges for 2025. Turn to Slide 12. For the second quarter twenty twenty five, we generated net income of approximately $1,600,000,000 consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $1,400,000,000 and distributable cash flow of approximately $920,000,000 Compared to the 2024, our 2025 results reflect higher total margins as a result of higher gas prices and optimization downstream of our facilities with third party cargoes that freed up incremental SBL and CCL sourced cargoes for CMI to sell in the spot market opportunistically.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

This increase was partially offset by higher operating expenses due to a full quarter of operations of Stage three Train one and ADCC, the planned major maintenance turnaround at Sabine Pass, and the accelerated maintenance at Corpus Christi previously forecast for 3Q. The successful planned maintenance activities across both of our sites during the second quarter resulted in a combined impact to LNG production, which was in line with our forecast, along with the expectation of lower seasonal production in the warmer months of Q2 and Q3, making Q2 what we expect to be our lowest production quarter of twenty twenty five. We have generated approximately $3,300,000,000 of consolidated adjusted EBITDA and approximately $2,200,000,000 of distributable cash flow in the 2025, supporting our confidence in our updated forecast for the remainder of the year, which I'll address further on the next slide. During the second quarter, we recognized in income five fifty eight TBtu of physical LNG, which included five fifty TBtu from our projects and eight TBtu sourced from third parties, respectively. The five fifty TBtu exported from our projects was about 10% lower compared to the first quarter and in line with 2Q twenty twenty four, owing to the seasonal impact we see on production and, of course, the impact from planned maintenance activities in 2Q.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Approximately 95% of our LNG volumes recognized were sold in relation to term SBA or IPM agreements. Our strong financial results year to date enabled our team to deploy another approximately $1,300,000,000 towards shareholder returns, balance sheet management and disciplined accretive growth during the second quarter. We have now deployed over $16,000,000,000 of our initial target of $20,000,000,000 through 2026, as we continue to reduce our share count and enhance our capital returns, while retaining the financial strength and flexibility to self fund accretive growth across our platform, as demonstrated by how we have equity funded stage three to date and took FID on midscale eight and nine without needing to raise any additional financings. This accelerated progress on our capital allocation plan prompted us to update our long term company forecast, increasing and extending our capital allocation targets. In June, in combination with positive FID of the midscale trains eight and nine project, we announced that we expect to deploy over $25,000,000,000 of available cash towards the key pillars of our capital allocation framework through 02/1930.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

During this enhanced plan, we now expect to reach over $25 per share of run rate distributable cash flow by the early 2030s, with room for upside from further capital allocation. The successful debottlenecking of an additional million tons of liquefaction capacity from our original nine trains, along with our improved outlook for long term LNG margins, enabled us to upwardly revise our run rate guidance ranges as well. With the FID of midscale eight and nine and debottlenecking, we now expect to achieve run rate consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $7,300,000,000 to $8,000,000,000 at CMI margins of only $2.5 to $3 despite projected margins well above that range throughout the curve in the coming years. During the second quarter, we repurchased approximately 1,400,000.0 shares for approximately $3.00 $6,000,000 As you can see in our 10 Q today, we were highly opportunistic in April around so called Liberation Day as we repurchased over $200,000,000 in the month despite the stock recovering quickly. With now less than $220,000,000 shares outstanding as of last week, we are making meaningful and value accretive progress towards our initial target of 200,000,000 shares outstanding.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

With the FID of midscale eight and nine, as well as our increased run rate forecast now included in the framework that governs our repurchases, you can see from the share count on the 10 Q cover that the plan has been relatively active, opportunistically buying approximately $400,000,000 in shares since the July amid some of the recent volatility. This leaves less than $3,000,000,000 remaining on our current buyback authorization through 2027 and already over $1,000,000,000 deployed in buybacks in the first seven months of the year. For the second quarter, we declared a dividend of $0.50 per common share, and as part of our June update, we announced plans to increase our third quarter dividend by over 10% to $2.22 per common share annualized. With this planned increase, we will have grown our quarterly dividend by approximately 68% since initiation in the 2021. Looking ahead, we remain committed to our guidance of growing our dividend by approximately 10% annually through the end of this decade, targeting a payout ratio of approximately 20% over time, enabling the financial flexibility essential to our comprehensive and balanced long term capital allocation plan and our disciplined approach to self funded and accretive growth.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

In July, we repaid $1,000,000,000 of senior secured notes due 2026 at SBL with the net proceeds from the issuance of $1,000,000,000 of unsecured notes due 2035 at CQP, along with cash on hand, extending our maturity profile while further desecuring and desubordinating our balance sheet. Concurrent with that issuance, S and P upgraded CQP's unsecured rating to BBB, reflecting our significant progress on that desubordination. We expect to repay the remaining $500,000,000 of principal on the 2026 notes with cash on hand over the next year, reducing our interest expense, strengthening our investment grade ratings while continuing to prepare the CQP complex for financing the SBL expansion project. Last week, we also refinanced CEI's $1,250,000,000 revolver, securing liquidity for the next five years into 02/1930. This facility with improved terms is reflective of the long term support we enjoy from our bank group and our proactive approach to liquidity in conjunction with the over $3,000,000,000 still available under the Corpus Christi term loan for Stage three and now accessible for midscale trains eight and nine as well.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

During the second quarter, we funded approximately $400,000,000 of CapEx on Stage three, bringing total spend on the project to approximately $5,200,000,000 unlevered. We also deployed approximately $400,000,000 in the second quarter towards the midscale trains eight and nine project and debottlenecking. We continue to deploy tens of millions of dollars of development capital to progress the SBL expansion and CCL Stage IV projects. With approximately $2,000,000,000 in consolidated cash and ample undrawn revolver and term loan liquidity throughout the Cheniere Complex, we are well positioned to fund our growth objectives while retaining great financial flexibility for all of the pillars of our balanced capital allocation program. Turn now to Slide 13, where I will discuss our updated 2025 guidance and outlook for the remainder of the year.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Today, we are tightening our full year 2025 EBITDA guidance range from 6,500,000,000.0 to $7,000,000,000 to 6,600,000,000.0 to $7,000,000,000 and raising and tightening our DCF guidance from 4,100,000,000.0 to $4,600,000,000 to 4,400,000,000.0 to $4,800,000,000 We are reconfirming our guidance range of $3.25 to $3.35 per common unit of distributions from CQP. The $50,000,000 increase to the midpoint of our EBITDA guidance range is largely attributable to further derisking of our production forecast for the year following the successful completion of our planned maintenance program, further forward selling of our limited remaining open capacity, and the completion of Train two at Stage three. Our production forecast of 47,000,000 to 48,000,000 tons of LNG in 2025 is unchanged and continues to reflect our existing nine train platform plus our outlook for production from the first three trains at Stage three this year. Given the successful startup of Trains one and two at Stage three and that the CMI team has sold another approximately 1,000,000 tons of open volumes for the year since May, we are left with less than 25 TBtu remaining unsold for the balance of 2025. Given this exposure, we forecast that a $1 change in market margin would impact EBITDA by less than $25,000,000 for the full year.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Now that 2025 spot capacity has mostly been sold, the team is starting to opportunistically lock in some of our open capacity for 2026. We plan to provide an update on our 2026 production profile and spot capacity on our next call, consistent with our cadence previously and with a better understanding of Stage three's progress going into 2026. The incremental $200,000,000 increase to the midpoint of our DCF guidance compared to EBITDA largely reflects an improved outlook of our cash tax burden this year under the new tax law passed last month, particularly as it relates to bonus depreciation for this year changing from 60% to 100%, which we expect to benefit the first three midscale trains this year and is expected to result in nominal cash taxes for 2025. Longer term, we forecast benefits to our cash flows through 2040 due to changes related to both bonus depreciation as well as the foreign export deduction. Today, we have further updated our run rate DCF guidance by one hundred to two hundred million dollars to reflect the revised tax rules as we currently estimate an improvement to our effective tax rate on pretax distributable cash flow under the new law from the 15% to 20% range to the 10% to 15% range upon reaching run rate through the 2030s, with further near term benefits from 100% bonus depreciation expected to bring down our effective tax rate for the rest of this decade to under 10% on average as Stage three and midscale eight and nine come online.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

As always, our full year results could be impacted by the timing of certain cargoes around year end as well as the timing of incremental trains on Stage three reaching substantial completion. While we have tightened the guidance ranges today, this variability and uncertainty necessitates maintaining a range of $400,000,000 for EBITDA and DCF. With the substantial completion of Trains one and two achieved and the progress Jack highlighted earlier on Trains three and four, we are confident we can achieve our goal of completing the first three trains at Stage three this year and deliver financial results within the upwardly revised ranges. Beyond the next few years, our line of sight to growing our platform to approximately 75,000,000 tons by early in the next decade and $9,000,000,000 of run rate EBITDA with potential for up to 100,000,000 tons longer term only reinforces our conviction in Cheniere's role as not only a leader in the growing global LNG market, but also as a premier contracted infrastructure platform with decades of cash flow visibility and a risk adjusted return profile that is second to none in this industry. As we embark on this next chapter of growth, we remain committed to creating sustainable long term value for our stakeholders while safely operating our platform in order to supply our global customer base with our secure, reliable and flexible LNG for decades to come.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

That concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you for your time and your interest in Cheniere. Operator, we are ready to open the line for questions.

Operator

Thank We'll go first to Spiro Dounis with Citi.

Spiro Dounis
Spiro Dounis
Director at Citigroup

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everybody. First question, just wanna maybe start with commercializing new SPAs from here, and and it's two part question. So, you know, one, seeing a lot of trade deals working out now, and and LNG seems to be at the center of of some of these. And so I'm curious, do you see the pace of SPAs accelerating from here on that backdrop?

Spiro Dounis
Spiro Dounis
Director at Citigroup

And then two, there also seems to be a view that SPA liquefaction fees need to come down to be competitive. I I don't believe you're doing that just based on prior comments. And so I'm curious, what is it about the market structure in place now that allows you and and a lot of your peers to sign SPAs at what seems to be very different price points?

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

Spiro, thanks. This is Jack. I'll start, and then I'll turn it over to Hannesol. So first off, yeah, it's it it makes a huge difference, when you go from a pause to where you have an administration that is very, very supportive of of LNG in regards to customer conversations. So as you all know, we're the single largest LNG supplier to Europe.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

We're working very closely with both sides of the pond to make sure that they have certainty of supply, from The US. And it is nice to have an administration that actually appreciates that we help with trade, we help with energy security, we also help with the energy transition. So we're very, very grateful to have those, tailwinds behind us in our conversations with with customers. And then I'll see if Anatol has anything to add.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

Yes. Thanks, Spiro. Thanks, Jack. We have a decade track record now of performance, and that's not lost on the industry. As we've mentioned in previous discussions and calls, the twenty year CP'd FOB product is now roughly fifteen years old.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

It's very competitive. The U. S, as you know, is well underway to have two fifty million tons of exports, and we just don't compete in that market. We work with long term partners that value our performance, as Jack mentioned, the government here, EU, many Asian countries really value and appreciate the reliability and the consistent product that we have supplied. That's really what differentiates us and we engage with counterparties that value that and deliver the economics that makes all of these pieces fit together and deliver the superior risk adjusted returns that Zach and Jack mentioned.

Spiro Dounis
Spiro Dounis
Director at Citigroup

Great. That's a full color. Second question, just moving to optimization. Zach, I realize that it's not baked into guidance and maybe a little bit difficult to predict. But just curious, maybe what have been the drivers year to date so far that you've been able to capitalize on and just how you're thinking about the durability of some of those moving forward here?

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Hey, It's Zach. I I I'd go back to February. So in in February, when we made initial guidance, I'd say margins were in the 8 to $9 range. Those dropped down to, let's say, $5 in the middle of the year and coming back to over $6 at this point. And, on the May call, basically, our guidance stayed intact.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

And and and the main driver of that despite having, let's say, around 2,000,000 tons still open, upon the initial guidance, it was the optimization. All all all three pillars of it from from downstream, and you could see some of the activity that we're doing by sourcing from third parties to subchartering our our our shipping, and then on the lifting margin as well and upstream of the facilities. It they've they've all pretty much come through. Mind you, subchartering is probably less of a driver at than than last year as as just overall shipping rates are lower. But that allowed to allowed us to offset some of the, let's say, $2 or so of margin decrease so far this year.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Going forward from May, we basically just started derisking the the whole platform from having now less than 25 TBtu open, meaning that they that that the team sold, like, another million tons and and and likely locked in our our our CMI average margin for the year closer to $8 to getting through the major turnaround on trains three and four at at Sabine and and and now being able to announce substantial completion of train two at at midscale eight and not at midscale one through seven or stage three. Those things allowed us to to really lock in where we see guidance going this year and and and increase that that that downside. From here, we'll see. Maybe a bit more optimization, progress on trains three and four at at at stage three, and those two things alone could maybe help us get to the higher end of the range.

Spiro Dounis
Spiro Dounis
Director at Citigroup

Got it. Helpful as always. I'll leave it there. Thank you, gentlemen.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

Jeremy Tonet
Jeremy Tonet
MD & Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Hi, good morning.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Good morning, Jeremy.

Jeremy Tonet
Jeremy Tonet
MD & Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Just wanted to follow-up on commercial discussions. Thank you for the color this morning. The EU agreed to energy purchases as part of the hot tariff negotiations there. I was just wondering how this impacts, your conversations, customer demand at this point and any interactions this dynamic might have with APAC customer conversation.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

You know, Jeremy, in regards to the EU, as you know, we've provided over two thirds of all of our volume since 2022. Went to the EU, and we're very close with governments and regulators there on helping them with their needs for, you know, whatever duration that they feel is appropriate. Anatol, do you wanna?

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

Yes. Thanks, Jeremy. Kind of following up on the Spirit dynamic, all of this creates an environment where our product writ large is appreciated and desired. But in all of these arrangements, whether it's our transaction with JERA that that backdrop helps JERA. JERA's backdrop also includes METI's revised energy plan that shows a growth in electricity demand as opposed to decline.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

Same dynamics playing out in Europe, and and the EU is is very quick to point out that while, yes, this agreement has been reached, it is up to the commercial counterparties to come up with the products that will fill those buckets. So as Jack said, we've got a great track record. Our product has been keeping the lights on certainly since the Ukraine war broke out in early twenty twenty two. And of course, that's not lost on anybody. But ultimately, is the commercial agreement that is key to us and that commercial agreement needs to meet our very strict parameters.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

So all of it is good backdrop and a very healthy environment and a tailwind to those commercial terms.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

And I would say, Jeremy, I'll just pair what Anatol said previously is that our reliability has been second to none. We haven't missed a foundation customer cargo, and that that we're, you know, for over 4,200 tankers into this journey, and it's being recognized, worldwide. We deal with over 45 different, countries and regions, of the world, today. So, I think that size and scale is unmatched and and appreciated. And I think that's why we're able to negotiate some more favorable transactions.

Jeremy Tonet
Jeremy Tonet
MD & Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Got it. Thank you for that. And then looking at future growth in general, both at Sabine and Corpus, you've talked a bit about that here. You already have a number of contracts in place in kind of an excess of current capacity, and so a lot of progress there. Just wondering what we should be looking for for milestones to further commercialize towards reaching FID, at this point. How should we be thinking about that?

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

I mean, first off, we filed with the with, FERC and the federal government for an accelerated permitting process. So when you when you talk about milestones, seeing how that progresses, I think, will be very, very important. We're working through value engineering as we speak, and then, we'll continue to, look for ways to commercialize and meet all of our financial objectives.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

So so, Jeremy, it's really all all about permitting. As you could see, we FID ed eight and nine and then prefiled, the next month for stage four. And I I I believe just in the last day or so, we were accepted into prefiling for for stage four. So so that's progressing well, and we we should have more updates, especially, going into next year as we have a little bit more clarity on how the FERC process is going and to be in a position to FID something, let's say, late twenty six or or early twenty seven, at at Sabine first, most likely, and then Corpus. As you can tell from our filings, we're we're we're permitting a lot.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

We're permitting basically 20 or so million tons at each at each site. You add that all up, we get to over a 100,000,000 tons, but you're not gonna hear from this company that that's that's the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to to find these projects that we can meet all of the investment parameters and be truly accretive at the same standard we've held every other project to, At the same standard, that makes it demonstrably accretive to just buying back the stock and when you all own more more of Sabine and Corpus through through through less shares at at LNG. With that said, we we see a path to do a phased approach at both, where we basically FID initially one train. Those one trains will be as brownfield as they get probably globally.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

At at Sabine that we are permitting things like a an interstate pipeline into Texas, there's a path to do one train there without the interstate pipeline, without a tank or a berth, and and put it right next to this the first six trains. And, basically, ditto for stage four and the first train at at at at Corpus. Though we're permitting another berth tank and and pipeline, there's there's likely one train there that could be done without that extra equipment to make it as brownfield as it gets. Commercially, what Anatol and the team are doing, we're we're already basically covered for at least one train with with with how many contracts that we have in place. So so there will be incremental deals to be done.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

It's nice to see the CNRL deal done in q two and the recent deal with Jira. They align very well with the run rate guidance that we updated to in June with CMI ranges of $2.50 to $3. And from there, the last thing I'd like to say is as you think about the CapEx outlay that that goes into all of this just to get to 75,000,000 tons, basically increase the the platform by, like, over 25%. We we have less than 2,000,000,000 to go at stage three. We have less than 3,000,000,000 to go on mid scale 89 and then debottlenecking.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

If you think about the first two the first train at both Sabine and Corpus, that that's like eleven, twelve million tons. Let's just say for round numbers, it's around 10,000,000,000. So all in, it's less than $15,000,000,000 through 2030 or so, which is over the next six years, 2 and a half billion a year, and we fund things fifty fifty. We're not even talking about a third of our our run rate distributable cash flow. This shows you the flexibility, the ability to have, like, meaningful capital allocation, especially on shareholder returns, and and potentially do more if if if it aligns with the standards, that that that we hold ourselves to.

Jeremy Tonet
Jeremy Tonet
MD & Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan

Got it. That's helpful. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Operator

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

Theresa Chen
Theresa Chen
Senior Analyst - Midstream & Refining Equity Research at Barclays

Hi. On the topic of growth, beyond the first phases of Corpus Christi Stage IV and SBL Stage V that brings capacity to 75 mtpa, Can you walk us through the path to get to that next leg, the 100 MTPA? When we think about key inflection points for that long term growth, in addition to permitting, is it primarily a matter of upstream infrastructure bottlenecks to solve and commercialization? How should we view this, and over what time frame could that likely take place?

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

It's it's just the standard, the Cheniere standard. What what we see today and with the guidance that we all get that we gave you in June, we see a path with the deals that we're signing in our, let's say, $2.50 to $3 range that we can still hit those six to seven times CapEx to EBITDA levels for for for those first trains. As you start adding incremental equipment or incremental pipelines and interstate pipelines for that matter, we're we're we're not here today to tell you that we're absolutely a 100% FID ing those projects in the near term. We'll we'll see where SBA levels get to, and we'll see where costs shake out with with Bechtel over time. And those two things together, ideally, will will align one day to help us March methodically up to a 100,000,000 tons.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

But that that's not the game here. Like like, we're we're focused on the stock, not just trying to get to a 100,000,000 tons.

Theresa Chen
Theresa Chen
Senior Analyst - Midstream & Refining Equity Research at Barclays

Got it. And I wanna go back to, Anatol's slides, nine and ten on the supply and demand outlook. As this wave of new LNG capacity, enters the market over the next few years, increasing liquidity and supply. When would you expect to see more evidence of demand elasticity consistent with the visible structural need for additional gas from developing countries? What would you view as key signals to observe in the market on that front?

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

Yes. Thanks, Theresa. Well, you'll see it kind of on a quarterly basis as all of this infrastructure, which in many cases is pre investment for these various business models plays out. We'll see it a little bit before you as tender activity and diversion start to take place, but that's a little harder to observe outside of the day to day industry. But you're seeing not only again this investment in infrastructure, but also the contractual commitments.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

And yes, while the contractual commitments are for flexible supply, there is a tremendous amount of again infrastructure being developed. The advantage for us and our industry, we were a little over 400,000,000 tons last year. As we've discussed, we're about 3% of primary energy. So it does not take a lot of the 150 gigawatts of Chinese gas power generation running at slightly better utilization to absorb tens and tens of millions of tons of additional LNG. So a lot of price elastic markets and you'll see that play out.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

We think that now in the kind of very low double digits, high single digits markets like India will become much more active, but you'll see more and more of that, again, unrestricted by infrastructure, which was a constraint in the second LNG supply cycle of five, six years ago.

Theresa Chen
Theresa Chen
Senior Analyst - Midstream & Refining Equity Research at Barclays

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We'll go next to Burke Sancerreo with Wolfe Research.

Burke Sansiviero
Equity Research Senior Associate at Wolfe Research, LLC

Hi. Good morning. Just one for me today. What level of capital cost do you foresee expansions at Sabine and Corpus for the next round of growth? $8.09, and the debottlenecking looks closer to 600 a ton.

Burke Sansiviero
Equity Research Senior Associate at Wolfe Research, LLC

One of your peers cited all in cost closer to 1,100 per ton. And Zach, you mentioned before, as brownfield as it gets for another train at Sabine. So just curious on where you think, fresh EPC contract will shake out.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Little too soon to say, especially on an earnings call, where where we think it'll work out by by the time we FID a project in late twenty six or early twenty seven. What what I focus on clearly the most is that six to seven times CapEx to EBITDA, working with the E and C team as well as our commercial team to align that, to to get to the right place.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

But but as you can imagine, like laws of gravity, laws of brownfield growth, when you're only building a train and the rest of the infrastructure and pipeline connectivity and tanks and berths is all set up, it's going to be the cheapest. So we we feel confident that it'll be closer to the numbers that that that we're able to achieve so far, than to some of those other numbers out there.

Burke Sansiviero
Equity Research Senior Associate at Wolfe Research, LLC

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our next question from John Mackay with Goldman Sachs.

John Mackay
John Mackay
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

Hey, all. Thank you for the time. I wanted to go to the cash tax savings. Zach, I know you talked through a lot of it, but maybe if you could kind of just pull it to the June capital allocation update. How much incremental cash do you think we could see kind of on average for the next couple of years work out once you've worked through this?

John Mackay
John Mackay
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

And where do we think that cash is going relative to how you laid it out a couple, a month or two ago?

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Sure. So there there's quite a few, moving parts here. But, like, just for this year alone, as you can see, we raised the midpoint of EBITDA guidance by 50,000,000, and that's really just following through with with what was expected this year. We raised DCF guidance by 250,000,000. The incremental 200,000,000 is solely related to taxes.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Originally, the plan was that these trains would come online this year and receive 60% bonus depreciation, dropping down to 40% bonus depreciation next year. Going forward, including this year, it's a 100% bonus. That that benefit alone allowed us to to reduce reduce taxes this year by 200,000,000. It'll also help reduce taxes next year as the rest of stage three comes online. Mind you with a 100% bonus, we won't have much depreciation in in 2027.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

However, based on the eight and nine at least guaranteed completion dates that are in 2028, we'll get a big benefit from that as well. So with with the 100% bonus, we're we're talking about comfortably under 10%, tax rate on average between 2025 to 2030. Going forward, inclusive of, say, the the the bonus depreciation benefits, the foreign export deduction that we have by producing a product in in in America and exporting it to the rest of the world, also is quite beneficial. And you can see in, at least the run rate guidance that we gave in in in the back of this earnings presentation, it went up by a 100 to $200,000,000, versus even what we showed everybody in in in June. So up a dollar per share or so.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

So that that that clearly is also quite beneficial. So that that that we're able to take advantage of of just being an export export product. In terms of where the cash would go, more cash in in in on on the balance sheet is is basically more cash to execute on on capital allocation. More wind in our sales to load up the buyback quarter after quarter, keep on funding these projects with a little less leverage to have the balance sheet as strong as possible, etcetera.

John Mackay
John Mackay
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

That's helpful. I appreciate that. And second one for me. You talked about being comfortable with kind of where SPA prices are for the first big trains on each side, but talked about them effectively needing to move higher to maybe to get to that 100,000,000 tons eventually. I guess I'd be curious to hear your view on kind of what pushes those SPA prices higher from here.

John Mackay
John Mackay
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

Is it just demand growth? Is it cost overruns at other facilities? But what's kind of the moving pieces of that that we could watch from our side?

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

Yes. Thanks, John. This is Anatol. We have gone through a number of cycles in SPA pricing just in this last post Ukraine war build. The ebbs and flows are hard to predict.

Anatol Feygin
Anatol Feygin
EVP & Chief Commercial Officer at Cheniere Energy

But as you said, as projects that are, let's say, very aggressive in trying to get to the finish line and that finish line may be determined by validity of the EPC contract or something similar. If that doesn't work out, from the start of 2022, there's order of magnitude 50,000,000 tons of binding agreements that have yet to reach FID, right. So as those dynamics play out as the EPC market continues to firm potentially as the two fifty million tons of exports are executed one way or another, and you see projects not move forward beyond that, I think you can see another period of firming. And as Zach said, it is for us, it is all about the ratio, not about the absolute level of, the numerator or the denominator.

John Mackay
John Mackay
VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs

Helpful. I appreciate the time. Thank you.

Operator

We'll take our next question from Alexander Bidwell with Weber Research and Advisory.

Alexander Bidwell
Associate Analyst at Webber Research & Advisory

Good morning. I appreciate the time. Can you talk through some of the OpEx differences between midscale, larger scale, stick built and modular facilities? With some of the newer public comps, we've seen a particularly, wide spread when it comes to operating costs with Cheniere sitting on the, the lower end. We're just trying to get a sense of where the natural differences would be in terms of OpEx and maintenance and how technology and and site layout come into play.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

I I I can't speak for the other projects here, but what I can say, it it doesn't hurt being a 45,000,000 ton program going to 55 and a half, going to 60 plus million tons and the scale that we get from that. And and and the fact that, especially on the first nine trains, they're all the same. What what I can get to is we even have nuances quarter to quarter. As you can see, this is our lowest LNG producing quarter that that we'll have all year because of the major maintenance. But because of the major maintenance, it's also going to be the highest o and m quarter that we have all year.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

So I I I think there's more that you'll have to see on an annual basis to to appreciate some some of these differences. But who who knows? We we'd like to say that we're exclusively focused on Sabine and Corpus with our 1,700 people, and that's all we do. So maybe that's why our our costs are pretty good.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

And and, Alexander, we spend an awful lot of time benchmarking our operations against other worldwide LNG producers. I haven't actually looked at the data from the different technologies, but because we've only had the midscale technology now for for a few months. But you you bring up a valid, a valid question on how they all how they all compare. So more more to come. Let us, have a little more time, but I can assure you that we're we're totally focused on being best in class, in the ConocoPhillips optimized platform.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

And then and then I'd just say, like, when we talk about CapEx to EBITDA for these projects, it's everything. Contingency, it's the development capital that we put in ahead of the project, f f FID, etcetera. We also show up each and every quarter with that lifting margin as well, which probably varies quite a bit project to project as we're we're we're we're most likely the most interconnected of all the projects in in North America.

Alexander Bidwell
Associate Analyst at Webber Research & Advisory

Alright. Thank thank you for the color. And if I could just squeeze one more in. We noticed you switched back to the the ConocoPhillips technology for some of these future expansions. Can you give a a little bit of insight into what, what drove that decision?

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

Yeah. You know, I think, I this is Jack. So when we switched to midscale, for us, we thought at the time, and now this is way back twenty eighteen, seventeen, we thought the market was gonna be smaller and and shorter term, and it would take longer to commercialize a large train. It didn't work out that way, as you know, and there's just a lot more economies of scale. Right?

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

We've learned that, in power generation in spades, which is why facilities got bigger, not smaller. And, and we're learning it here with with LNG facilities that there's there's it's, it's overall cheaper to build and operate, larger trains, than it is the smaller smaller facilities. And that's why we pivoted back to trains that we know very, very well.

Operator

Thank you. We'll take our last question from Robert Ruska with Mizuho Securities.

Robert Mosca
Robert Mosca
VP- Midstream & Natural Gas Utilities Equity Research at Mizuho Financial Group

Hey, good morning everyone. Thanks for taking my question. So could you or have you delineated the EPC cost for Trains eight and nine on a stand alone basis? I guess how much of that $2,900,000,000 is specifically related to Trains eight and nine?

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

The vast majority of it is, well over, $22,000,000,000 but it it it comes down to what what it takes for us to continue to hold to the standard of the six to seven times CapEx to EBITDA with a lump sum turnkey contract, get to 10 plus unlevered contracted returns, etcetera. And a in a competitive environment and with a lot of folks building projects, it took some of this debottlenecking, which actually needed hundreds of millions of dollars of equipment to unlock those types of returns that are are basically second to none around the world. So I I'd say eight eight and nine, still a vast majority of it. But for the first time, there was real equipment in the hundreds of millions of dollar range that that we're invested in, that's incorporated into the construction plan to to get the most out of not just eight and nine, but, trains one through seven of stage three.

Robert Mosca
Robert Mosca
VP- Midstream & Natural Gas Utilities Equity Research at Mizuho Financial Group

Got it. That's helpful. And am I interpreting it correctly that OBBB isn't in your DCF outlook provided in June?

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

It it wasn't. And if you look in the appendix, we give you, the run rate guidance, and it's up another 100 to $200,000,000. Basically, that shows with now having less than 220,000,000 shares outstanding, at the midpoint, we're already at $20 per share of DCF.

Robert Mosca
Robert Mosca
VP- Midstream & Natural Gas Utilities Equity Research at Mizuho Financial Group

So Okay.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

So that's why we've moved on to $25 per share as as we can continue to develop the platform.

Robert Mosca
Robert Mosca
VP- Midstream & Natural Gas Utilities Equity Research at Mizuho Financial Group

Got it. So so it seems like that $15,000,000,000 excess cash target might even screen conservative when you take into account the remaining FID CapEx, tax savings, phase one expansions, assuming 50% leverage. So how do you think about deploying that excess cash if you come in materially above that $15,000,000,000 bogey? And I understand you just issued this a month and a half ago, but wanted to get your thoughts there.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

Well, I'd say that even in June, we said it was over 15. So we're we're pretty confident there's a lot of money here, to to deploy across across across the platform and and into capital allocation. And it goes back to what I said to even get to 75,000,000 tons. We're we're not even talking about using for for equity funding a third of our distributable cash flow per year. So what what you could see from us is we're we're we're growing the dividend by over 10% in the next quarter.

Zach Davis
Zach Davis
EVP & CFO at Cheniere Energy

We're going to have to, at some point, ask the board for a reauthorization to upsize the buyback program in the next year or two as as we continue, and it will be even quicker if we go at the pace we just did in July and and just more of the same. Ideally, there will be bigger projects that's being corpus to to to take care of. But if they're not demonstrably accretive, you'll see a lot more buybacks, a growing dividend, and a pretty pristine balance sheet ready to go for eventually more growth.

Robert Mosca
Robert Mosca
VP- Midstream & Natural Gas Utilities Equity Research at Mizuho Financial Group

Got it. Appreciate it, Zach. Thanks for the time, everyone.

Operator

Thank you. That will conclude our question and answer session. At this time, I'd like to turn the call back over to our speakers for any additional or closing remarks.

Jack Fusco
Jack Fusco
President & CEO at Cheniere Energy

I just want to thank all of you for your continued support of Cheniere. Be safe.

Operator

Thank you. That will conclude today's call. We appreciate your participation.

Executives
    • Randy Bhatia
      Randy Bhatia
      VP - IR
    • Jack Fusco
      Jack Fusco
      President & CEO
    • Anatol Feygin
      Anatol Feygin
      EVP & Chief Commercial Officer
    • Zach Davis
      Zach Davis
      EVP & CFO
Analysts
    • Spiro Dounis
      Director at Citigroup
    • Jeremy Tonet
      MD & Research Analyst at J.P. Morgan
    • Theresa Chen
      Senior Analyst - Midstream & Refining Equity Research at Barclays
    • Burke Sansiviero
      Equity Research Senior Associate at Wolfe Research, LLC
    • John Mackay
      VP - Equity Research at Goldman Sachs
    • Alexander Bidwell
      Associate Analyst at Webber Research & Advisory
    • Robert Mosca
      VP- Midstream & Natural Gas Utilities Equity Research at Mizuho Financial Group
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