Cheniere Energy Inc

NYSE:LNG

Q4-2025 Earnings Call

[Operator]

Good day, and welcome to the Cheniere Energy Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Conference Call. 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, executive]

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Cheniere's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. The slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call are available at cheniere.com.

Before we begin, I would like to remind all listeners that our remarks, including answers to your questions, may contain forward-looking statements, and actual results could differ materially from what is described in these statements. Slide 2 of our presentation contains a discussion of those forward-looking statements and associated risks. In addition, we may include references to certain non-GAAP financial measures such as consolidated adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow. A reconciliation of these measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measure can be found in the appendix 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 L.P., or CQP. We do not intend to cover CQP's results separately from those of Cheniere Energy, Inc.

The call agenda is shown on Slide 3. Jack Fusco, Cheniere's President and CEO, will begin with operating and financial highlights as well as Cheniere's growth outlook. Anatol Feygin, our Chief Commercial Officer, will then provide an update on the LNG market; and Zach Davis, our CFO, will review our financial results, 2026 guidance and long-term capital allocation plan. After prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A.

I'll now turn the call over to Jack Fusco, President and CEO.

[Jack Fusco, executive]

Thank you, Randy. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today as we review our results from the fourth quarter and the full year 2025, and we look forward to 2026.

Before we dive into the results and outlook, I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge a significant occasion that occurred here at Cheniere earlier this week. On Tuesday, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of our first export cargo, a milestone achievement that not only ushered in a new era of prosperity for Cheniere, but for the U.S. and global energy markets as well. The significance of that first cargo cannot be overstated. In fact, earlier this week, I participated in the Transatlantic Gas Security Summit in Washington, D.C., with Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, Interior Secretary, Doug Burgum, as well as leaders and ministers from over a dozen countries where the anniversary of our first cargo was commemorated.

Getting to the point of that cargo being exported was a Herculean effort. Cheniere charted an unprecedented path in order to realize our vision of enabling the energy abundance and affordability we enjoy here in America to reach international markets. In doing so, we resolved a mad of project development challenges to bring Sabine Pass to fruition while rewriting the LNG rulebook on long-term contracting by leveraging the vast natural gas resource and in-place energy infrastructure of the United States. Now 10 years and nearly 5,000 cargoes later, we have cemented our position as the industry's gold standard. We lead the U.S. LNG industry, thanks, first and foremost, to the Cheniere workforce and their steadfast commitment to safety and excellence, which they demonstrate every single day. We also wouldn't be here today without the unwavering support of our over three dozen long-term customers, construction partner, Bechtel, regulatory agencies, financial stakeholders and our community partners. Together, we have achieved something truly transformative in our first 10 years, and we are just getting started.

Please turn to Slide 5, where I'll highlight our key results and accomplishments for the fourth quarter. We had an excellent fourth quarter operationally, and we generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $2 billion, bringing our total for the full year to $6.94 billion at the high end of our guidance range. We generated distributable cash flow of approximately $1.5 billion in the fourth quarter and approximately $5.3 billion for the full year, which is approximately $100 million above the high end of our guidance range. Net income totaled approximately $2.3 billion in the fourth quarter and over $5.3 billion for the year.

2025 was a record year for LNG production, totaling 670 cargoes or over 46 million tonnes. During the fourth quarter, we exported 185 LNG cargoes from our facilities. This is an increase of 22 cargoes compared to the third quarter as not only did we benefit from additional volumes from Stage 3 and the seasonal benefit in production, we also had improved production reliability and reduced unplanned maintenance compared to the third quarter as our efforts to mitigate some of the feed gas-related challenges we addressed on the last call delivered positive results across the quarter. Looking ahead to the remainder of 2026, we are on track to set another annual production record, aided by the expected completion of the remaining three trains at Stage 3. I'm pleased to introduce our 2026 financial guidance of $6.75 billion to $7.25 billion in consolidated adjusted EBITDA $4.35 billion to $4.85 billion in distributable cash flow and $3.10 to $3.40 in per unit distributions at CQP. These ranges reflect our forecast for higher production in 2026, offset by lower margins on spot cargoes than last year as well as the start-up of a number of long-term contracts over the course of the year. We look forward to once again delivering financial results within our guidance ranges.

We have great news to share on the capital allocation front. The 2020 Vision capital allocation plan we revealed in 2022 has been completed. And in typical Cheniere fashion, it was completed ahead of schedule. We have deployed over $20 billion across our capital allocation priorities and have achieved over $20 per share of run rate DCF. In conjunction with our advanced progress on capital deployment and share buyback, our Board of Directors has increased our share repurchase authorization to over $10 billion through 2030 after approving a $9 billion increase. Zach will have more to share on this major extension of our capital allocation plan shortly.

And lastly, early this morning, we announced a new long-term SPA with CPC Corporation of Taiwan for up to 1.2 million tonnes per annum on a delivered basis. It commences later this year and extends through 2050 and will bolster our contracted profile as we continue to grow our platform. This is our second long-term SPA with CPC following the approximately 25-year 2 million tonne SPA we signed in 2018, which commenced in 2021. In light of the recent volatility in the market, this SPA is a salient reminder that our product provides customers with long-term visibility, certainty and reliable supply through commodity cycles and contracting appetite isn't dictated by the trajectory of margins in the front of the curve, but to support the lasting demand for our product for decades to come. I am very proud that CPC has become another repeat long-term customer of Cheniere. It is clear evidence of how much the market values the reliability and customer focus that has come to define our first 10 years of LNG export operations.

Turn now to Slide 6, where I'll provide an update on our major growth projects. Construction progress on Corpus Christi Stage 3 has advanced to approximately 95% complete with the substantial completion of Trains 3 and 4 in the fourth quarter. Our forecast for the expected substantial completion of trains 5, 6 and 7 to occur in spring, summer and fall, respectively, is unchanged from our last call, but moving in the right direction based on recent progress. I am pleased to announce that first LNG has been achieved at Train 5 this week, supporting that forecasted time line.

On CCL Midscale Trains 8 and 9, groundwork and site prep continues progressing extremely well with work streams currently focused on concrete piling and school and steel fabrication as well as further materials procurement. Piling work is already halfway complete and all the piles for Train 8 have been set. Substantial completion for these trains is forecast in 2028, so I'm optimistic we have some advancement on that time line as construction progresses. And nearby at our Gregory power plant, work on the planned expansion in interconnect is going well. We are set to optimize our power strategy with the ramp-up of Stage 3 in Midscale 8 and 9. The SPL expansion project is our next major growth project that we are making significant progress along multiple parallel paths, advancing the first phase of this project towards FID as our visibility and confidence in this project continues to grow.

We have secured significant commercial support for this brownfield capacity expansion. We continue to prepare the CQP complex for conservatively financing the project, and we are working diligently on project costs with Bechtel while advancing the project through the permitting process. We currently expect to be in a good position to receive our permits by the end of this year and make FID on the first phase in 2027.

Back at Corpus Christi, our major CCL expansion is advancing well with the critical path items and FID time line of a brownfield Phase 1 approximately 6 months to a year behind the same at SPL as the full FERC application was submitted earlier this month. Including the Phase 1 expansions at Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi, we have line of sight to accretively grow our LNG platform by approximately 50% from today while adhering to our disciplined capital investment parameters and meeting the Cheniere standard with our most brownfield opportunities in focus. We are full steam ahead on these development projects and have excellent line of sight to bring both of these projects to life and deliver market-leading contracted infrastructure returns to our stakeholders.

With that, I'll now hand the call over to Anatol to discuss the LNG market. Thank you again for your continued support of Cheniere.

[Anatol Feygin, executive]

Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. Before I get into the LNG market update, first, some comments about the SPA we announced this morning with our long-time customer, CPC. It's not only a core long-term transaction in its own right, but also an all but perfect summation of our strategy and value proposition. Like most of the transactions we have executed in this cycle, it is with a repeat customer. Reliable LNG supply is absolutely critical to Taiwan and its rapidly growing economy, and we take pride that CPC put its trust in our ability to perform. This approximately 1.2 million tonne contract is yet another transaction we have executed that extends beyond the middle of this century and features a number of bespoke components as buyers continue to value Cheniere's customer-focused tailored solutions. We look forward to starting this incremental tranche later this year with our usual unwavering commitment to our multi-decade partner, CPC.

All of the things that set us apart from the competition, safety, operational excellence, customer-first approach and a stellar execution track record, chief among them, have and will continue to contribute meaningfully to our commercial approach and ability to sign contracts like this one that support our disciplined growth plans. Together with constructive LNG market fundamentals supporting a clear need for more capacity, we'll continue to leverage our advantages in the market to accretively commercialize our brownfield growth projects and target market-leading multi-decade returns to shareholders.

Now please turn to Slide 8. As you can see from the chart on the left, '25 was another year of generally elevated and volatile spot prices as trade disputes and geopolitical conflicts fueled uncertainty and sent prices soaring at various points throughout the year. Overall, however, the general price trended lower over '25, aided by new LNG supply beginning to enter the market.

A key driver supporting the overall elevated prices relative to historical norms remain the strong pull on LNG cargoes from Europe. Europe set a new annual record for LNG imports in 2025 as demand rose approximately 27% year-on-year, reaching about 125 million tonnes. The key drivers for this growth remain the replacement of Russian gas and the replenishment of underground storage inventories, which were approximately 20 bcm lower year-on-year in the fourth quarter and remain at a 14 bcm deficit today or approximately 140 cargoes. European storage levels are once again starting the year at five-year lows, about 25% behind last year, in fact, with a cold snap in January spiking prices once again.

Until additional volumes come to relieve the market, Europe will likely maintain its premium pricing to ensure readiness for next winter. Furthermore, a 17 bcm year-on-year reduction in pipeline imports from Norway, North Africa and, of course, Russia were more than offset by LNG imports, as shown on the top middle chart. We expect these drivers will help keep LNG demand in Europe resilient, especially in light of the EU Parliament's vote to ban all residual Russian gas, including Russian LNG by 2027.

In contrast, Asian LNG imports in aggregate contracted slightly last year, likely as a consequence of the still elevated levels of TTF spot prices in '25, incentivizing greater deliveries into Europe. Asia's LNG consumption was down about 4% in '25, lower by 12.4 million tonnes year-on-year to 270 million tonnes, but still comfortably within the five-year range for the region. A mix of factors were at play across Asia driving these import levels. Seasonal demand was impacted due to milder weather in the region, while China, the largest and most diverse LNG market in the world, continued to redirect cargoes to markets of higher margin, namely Europe, as it took advantage of its LNG delivery flexibility.

While many of the major markets in Asia saw year-on-year declines, China was the largest as LNG imports declined 16% or 12.1 million tonnes year-on-year due to muted industrial demand, macroeconomic challenges and optimizing some of its LNG into higher-value markets. Gas demand growth of about 3% in China in 2025 was below the 7% average in recent years. Additionally, higher pipe gas flows from Russia, which were up 30.6% year-on-year and increased domestic gas production, up 6.3% year-on-year also contributed.

With that said, as we watched LNG prices fall in November and December and into January, we saw a rapid increase in Chinese LNG imports, highlighting the at-the-ready price-sensitive depth of demand for LNG. These are short-term dynamics, however. We continue to expect robust growth in China's appetite for LNG in the medium to long term to become the LNG industry's first market to surpass -- meaningfully surpass 100 million tonnes per annum. In contrast, across JKT LNG imports were up 1.4% or 1.9 million tonnes in 2025. The year-on-year growth in the market area was supported by the continued phaseout of nuclear power in Taiwan and active restocking in South Korea, both of which were partially offset by lower gas burn in Japan.

LNG imports to South and Southeast Asia decreased by 3.8% or 2.6 million tonnes year-on-year in large part due to milder weather versus '24 as well as these being price-sensitive markets. India's imports were down 7% to 25 MTPA, while those in Pakistan were down 15% to 6.7 MTPA. High spot prices, coupled with efforts to reduce gas sector circular debt in Pakistan led to levy and tariff increases, which curtailed LNG imports amid macroeconomic challenges following the devastating monsoon floods of last year.

In summary, slightly lower LNG imports year-on-year across Asia are in large part due to sustained elevated price levels in '25, but we are steadfast in our expectation that moderating pricing going forward will generate a market increase in gas and LNG consumption as evidenced by the late year surge in imports when prices moderated as well as the continued strength in long-term contracting across the region as counterparties seek to secure and diversify their gas supply into the second half of this century.

We expect the price trajectory to continue to normalize as supply additions increase. We saw this starting to materialize at the tail end of 2025 when production from our Corpus Christi Stage 3 trains, among others, began to ramp up in scale and size. Additionally, given the record level of U.S. FIDs taken last year, we see fairly ratable supply growth over the next five years, which we expect to further moderate and stabilize the forward price outlook to bring the depth of LNG demand to the forefront.

Let's turn to the next page to expand on this. Commercial activity in 2025 enabled project sponsors to greenlight over 60 million tonnes per annum of LNG capacity in the U.S. and about 10 MTPA in other regions. These projects are expected to enter service by the end of the decade, which, along with a few additional projects vying for FID this year, should support a steady stream of supply additions extending into the early 2030s, creating the next LNG supply wave.

The oscillation between feast and famine in relatively short cycles in the industry in recent decades has made it challenging for price-sensitive demand segments to grow and prosper. This has particularly been the case in the emerging markets of Asia, where there has been limited aggregate import growth since '21 amid the current multiyear period of low supply growth and high spot prices. The region's price elasticity is clearly illustrated by the correlation between the spot price of LNG in the price-sensitive markets in Asia, excluding JKT and the rate of growth in LNG consumption.

During the five-year period to 2021, spot prices in nominal terms averaged approximately $7 an MMBtu and Asia's price-sensitive markets grew imports by a compounded average rate of almost 20%. In contrast, the compound annual growth rate for these same markets dropped to just 1.7% in the period from '21 to '25 when JKM averaged $18 an M. We expect lower LNG spot prices with the coming growth in supply to stimulate demand in these markets over the coming years. While the scale of impact and specific growth drivers vary by market, the overall net growth in each of the Asian regions is expected to be above the levels seen over the past 4 years and in most cases, well above.

In summary, ' 25 marked the end of a multiyear period of low supply growth. We see '26 as the start of a multiyear LNG supply cycle, one that will improve availability and affordability of reliable supply and in turn, stimulate price-sensitive Asian LNG demand that has historically driven this industry. With two long-term contracts signed with two of the largest Asian LNG buyers in the last six months, we continue to do our part to support the long-term energy priorities and long-term demand growth of the region with our flexible and reliable LNG supply.

We believe that safely, reliably and affordably supporting this growth will allow us to capture incremental long-term commitments in support of our disciplined accretive brownfield growth strategy. With over 95% of our capacity for the next 10 years contracted and as you saw in Jack's slide, sufficient contracts in place today to fully underwrite much of our growth up to 75 million tonnes per annum, we are well positioned to further execute on our capital allocation strategy through the cycles.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Zach to review our financial results and guidance.

[Zach Davis, executive]

Thanks, Anatol, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss our financial results and plans going forward. Turn to Slide 11. For the fourth quarter and full year 2025, we generated net income of approximately $2.3 billion and $5.3 billion, consolidated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $2 billion and $6.9 billion, and distributable cash flow of approximately $1.5 billion and $5.3 billion, respectively. EBITDA came in at the high end of the guidance range and DCF ended up above the high end of the range despite being close to fully sold out on our open capacity as of the last call. This outperformance can be attributed to further optimization locked in during the fourth quarter, higher lifting margin due to higher year-end Henry Hub pricing and certain end-of-year cargoes being delivered in 2025 instead of early 2026.

Compared to 2024, our 2025 results reflect higher total volumes of LNG produced across our platform, primarily as a result of the substantial completion of Trains 1 through 4 at CCL Stage 3, which resulted in almost doubling our spot capacity year-over-year from approximately 2 million to approximately 4 million tonnes. that we were able to proactively lock in for '25 at similar levels as the year prior at over $8 per MMBtu margins on average.

The year also benefited from higher Henry Hub pricing and more volume supporting lifting margin and greater optimization activities upstream and downstream of the sites compared to 2024. These increases were partially offset by higher O&M costs, primarily related to the substantial completion of the initial mid-scale trains at Stage 3 and the major maintenance turnaround at SPL during the year.

While we have many significant achievements to highlight from 2025, I'm particularly proud of the execution of our long-term capital allocation objectives and the early completion of our 2020 Vision capital allocation plan, ahead of schedule this quarter after a strong 2025.

Last year, we deployed over $6 billion towards accretive growth, shareholder returns and balance sheet management. We paid out approximately 60% of our distributable cash flow towards shareholder returns in the form of share repurchases and dividends. During the year, we repurchased over 12.1 million shares for approximately $2.7 billion. And the fourth quarter was the second consecutive quarter of over $1 billion in share buybacks. This brought our shares outstanding down to approximately 212 million as of year-end. As of last week, we are down to approximately 210 million shares outstanding with less than $1 billion remaining on the $4 billion share repurchase authorization from 2024, once again highlighting the power of the plan to accelerate to be opportunistic and value accretive during periods of share price dislocation to the fundamental value of our highly contracted cash flow profile.

For the fourth quarter, we declared a dividend of $0.555 per common share, bringing total dividends declared for 2025 to $2.11, representing over $450 million for common shareholders. We remain committed to growing our dividend by approximately 10% annually through the end of this decade while maintaining the financial flexibility essential to our long-term capital allocation plan and our disciplined approach to accretive growth with an investment-grade balance sheet. In 2025, we repaid $652 million of long-term indebtedness, fully retiring the SPL 2025 notes, partially redeeming the SPL 2026 notes and amortizing a portion of the SPL 2037 notes. Earlier this month, we paid down the remaining $200 million of SPL 2026 notes, leaving us with no debt maturities anywhere in the Cheniere complex until 2027.

Our strategic management of our balance sheet earned us 5 distinct credit rating upgrades during the year, highlighting our trajectory to a mid- to high BBB investment-grade corporate structure. In 2025, we equity funded approximately $2.3 billion of CapEx across our business, including $1.2 billion on Stage 3 and deployed over $800 million towards the Midscale 8 and 9 and debottlenecking project during the year. We also began drawing on our CCL term loan during the fourth quarter with a $550 million draw, which in the context of almost $6 billion and over $1 billion funded to date for Stage 3 and Midscale 8 and 9, respectively, highlights part of how we have strengthened the balance sheet over time.

In addition, we continue to deploy capital towards the SPL expansion and CCL expansion projects Jack highlighted as we progress development and permitting as well as on our Gregory power plant to support incremental power needs at Corpus over time as Stage 3 and Trains 8 and 9 are completed. We maintain substantial liquidity with approximately $1.6 billion in consolidated cash and billions of dollars of undrawn revolver and term loan capacity throughout the Cheniere complex. We are ideally positioned to fund our disciplined growth objectives while retaining significant financial flexibility fundamental to our capital allocation framework.

Turn now to Slide 12, where I will discuss our 2026 financial guidance and outlook for the year. Today, we are introducing our full year 2026 guidance ranges of $6.75 billion to $7.25 billion of consolidated adjusted EBITDA and $4.35 billion to $4.85 billion of distributable cash flow and $3.10 to $3.40 per common unit of distributions from CQP. Compared to 2025 results, these ranges reflect additional production from a full year of operations of Trains 1 through 4 of Stage 3, the substantial completion of Trains 5 through 7 across this year, higher levels of contractedness as several new contracts will commence during the year and lower margins on spot cargoes as prices have moderated.

We also have a onetime benefit from the confirmation of the alternative fuel tax credit in the first quarter, contributing over $300 million to EBITDA and DCF in our cost of sales. Our production forecast remains approximately 51 million to 53 million tonnes of LNG across our 2 sites this year, up approximately 5 million tonnes year-over-year, inclusive of forecast Stage 3 volumes from Trains 5 to 7 and planned maintenance and resiliency efforts across both sites, with approximately 4 million tonnes of incremental contractedness in 2026, or approximately 46 million to 47 million tonnes of long-term contracts, approximately 1 million tonnes of commissioning in transit timing volumes and over 4 million tonnes of volumes forward sold by CMI to date, which is up from approximately 1.5 million tonnes as of the last call. We now forecast less than 1 million tonnes or less than 50 TBtu of unsold open capacity remaining in 2026. Therefore, we currently forecast that a $1 change in market margins would impact EBITDA by less than $50 million for the full year, underscoring the cash flow visibility of the contracted platform.

Despite having little open volumes exposed to the market currently in the forecast, we are introducing these $500 million guidance ranges consistent with our prior practice of initial guidance. as results could still be impacted by a number of factors, including variability in our production forecast, the ramp-up and specific timing of substantial completion of Trains 5 through 7 at Stage 3, the timing of certain cargoes around year-end, contributions from optimization activities during the balance of the year and the impact that Henry Hub volatility can have on lifting margin. As we move through the year and the potential impact of these variables on our financial forecast reduces, we expect to tighten the guidance ranges, also consistent with precedent.

The year-over-year decline in the 2026 DCF guidance range is primarily due to the discrete tax benefit that we received in 2025 related to the reversal of the previously paid corporate alternative minimum tax in 2024. However, our 2026 DCF range reflects nominal cash taxes as we expect to benefit again from 100% bonus depreciation related to the remaining Stage 3 trains coming online this year. In addition, greater interest costs will be incurred in DCF and no longer capitalized as the Stage 3 trains reach substantial completion. Our distribution per unit guidance at CQP for 2026 is wider than it had been last year as the wider range provides the flexibility to potentially reinvest some of CQP's distributable cash flow towards limited notices to proceed for the SPL expansion project later this year to strategically lock in long lead time items ahead of an expected FID in 2027.

Turning now to Slide 13. We are proud to announce the completion of our 2020 Vision capital allocation plan. We introduced the plan in the fall of 2022 with the goal of deploying over $20 billion of available cash across our capital allocation pillars of shareholder returns, accretive growth and balance sheet management to reach over $20 per share of run rate DCF by the end of 2026. And under that program, we have now surpassed those objectives almost a year ahead of schedule. Under the plan, we repaid approximately $5.5 billion of long-term indebtedness, which has led to 22 distinct credit rating upgrades, bringing our issuer rating at CEI from high yield when we started the plan to solidly investment grade today.

We deployed approximately $6.5 billion towards equity funding our growth CapEx. While most of this spend was for Stage 3, the initial trains of which have come online ahead of schedule, we also funded CapEx related to mid-scale Trains 8 and 9 project as well as development and engineering related to the SPL and CCL expansion projects and CapEx related to our Gregory power plant adjacent to Corpus.

Most significantly, we deployed almost $9 billion towards shareholder returns in the form of share buybacks and dividends. Under the plan, we repurchased approximately 40 million shares or over 15% of our shares outstanding for over $7 billion. We also increased our quarterly dividend by approximately 68% since our inaugural dividend in 2021, representing approximately $1.5 billion of dividends declared under the plan. Given our accelerated progress under our $4 billion share repurchase authorization with only $1.2 billion remaining as of year-end, and aided by the fact that our LNG platform is over 95% contracted through 2030, our Board of Directors has approved an upsize of our share repurchase authorization to enable over $10 billion from 2026 through 2030. This $9 billion upsize to our authorization is a major extension of our comprehensive capital allocation strategy and a clear mark of confidence in our business model's contracted cash flow visibility and our capital investment discipline that has been developed to withstand the cyclicality of commodity markets.

We now have the financial strength to not only opportunistically deploy approximately $10 billion into share repurchases or approximately 20% of our market cap over the next five years, but simultaneously grow our dividend by 10% per annum the rest of this decade and budget for FIDs at the Cheniere standard at both sites. Clearly, the all of the above capital allocation strategy for Cheniere remains firmly intact.

These initial phases of the SPL and CCL expansion projects are expected to bring our total liquefaction capacity up to approximately 75 million tonnes per year, developed to maximize brownfield economics and supported by decades of take-or-pay contracted cash flows from creditworthy counterparties, we believe these two projects are among the most attractive energy infrastructure investment opportunities in North America with a risk-adjusted return profile unmatched in this industry. Accordingly, we are resetting our target run rate DCF per share to reach approximately $30 by the end of this decade after the full deployment of the repurchase authorization, approximately 175 million shares outstanding and the completion of the first phases of our brownfield expansions at both Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi. Even before accounting for the growth, we are now in a position to reach $25 of DCF per share by simply following through with our upsized share repurchase authorization.

As we have done since our first export cargo 10 years ago, we will continue to leverage our many advantages to create sustainable and growing long-term value for our shareholders while supplying our global customer base with our secure, reliable and affordable LNG through cycles and for decades to come.

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]

[Operator Instructions] And the first question will come from Jeremy Tonet with JPMorgan.

[Jeremy Tonet, analyst]

Thanks for all the detail today in the slides. And Anatol, I wanted to turn to Slide 9, if I could. And really the big uptick you see in '26 through '30 demand across Asia there. And I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit more on how this backdrop might be influencing the tone of commercial conversations at this point as you look to lock in more supply agreements.

[Anatol Feygin, executive]

Sure, Jeremy, thank you. Look, we've always been of the view that moderate prices are good for this industry. And as we've said over the last few years, one of the things that we expect to change as this wave of supply moves through the market is that the world will recalibrate its outlook on 2040 and that 700 million tonne outlook. But even with the 700 million tonne outlook, we do expect that the world will need more supply, and we think that our reliable, stable, very secure product is something that will be, if you will, the baseload of that growth.

So, obviously, long-term contract economics have been much lower than spot prices over the last few years, and we think that, that continues to be appealing. Even in the fourth quarter, the world signed over 17 million tonnes of long-term contracts, and we're proud to be part of that wave, and we'll continue to find these core opportunities to work with customers that value our reliability and security of supply. So we're very constructive on what global LNG demand, primarily driven by Asia is going to look like over the coming decades.

[Jeremy Tonet, analyst]

Got it. That's helpful. And then just wondering, we've seen some weather activity here, winter storm fern. And just wondering if that had any impact on Cheniere here.

[Jack Fusco, executive]

Jeremy, it's Jack. So I'll start and see if Zach wants to chime in. First and foremost, I was really pleased with the way our operating teams were able to position ourselves and take care of the facilities to make sure that there was no harm to either our employees or to any of the equipment. They once again have far exceeded my expectations on their emergency preparedness at the facilities.

There wasn't anything major one way or the other. We saw prices blow out. We saw force majeures predominantly in the Haynesville on some of the gas producers. We were able to manage around that. We were able to put gas back in the system to help support some of the local areas. And at the end of the day, it was a slight positive for us, but nothing material.

[Zach Davis, executive]

Yes. That's right, Jeremy. I'd say a slight positive to overall optimization for the first month of the year and baked into the guidance we just gave you for this year, but only for January. And just to be clear on how we think about optimization and guidance, if it's not like officially locked in, it's not in the guidance. So as things accrue into February and for the rest of the quarter, we'll give a clearer update on the May call. But yes, we got a ways to go to catch up to the amount of optimization EBITDA that was generated in '25 for '26, and that's part of the upside to the current guidance that we just provided.

[Jeremy Tonet, analyst]

Got it. That's helpful. We await details on further optimization across the year, benefiting the guide.

[Operator]

And the next question will come from Spiro Dounis with Citi.

[Spiro Dounis, analyst]

First question just on commercial progress, a bit of a two-part question. So as you noted, you've got about 10 million tonnes per annum signed up now to support that next set of growth projects. But curious, does the next SPA that you sign from here start to underwrite the expansions beyond Phase 1 of Sabine and Corpus? And maybe if you could, where would you say market LNG contracted margins are right now, especially in light of some competing projects being rationalized?

[Anatol Feygin, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Spiro. So I would say, at this point, the first train of our super brownfield expansions is spoken for, and we have some modest amount of work to do on the second one. So I would say at this point, obviously, it depends on the economics and depends on the volume of the SPAs, but I think some single-digit millions of tonnes still need to be contracted to get us into the right position for Train 2 of the expansions, namely the large-scale train at Corpus that we filed for.

In terms of market margins, you're absolutely right. It's a very competitive market. We had over 60 million tonnes of FIDs in the U.S. last year. A number of those tonnes are still not contracted. So that is competition that we see in the market as well as those a few projects that are still trying to get to the finish line. But as you also know, we do our utmost to not compete in that commoditized market of the 20-year CPed product and everything that you will see from us going forward is a relatively bespoke product that receives the premium that we think we deserve for our reliability.

[Jack Fusco, executive]

And Spiro, this is Jack. I would say I know in my conversations, in fact, on my -- in my keynote address, having 10 years of export capability here at Cheniere, over 5,000 cargoes this year will be delivered from Cheniere and never missing a foundation customer cargo means a lot to the JERAs and the CPCs and the Polands and you can go on and on. Those people that are building the infrastructure the gas infrastructure now are willing to pay us a premium to ensure that they get the LNG that they need.

[Zach Davis, executive]

And Spiro, I'll just end on some of the numbers. The deals that Anatol and the team have been able to strike over the last year or so, comfortably within our range, solidifying the run rate guidance, if not better, that we've previously given. And the fact that we are well over 95% contracted now, not just through 2030, but 2035 is why we were able to make the announcements we did today. The cash flow visibility is just -- is basically unparalleled. And we are already fully contracted for, let's say, the first phase of Sabine. So if someone doesn't have that in their model, that $10 billion of buyback better be finished a lot sooner. So we are in a good place right now to execute across all fronts and increase shareholder returns and get this thing to 75 million tonnes.

[Spiro Dounis, analyst]

All right. message received. Second question, Jack, you noted in your prepared remarks that you'd already started to benefit on the nitrogen and inner gas side even in the fourth quarter. But I know last call, you sort of indicated that there was a long-term plan in place to deal with that excess nitrogen. So have you once again kind of beaten that estimate? Would you say you've dealt with that issue? Is there still more to go there?

[Jack Fusco, executive]

No, there's still more to go there. So it's a combination of issues. their Spiro. So the nitrogen is just an inert gas. It just takes up space. So we just have to evacuate it as fast and as much as possible. But what was causing us a hiccup or a speed bump during the third quarter was a variability in feed gas with heavy C12s to be exact for those of you that are chemists. But -- and the process engineers and the operating folks put their heads together with some suppliers in and really some oil companies, and we figured out different operating modes to work in, and that's starting to pay some dividends. So we've been able to adjust our operating modes. We've been able to buy and inject certain solvents that are really starting to show some big benefits for us.

[Zach Davis, executive]

And I'll credit the whole team here that maybe we're at the lower end of production last year in our range, but still got to the high end of our financial guidance as we proactively sold the open capacity. Stage 3 progressed really well and came online with four trains and the optimization came through. But this year, the guidance we give and the production guidance that stayed intact since last call bakes in a healthy amount of planned maintenance for these resiliency efforts. And if that doesn't take as long, that will have to be an update to both production and financial guidance.

[Jack Fusco, executive]

And I would say some of Spiro, some of the capital that you're seeing that Zach talked about that we're deploying is for the longer term to make sure that the front end of our facilities can handle any variability in any gas coming from anywhere.

[Operator]

And the next question will come from Theresa Chen with Barclays.

[Theresa Chen, analyst]

Great to see the continued commercial success in your second CPC SPA. Maybe putting a finer point on the economics of the commercialization process at this point. Can you provide any quantitative color on your outlook for the production fees based on your recent success and ongoing commercialization efforts, -- what would you say is the range at this point?

And more broadly, going back to Anatol's comments and the earlier question about elasticity, what evidence of demand elasticity have you seen already in your commercial discussions for long-term contracts, taking into account the significant incremental liquefaction capacity set to enter the market through the end of the decade and beyond?

[Anatol Feygin, executive]

Yes, Theresa, I'll start and others will pitch in. But as Zach and I have said for many quarters now, we're very comfortable with the $2.50 to $3 range, and we are really doing things, I would say, comfortably above the midpoint of that range. But as we've said to you and others, at this point, I can't tell you that if we needed to get to 20 million tonnes of additional contracted volumes, we would be able to maintain that.

So, to your question and Spiro's question, it isn't a situation where the "market economics" are "at that level". In fact, we would say that they're below that level. It is kind of -- as Jack already mentioned and I mentioned, it is the counterparties that value our reliability and our flawless performance and our ability to continue to deliver that day in and day out. We think that, that is very valuable and those counterparties that share that view, we are partnering with and delivering those volumes.

As we've also mentioned to you, in terms of price elasticity, even in the rearview mirror, the LNG market has had periods where in the aggregate, it has consumed about 600 million tonnes. So as you look at where price elastic markets can land, the numbers are comfortably above what we have operating and under construction today, well over 1,200 million tonnes of re-gas capacity, and that is growing to 1,400 just with what's under construction, right? You have markets like Vietnam, which a silly number, but it grew over 200%, obviously, from a very small base, but that is a market that in and of itself will probably be well north of 10 million tonnes by the time we get into next decade.

So you're going to see Asia grow from, we think, from the kind of 270 million tonne market where it's been stuck for the last few years because of the high prices to well over 400 million tonnes and will continue to grow once that not only affordable supply, but also the fact that it is ratably affordable over years continues to stimulate investment. So again, very sanguine. And at the end of the day, as long as we keep contracting at those economics and underwriting our disciplined expansion plans, we hope the market remains constructive and continues to grow. But as you understand, we are quite immune from those dynamics.

[Theresa Chen, analyst]

That's very helpful. Switching gears a bit. As gas to power demand reaches new highs across the U.S., partly driven by growing data center electricity needs, there are concerns that rising LNG exports could exacerbate domestic affordability pressures. What is your view on this? Do you see these dynamics affecting Cheniere's ability to permit and/or commercialize incremental capacity? And how did the domestic affordability issues reconcile with LNG's importance as a strategic trade and geopolitical lever for the U.S.

[Jack Fusco, executive]

So I'm going to start because -- and then I'm kind of pushing Anatol back because he's jumping at the microphone right now. But Theresa, so we -- it takes us 18 months to 2 years to get a permit and our pipeline plans have to be filed with FERC and made public. And then it's another three to four years for construction. And in all cases, we buy FT Firm Transportation. As you know, we have it to all five basins. We process 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. and we provide a stability in cash flow to the producers and the midstream companies that they've never existed before in their lifetime. So that has allowed them to grow fairly significantly. So when that first cargo left the shore of Sabine Pass and headed to Brazil in February of 2016, natural gas production in the U.S. was -- I think it was 67, 68 Bcf a day. Today, it's over 110 Bcf a day. And that, in part, is because they see what's coming and they see the amount of exports.

Having been for most of my career on the gas to power side, gas to power doesn't like buying firm transportation. They don't like paying for gas forward because they want to price it into the real-time market. And they're not real supportive. They'd rather have interruptible supply at the cheapest price possible. And that -- it helps take some of the product up, but it's not going to be helpful longer term for production. So I think you're starting to see the whole price paradigm on exports shift in Washington as we continue to explain to the legislators and regulators how the markets really work.

And then I'll turn it over to Anatol.

[Anatol Feygin, executive]

Yes. To not take up too much time, three quick points. One is we don't think we compete for molecules with those incremental demand centers, right? By definition, they will try to build in places that have trapped resource and can't have the infrastructure to access the markets where we see points of liquidity. And that is, as Jack already mentioned, a quasi religion for us as we supply our customers. Two, we think that the market will be very disappointed, let's say, by the rate at which gas demand into power grows, even the EIA says that '26 and '27 won't see the same level as '24 saw in terms of gas for power generation. And three, as you know, for our product and for our customers, NYMEX is a pass-through, and we don't expect tremendous competition in the Southwest Louisiana pool that is NYMEX for those molecules.

So we're very optimistic that the domestic resource is there to meet all needs, and we are very careful about how we approach the expansions and our current infrastructure is more than sufficient to avail us of the molecules that we need.

[Operator]

And we'll go to Jean Ann Salisbury with Bank of America.

[Jean Ann Salisbury, analyst]

In 2025, I believe there was really significant EPC CapEx escalation and LNG greenfield costs. Can you talk about what you see as the drivers of that and whether that has begun to moderate? And as a follow-up, CapEx escalation is impacting brownfield projects like yours as materially?

[Jack Fusco, executive]

Jean Ann, as you know, we FID trains 8 and 9, and we're able to do it within our financial parameters that Zach has laid out for the company and for all of you in the past. We do see some escalation. We're working through it with our partners, Bechtel. We've been able to manage it by doing some limited notices to proceed on some longer lead time items. I would say at this point, it's the lead time that worries me more than the inflation, and it's just the way that we've been able to manage our projects.

We also have went back and basically went back to our ConocoPhillips optimized plan to get economies of scale to get our dollars per tonne down. And we've asked both for the SPL expansion as well as the CCL expansion to just give us exactly the same train you gave us the last time. So for SPL 7, I just want another SPL 6, identical. And for CCL 4, I just want CCL 3 again, identical. And I think that's going to help us on all fronts.

[Zach Davis, executive]

And I'll just add, when it comes to the math, the math is pretty transparent as we file quarterly what our CapEx is and our PP&E is. But basically, we have the lowest cost per tonne, the best or the highest SPAs, the lowest leverage and the least amount of equity partners. So I think we're pretty well placed for the FIDs of Train 7 and Train 4. And what we said before, we're permitting a lot more than that, but we see a path to hold to the standard by being as super brownfield as possible right now.

[Operator]

And moving on to Michael Blum with Wells Fargo.

[Michael Blum, analyst]

I guess it's here. In terms of your December FERC filing to increase CCL Stage 3 and mid-scale 8 and 9 by 5 million tonnes, can you just talk about the timing to achieve that expansion? And how do we think about the use case for that incremental capacity at those two facilities?

[Zach Davis, executive]

Those types of filings are the fact that we continue to debottleneck and engineer the site in a way that there might be more opportunity than, say, the 60-plus million tonnes from the existing assets that we plan to try to take advantage of over time. And that's what that increment would be is to kind of accommodate peak production at certain times of the year at that site. And as it kind of folds into this whole story that we're not just going to FID likely a train at each site, but we're going to FID a train at each site and some other debottlenecking projects. And that's how we get to 75 million tonnes.

So this is just part of the overall plan that there's going to be ideally a first phase of a Train 4 at Corpus but some other stuff that's going to make the economics so crystal clear that they're accretive and within our parameters.

[Michael Blum, analyst]

Okay. Got it. That makes sense. And then in terms of the new CPC contract you announced this morning, when do you expect it to kick in during 2026?

[Anatol Feygin, executive]

It starts midyear. And to your previous question, some of the transactions and how we negotiate them kind of going forward to Zach's answer includes some of that flexibility that we can take advantage of as we debottleneck. So that's why we're a little cagey with the 1.2 million tonnes. That is the number through the vast majority of the term, but it includes some flexibility starting middle of this year.

[Operator]

And the next question comes from Jason Gabelman with TD Cowen.

[Jason Gabelman, analyst]

You mentioned the ramp-up in Corpus Stage 3 is going very well. And it seems like those trains can kind of come online perhaps earlier than what you have contemplated in your volume guidance. So just wondering how you think about the upside to that volume guidance that you gave.

[Zach Davis, executive]

Still early on in the year, and I think everyone could take comfort in the guidance that we gave did not update substantial completion dates of Trains 5 through 7. But mind you, we just had earlier this month, first LNG at Train 5 of Stage 3.

But to put some math on it, if all 3 trains were a month early, that's comfortably over $50 million of incremental EBITDA at current margins over the year. So that could be upside. But today, in February, too soon to tell, and we'll give updates as these trains come online over the coming year, but things are progressing really well. And yes, we're already 4 for 4, and it's looking like 5 for 5 of being early.

[Jason Gabelman, analyst]

Yes. And my follow-up is just thinking about the additional expansions that you have at Sabine and Corpus beyond these very brownfield trains. I think, Anatol, you mentioned that you have kind of 20 million tonnes worth of SBA opportunities at the higher margin guidance that you've kind of embedded in your economics. Do those support these higher cost kind of trains beyond the initial brownfield opportunities because it sounds like the trains after the initial ones at Sabine Pass and Corpus are probably going to be a bit more expensive.

[Anatol Feygin, executive]

Yes, Jason, sorry, if I misspoke, it's kind of the other way around. I was saying that if we had to do 20, we would not be able to today maintain the $2.50 to $3 standard, right? The market for the U.S. product is sub $250 today. It is our performance and our reliability and our commercial engagement that gives us the ability to capture these premium contracts, but we are in an enviable position standing on the shoulders of the teams at Cheniere that have continued to deliver this performance over, as Jack said, a decade plus a couple of days that we are able to capture these additional volumes that should allow us to maintain those brownfield -- super brownfield economics and meet our investment parameters.

Beyond that, it's -- I'll let the guys chime in, but it's kind of a step function change in CapEx per tonne and that market -- the market economics today, we don't see supporting meeting our investment parameters.

[Jack Fusco, executive]

Jack's whiteboard got us to 75 million tonnes, and we'll go from there.

[Operator]

And our last question will come from John Mackay with Goldman Sachs.

[John Mackay, analyst]

A quick one on -- just going back to the macro for you, Anatol. I want to go back to Slide 9, where you guys are showing this pretty strong growth rate for China through 2030. I was just wondering if you could underline that a little bit more with what price you think you need to underwrite that growth. And you have the sub comment around coal to kind of gas switching in there. Just what your general framework for that in terms of magnitude could be?

[Anatol Feygin, executive]

Yes. I'll give you our guess, obviously, subject to a lot of hedging, but we think somewhere in the $8 to $9 delivered range. The great thing about the Chinese market is it is massively fragmented and distributed. It is going to be approaching 300 million tonnes of re-gas capacity, a TCF of storage. It's going to blow through 200 gigawatts of installed generation capacity mostly along the coast. So at the right price, it has the capacity to consume a very substantial amount of volume.

But as you saw in '25 for a host of reasons, it behaves as a quintessential invisible hand and redirects cargoes to where they are most profitable. dozens and dozens of companies, multiple business models, obviously, competing fuels, et cetera. But we think at that high single-digit level number backdrop of $60, $65 Brent, you're going to see China come roaring back like it did in '18, '19.

[John Mackay, analyst]

Super interesting. Last quick one for me. I think this is for Zach, but maybe Jack as well. I'd just be curious to hear your latest thoughts on the dividend in terms of where that could grow over time, particularly now that you're framing up this $30 per share number and how that maybe plays back in the form of the buybacks.

[Zach Davis, executive]

Sure. So everything we even announced today is just following through with what we've said in the past. And one of the things we've said in the past is that we're committed to growing the dividend by basically 10% a year through the decade. And eventually, over time, we'll get to something over 20% of a payout ratio. Clearly, our shareholder return policy is just different than everyone else in midstream. We pay out about 60%, which is probably above on average the rest, but -- of that 60% is buybacks, whereas it's basically all dividend for the others.

This flexibility allows us to not only basically self-generate the cash flow to fund the equity for Stage 3, Midscale 8 and 9 and the first phases at both projects, but this flexibility to be opportunistic like we were in the last couple of quarters and earlier this year on the buyback. So I think we're going to keep it this way. It really enhances the financial flexibility of the company. but that 10% compounding gets very powerful later on this decade.

[Operator]

And that does conclude the question-and-answer session. I'll now turn the conference back over to you.

[Jack Fusco, executive]

I just want to say thank you all for the last 10 years of support. It seems like just yesterday, but it also feels like we're just getting started. So stay tuned.

[Operator]

Thank you. That does conclude today's conference. We do thank you for your participation, and have an excellent day.