Cheniere Energy, Inc.

Operator: Thank you for standing by. Good day, and welcome to the First Quarter 2026 Cheniere Energy, Inc. Earnings Call and Webcast. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Randy Bhatia, Vice President of Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead. Randy Bhatia: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Cheniere Energy, Inc.’s First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. The slide presentation and access for 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 summary of those forward-looking statements and associated risks. In addition, a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measure can be found in the presentation appendix. The call agenda is shown on slide 3. After prepared remarks from Jack, Anatol, and Zach, we will open the call for Q&A. I will now turn the call over to Jack A. Fusco, Cheniere Energy, Inc.’s President and CEO. Jack A. Fusco: Thank you, Randy, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today as we review our results from the first quarter of 2026 and our improved outlook for the full year. Certainly, a lot has changed since our last earnings call, which took place just before the start of the war in Iran. What has unfolded in the wake of that operation is another major shock in the global energy system—the second such shock in just over four years. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the weaponization of energy, including the damage to a portion of QatarEnergy’s LNG facility at Ras Laffan, are tragic consequences, the effects of which are being felt all over the world. The sudden cessation of reliable supply of Middle Eastern oil and natural gas, and the many other products that normally transit the Strait every day on their way to dependent markets around the globe, shines a bright light on the criticality of supply security and a diversified portfolio. What we sell at Cheniere Energy, Inc. is access to a secure, reliable, and affordable product that provides the energy to power homes, businesses, and economies. Prior to the war, the LNG market already demanded more production than the market could supply, as evidenced by the elevated spot market margin we had in the first two months of the year. The disruption of Middle Eastern volumes only exacerbates that supply shortage, increasing prices and restricting availability of supply to the wealthiest buyers at the expense of fast-growing energy-hungry emerging markets. At Cheniere Energy, Inc., we look forward to the resolution of this conflict that will enable the renormalization of commerce to one of the world's most important trade gateways so that prosperity through energy affordability and availability can benefit all. Please turn to slide 5, where I will highlight our key results and accomplishments for the first quarter of 2026 and introduce our upwardly revised guidance for the year. Our performance in the first quarter has gotten off to an excellent start. We generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of over $2.3 billion and distributable cash flow of approximately $1.7 billion. On the production side, we picked up where we left off at the end of 2025 and produced and exported a record amount of LNG in the first quarter. The 187 cargoes we exported through March topped the previous record set in the fourth quarter of last year. I am extremely proud of our operations team, whose tireless efforts to engineer and deploy solutions to address the feed gas composition-related challenges we experienced last year continue to bear fruit and drove enhanced operational reliability during the quarter. Today, we are increasing our full-year 2026 financial guidance to $7.25 to $7.75 billion of consolidated adjusted EBITDA and $4.75 to $5.25 billion of DCF. This significantly improved outlook—the previous high end of the EBITDA guidance is the new low end—is driven primarily by an improvement in our production forecast of approximately 1 million tonnes, higher marketing margins, as well as higher contributions from optimization activities achieved year to date, both upstream and downstream of our facilities. Zach will cover guidance in more detail in a few minutes, but we look forward to delivering financial results within these upwardly revised ranges for the year. During the first quarter, we continued to execute on our comprehensive capital allocation plan. We repurchased approximately 2.7 million shares for approximately $535 million, funded approximately $1 billion of growth capex with equity and debt, paid down over $250 million in debt, and declared a dividend of $0.555 per share. Moving to our growth projects, we continue to make excellent and safe progress on our growth and expansion during the first quarter. Our CCL Stage 3 project now stands at approximately 97% complete. Substantial completion was achieved on Train 5 in March, and Trains 6 and 7 remain on track for substantial completion in the summer and fall, respectively, with each now tracking a few weeks ahead of schedule that had informed our initial 2026 production forecast in October. First LNG at Train 6 is expected within a few days. On our midscale Trains 8 and 9 and debottlenecking project, we have safely progressed to approximately 37% complete and, while it is still early, are tracking ahead of schedule on a number of execution fronts. Piling is nearly complete with approximately 8 thousand piles having been driven. The first structural steel has been erected, and the next major construction milestone is the first above-ground piping, which is scheduled to be installed this month. With regard to our future growth, our line of sight on the Phase 1 expansions at both Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi continues to improve. As we disclosed on our last earnings call, we are budgeting for limited notices to proceed this year on the first phase of the Sabine Pass expansion, Train 7. We are working closely with Bechtel to finalize the EPC contract and would expect to begin issuing LNTPs shortly thereafter, which should be seen by the market as a clear signal that we are on track to reach FID. At Corpus Christi, we are making excellent progress in our development of the CCL expansion project. We were pleased to receive our scheduling notice from FERC last week, supporting our expectation of FERC approval on that project in the first half of this year. We are extremely excited about these Phase 1 projects, which we believe represent the most compelling risk-adjusted infrastructure investment opportunities on the Gulf Coast—or maybe all of North America—and are expected to accretively grow the Cheniere Energy, Inc. production platform by approximately 10% each. Turn now to slide 6 where I will discuss my key strategic priorities for 2026. My priorities for 2026 are simple: execution, growth, and capital allocation. First, on execution, my priority is to maintain our track record of delivering top-tier safety metrics while furthering our operational excellence program and being a trusted and reliable supplier to our customers. In dealing with some operational challenges last year, the team has responded with determination and resolve, and its efforts are paying significant dividends. The team has increased utilization across both sites by identifying root causes and innovating solutions to address the issues impacting reliability, not just the symptoms. In addition, the team has increased production through identifying and executing on debottlenecking opportunities while seamlessly executing on our planned maintenance activities. And we are focused on managing our platform in a market with elevated volatility. Despite the volatility, our coordinated teams across the globe have done an excellent job managing our positions and assets, ensuring we deliver on our obligations to our customers while optimizing the portfolio through volatile domestic gas markets like we saw during Winter Storm Fern, as well as very volatile international gas and shipping markets that have prevailed since early March. Next, on growth, with Trains 1 through 5 of Stage 3 substantially complete, our immediate priority is a safe completion of Trains 6 and 7. As I just mentioned, these trains have accelerated since last year, benefiting from lessons learned on the first trains as our partnership with Bechtel has not only resulted in early operations of the trains, but also shorter timelines on both commissioning and ramp-up to full production. I expect those learnings to continue in order to benefit midscale Trains 8 and 9 as those trains move deeper into construction later this year. On our SPL expansion and CCL expansion, we are aggressively executing project development workstreams across regulatory, financing, commercial, and EPC contracting as FIDs on those projects come into focus. Last week, we received our scheduling notice from FERC on the CCL expansion project—a critical step in the FERC process—and it is aligned with our expected timeline of FERC approval in 2026–2027. And finally, on capital allocation, we had a major update on the last call with the achievement of the original 2020 vision plan, the new $9 billion authorization the Board approved during the quarter for share buyback, and our new share count and run-rate DCF targets. We are in an enviable capital allocation position, enabled by our incredible long-term contract portfolio that provides decades of cash flow visibility, our brownfield growth opportunities, investment-grade balance sheet, and opportunistic repurchase plan. In February, we celebrated the tenth anniversary of first cargo, and next week will mark my tenth anniversary at Cheniere Energy, Inc. I am extremely proud of the many incredible milestones we have accomplished together in that time. While these anniversaries offer the opportunity to look back, I prefer to look forward. And what we have in front of us are incredible opportunities: an opportunity to grow Cheniere Energy, Inc. in the near term and secure the next phase of growth beyond that; an opportunity to grow our platform by another 20%, benefiting Cheniere Energy, Inc.’s stakeholders while providing the world with more of the secure and reliable energy it needs to improve lives, grow businesses, and help emerging markets emerge. I am incredibly excited about these opportunities, and we are laser-focused on turning them into achievements in the coming years. With that, I will now hand it over to Anatol to discuss the LNG market. Thank you again for your continued support of Cheniere Energy, Inc. Anatol Feygin: Thanks, Jack, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide 8. The past quarter has been defined by geopolitical disruption, most notably the escalation in the Middle East and the resulting closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has put significant strain on global energy markets, including LNG. While the situation remains fluid, our commercial focus is twofold: first, supporting our customers through near-term volatility, and second, understanding what these disruptions mean for longer-term LNG market structure and contracts. We continue to hope for a safe and timely resolution, including the return of Qatari and Emirati LNG volumes to global markets. Coming into the year, the industry was expecting roughly 40 million tonnes of LNG supply growth. This expected supply growth continues to be offset by the halt of Middle East LNG flows through the Strait, which removes approximately 7 million tonnes of supply each month. Additionally, U.S. exports were temporarily reduced during Winter Storm Fern to help balance the domestic gas market, and in late March, Australia’s approximately 9 mtpa Wheatstone facility and other gas processing plants experienced a multi-week outage following Cyclone Norelle. In aggregate, these disruptions displaced nearly 8 million tonnes of supply in the first quarter alone. With tanker and LNG vessel traffic through the Strait remaining constrained with limited visibility on timing of normalization, approximately 7 million tonnes of LNG supply per month—or approximately 100 cargoes—continues to be disrupted. The immediate effect of the crisis was a sharp repricing across regional gas markets, and given most Qatari volume is sold into Asia, we saw the JKM–TTF spread flip in a way not seen since 2023, creating a strong pull for LNG into Asia. Destination-flexible U.S. cargoes responded as expected, with flows re-optimizing toward Asia to capture higher netbacks. This is exactly the flexibility the market relies on in periods of imbalances or distress, underscoring a key advantage of U.S. LNG in the global gas market. While today our customers are squarely focused on replacing near-term lost volumes, the flexibility and security of U.S. LNG through long-term contracts is being highlighted in our commercial conversations and negotiations today. On the demand side, impacts have been more gradual. Middle East cargoes that were already on the water continued to arrive through March, which delayed the full physical effect of the supply disruption. Asia’s LNG imports were 5% higher year over year for January and February but started decreasing in March, dropping by 1.5 million tonnes, or 7% year over year, with import declines in price-sensitive markets expected to continue in April. Now several months into the disruption, we are seeing clear differentiation across markets in Asia to cope with the supply shock. China has again demonstrated system flexibility, halting spot purchases and redirecting cargoes to markets of higher need. Price-sensitive Qatari-dependent markets such as Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh have taken measures to reduce demand and seek alternate fuel sources, while higher-affordability markets including Taiwan, Singapore, and Thailand have stepped in to procure replacement cargoes, and we have been actively supporting our customers navigating this volatility. In Europe, the situation is increasingly tight as storage levels exiting the winter are near five-year lows, with a deficit of 13.2 bcm—about 10 million tonnes, or approximately 150 cargoes of LNG equivalent—versus the five-year average. While the region is relatively less exposed to disrupted Middle East LNG flows compared to Asia, the absence of Russian pipeline flows and the impending ban on Russian gas and LNG add further pressure. To reach adequate storage levels ahead of next winter, Europe will require almost 10 million tonnes more LNG than last year to reach minimum storage levels of 80% and approximately 15 million tonnes more year over year to reach historical levels of 90%. This highlights Europe’s dependence on LNG and intensifies the competition for marginal LNG supplies with other basins, especially as we look ahead to winter. Europe’s imports grew 12% to approximately 40 million tonnes in the first quarter, despite a month-on-month drop in March, which remained flat year over year as more cargoes started heading east. Across global markets, pricing dynamics evolved in two distinct phases in the first quarter. At the start of the year, benchmark gas prices were moderating, reflecting expectations of that forecast 40 million tonnes of incremental supply to enter the market. First-quarter JKM averaged $10.40/MMBtu and TTF $11.60/MMBtu, down by roughly 30% and 20% year over year, respectively. Following the disruption in the Middle East, we have seen a clear repricing, with prompt pricing and forward curves moving higher by $3 to $4/MMBtu. However, despite the disruption of comparable magnitude, these prices still reflect much lower levels than in 2022 following the onset of the Russia–Ukraine war, which we believe stems from the market’s expectation that the disruption will prove temporary and potentially quick to resolve. The Henry Hub curve, by contrast, has remained relatively flat, reinforcing its position as a stable pricing anchor. Let us turn to the next page to expand on what this means longer term. Uncertainty around the disruption in the Middle East remains high, and we continue to hope for a swift resolution with limited lasting structural impact. However, even under that assumption, the supply outlook over the next few years has shifted. The industry has effectively lost two liquefaction trains in Qatar, representing approximately 12.8 mtpa of capacity, which could be offline for up to five years. We are also likely to see delays to major expansion projects in the region in both North Field in Qatar and Ruwais in the Emirates. As shown in the chart on the left, even if flows normalize into the summer, most, if not all, of the previously expected growth in 2026 will be absorbed. Directionally, 2026 is much tighter than previously forecasted, and now 2027 has become more structurally constrained, especially considering the record-low storage position and supply dynamics across Europe heading into the 2026 winter I just discussed, likely creating a similar scenario ahead of winter 2027—before eventually net supply growth resumes as new projects in the U.S. and smaller ones elsewhere commence operations and ramp up production the rest of this decade. We expect the market to return to a more well-supplied position as new supplies start fully offsetting volume losses and Qatari projects get back on track after that. So timing matters. But in most scenarios, the near-term buffer has been greatly reduced, while the broader trajectory after the next year or two remains relatively unchanged. The LNG market is still expected to grow to approximately 600 million tonnes by around 2030. As new supply comes online, we would expect that growth to help moderate prices. This would be particularly welcomed by price-sensitive markets that have been constrained in recent years by sustained higher prices. Importantly, demand growth continues to be driven by a diverse set of markets from established importers in Asia to emerging consumers in South and Southeast Asia who need to supplement rapidly depleting domestic fields, to continued demand support in Europe as the complete ban on Russian molecules has and continues to create a structural demand anchor for the LNG market. At Cheniere Energy, Inc., our focus remains consistent: providing reliable, flexible, long-term LNG supply to a broad and growing set of global markets and doing so through a mix of direct relationships that expand access while maintaining the credit profile in our customer portfolio required to support long-term investment. It is these strategic relationships that underpin not only our current business and infrastructure investments, but also our expansions. With over 35 long-term creditworthy counterparties, we remain resolute in our commitment to them and our differentiated track record of performance, which is recognized and appreciated by our customers, particularly in volatile market conditions like these. That differentiation on reliability is a significant commercial asset, and we are leveraging this as we engage with customers today, with a focus on commercializing the balance of CCL Train 4 now that SPL Train 7 is sufficiently commercialized. So while the disruption we are seeing today is significant and it is difficult to fully assess in real time, over the long term events like these tend to become relatively small inflections in a much broader, longer-term growth trajectory. From that perspective, the underlying need for reliable, long-term LNG supply and the agreements that enable it is only being reinforced. With that, I will turn the call over to Zach to review our financial results and guidance. Zach Davis: Thanks, Anatol, and good morning, everyone. I am pleased to be here today to discuss our financial results and improved outlook for the full year. Turn to slide 11. For the first quarter of 2026, we generated consolidated adjusted EBITDA of over $2.3 billion and distributable cash flow of approximately $1.7 billion. Compared to the first quarter of 2025, our 2026 results reflect higher volumes of LNG delivered thanks to the substantial completion of Trains 1 through 4 last year of Stage 3, higher contributions from optimization upstream and downstream of our facilities, and the one-time alternative fuel tax credit during the quarter. We recognized in income 6.46 TBtu of LNG produced from our facilities in the first quarter. While meaningfully higher than 2025, 2026 volumes were impacted by in-transit timing dynamics that favored the fourth quarter of 2025 and February 2026. Looking to the balance of 2026, it is likely the first quarter will be our lowest quarter of volume recognized this year. As asset production ramps, the remainder of the year is expected to benefit from the rest of Stage 3 coming online, including midscale Train 5 at the end of January and Train 6 expected to produce first LNG imminently. In addition, there are no major turnarounds planned this summer, and lower ambient temperature should benefit the fourth quarter, making the last quarter of the year likely our highest quarter of LNG produced and recognized in income. Additionally, for the first quarter, we generated a net loss of approximately $3.5 billion, which is primarily the result of the unrealized non-cash derivative impact predominantly related to our long-term IPM agreements and the mismatch of accounting methodology for the purchase of natural gas and the corresponding sale of LNG. The derivative accounting treatment, coupled with the long-term duration and international price basis of our IPM agreements, results in fluctuations in fair market value from period to period as LNG curves move, which you may remember similarly impacted our GAAP net income results in 2021 and 2022. The surge in international gas prices and increased volatility during the quarter drove the unrealized non-cash losses and our overall net loss for the quarter. Adjusting for these non-cash unrealized derivative losses and the associated impacts to income tax and noncontrolling interests, we generated positive adjusted net income of approximately $1 billion for the quarter. This adjusted net income figure is aligned with our EBITDA and DCF and more representative of our financial performance in the quarter. To be clear, as we deliver on our IPM agreements that are accounted for as derivatives or economic hedges that mitigate future cash flow volatility, we expect these non-cash unrealized mark-to-market losses to unwind over time and generate mark-to-market gains as we realize the intended and corresponding fixed liquefaction fees from these contracts that pass through the LNG market price exposure to our IPM counterparties. While IPM agreements may contribute to variability in our reported GAAP net income, those agreements most importantly provide stable long-term cash flows, similar to our SPAs, that help support our contracted infrastructure platform and cash flow visibility for decades to come. As Jack and Anatol noted, our business model is built to thrive regardless of market environment, and the same goes for our capital allocation plan. During the quarter, we deployed approximately $1.2 billion towards our capital allocation pillars of accretive growth funded with equity and cash flow, shareholder returns in the form of buybacks and dividends, and balance sheet management. In the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 2.7 million shares for over $500 million, highlighting the opportunistic nature of the program considering the movement of our share price over the quarter. Given the volatility in the shares year to date, our disciplined value-based repurchase plan is working as designed, and we continue to opportunistically deploy the remaining over $9 billion under our current authorization according to the framework which guides repurchase activity, working towards our current target of approximately 175 million shares outstanding around the end of the decade. For the first quarter, we declared a dividend of $0.555 per common share, representing a payout of over $116 million for common shareholders. We remain committed to growing our dividend by approximately 10% annually through the end of this decade. Shareholder returns achieved through the combination of our dividend and opportunistic share repurchase plan are a key value proposition for our investors, providing them with a stable and growing dividend and increased ownership in Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi over time, while maintaining the financial flexibility essential to our long-term capital allocation plan. Moving to the balance sheet, we repaid over $250 million of our indebtedness with cash on hand during the quarter, fully redeeming the remaining SPL 2026 notes and amortizing a portion of the SPL 2037 notes. Additionally, in March, we issued $1 billion of 2030 notes and $750 million of 2056 notes at CEI, making our inaugural 30-year issuance and extending our maturity stack into the second half of this century alongside a growing list of our long-term LNG contracts. With a portion of the proceeds, we prepaid the $550 million drawn on our Corpus Christi term loan while also canceling an additional $600 million of unused commitments. We continue to maintain substantial liquidity with approximately $1.8 billion in consolidated cash and billions of dollars of undrawn revolver and term loan capacity throughout the Cheniere Energy, Inc. complex. Also in the quarter, we continued to receive recognition from the credit rating agencies, as Moody’s upgraded its ratings of our unsecured notes at CEI and CCH to Baa2 and Baa1, respectively, each with a stable outlook. We are now high-BBB at both projects and mid-BBB or better at the unsecured corporate levels by all three credit rating agencies. During the quarter, we funded approximately $1 billion of growth capital across our business as we continue to progress the construction of Stage 3 and midscale 8 and 9, development of the SPL and CCL expansion projects, as well as our Gregory Power Plant to support incremental power needs at Corpus over time as the midscale trains are completed. Of the $1 billion of growth capex in the quarter, approximately $300 million was equity-funded and approximately $700 million was efficiently debt-funded as planned via our delayed-draw Corpus Christi term loan as well as from a portion of the proceeds from the recent CEI bond raise. We do expect to increase our spending on Train 7 at Sabine Pass later this year as we have budgeted for potential limited notices to proceed to Bechtel ahead of our expected FID early next year, which is why we are retaining cash at CQP by flexing the variable component of the CQP distribution this quarter. Looking ahead, we remain well positioned to fund our disciplined growth objectives comfortably within our cash flow forecast while retaining our strong investment-grade credit metrics and our significant financial flexibility for shareholder returns through cycles. Turn now to slide 12, where I will discuss our upwardly revised 2026 financial guidance and outlook for the year. Today, we are increasing the midpoint of our guidance ranges for full-year 2026 consolidated adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow by $500 million and $400 million, respectively, bringing expected consolidated adjusted EBITDA to $7.25 to $7.75 billion and distributable cash flow to $4.75 to $5.25 billion. We are maintaining our CQP distribution guidance for the year of $3.10 to $3.40 per common unit. These increases are attributed to a few key drivers, including an increased production forecast for the year, an improved margin outlook, and contributions from optimization activities already locked in year to date, both upstream and downstream of our facilities. As Jack mentioned, thanks to increased utilization of our existing trains as a result of continued debottlenecking and resiliency efforts related to feed gas composition variability, as well as accelerated timelines on the remaining trains at Stage 3, we are increasing our 2026 production forecast by approximately 1 million tonnes—to approximately 52 to 54 million tonnes for the year—unlocking incremental volumes available for CMI this year. With this increase and continued forward selling by our team over the quarter, we still forecast less than 1 million tonnes—or less than 50 TBtu—of unsold open volumes remaining in 2026. Therefore, we currently forecast that a $1 change in market margins would impact EBITDA by, again, less than $50 million for the full year. Despite having very little open exposure for the balance of the year, we are maintaining the $500 million guidance range, as results could still be impacted by a number of factors, particularly given the sustained volatility in the global energy markets, but also variability in our production forecast, the ramp-up and specific timing of substantial completion of Trains 6 and 7 at Stage 3, the timing of certain cargoes around the year-end, contributions from further optimization activities during the balance of the year, and the impact Henry Hub volatility can have on lifting margin. As we progress through the year and lock in some of these variables, we will look to tighten these ranges as we have done in years past. Our first-quarter results, coupled with our revised guidance ranges, once again underscore Cheniere Energy, Inc.’s ability to leverage our platform, respond to market signals, and unlock optimization opportunities throughout our business while still maintaining our highly contracted business model built upon a foundation of long-duration fixed-fee cash flows from creditworthy counterparties—our conviction in which has only been reinforced as we look forward to funding additional accretive brownfield growth at both Sabine and Corpus, while concurrently growing shareholder returns in the form of buybacks and dividends that can be relied on year after year. These dependable cash flows are essential to the over $50 billion natural gas infrastructure platform we have developed over the last decade plus, as well as our disciplined, all-of-the-above capital allocation framework, and the durable through-cycle value of this approach has only been enhanced in the wake of the current market environment. Looking ahead, we remain focused on maintaining safe and reliable operations to ensure we can continue reliably delivering flexible, secure LNG as well as meaningful long-term value to our stakeholders around the world for decades to come. That concludes our prepared remarks. Thank you for your time and your interest in Cheniere Energy, Inc. Operator, we are ready to open the line for questions. Operator: Thank you. If you are dialed in via the telephone and would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure that your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up before rejoining the queue. Again, you may press star 1 to ask a question. We will take our first from Jeremy Bryan Tonet with JPMorgan. Jeremy Bryan Tonet: Hi, good morning. Thanks for all the color today. I just wanted to expand a bit on some of the remarks. Anatol, I was just wondering, in the customer conversations at this point, given the disruptions in the Middle East, how you would describe the tone or appetite for U.S. LNG given the reliability and Cheniere Energy, Inc.’s track record there. And then at the same time, contrasting that to somewhat higher prices and how that impacts demand for LNG overall—how have those two factors flowed through conversations? Anatol Feygin: Thanks, Jeremy, good morning. We are in a very enviable position. As the plants run better and, as you see, we have some additional volume, and we only have these three dozen critical long-term counterparties, we are able to really focus on supporting these key relationships, and that is what we have been doing over the last couple of months. As you can imagine, the initial reaction by a number of these players is to ensure there is ample supply as this 7 million tonnes a month is replaced to keep the lights on in the short run. Our ability to support them is helping to broaden and deepen the relationships and is certainly a tailwind to a number of those engagements. In terms of the longer term, we think, just like COVID in 2020, when you look in the rearview mirror, that disruption is a small blip. It changed the dynamic by delaying what we were expecting by somewhere between 12 and 18 months, but the overall trajectory remained the same. We expect this issue—and hope that this issue—is similar. We are in a great position. We need to support our growth ambitions with relatively modest incremental commercial agreements, and clearly we have proven that this is a very affordable, reliable offering, and Cheniere Energy, Inc. is a great counterparty to help support those long-term ambitions by our customers. Jeremy Bryan Tonet: Got it. That makes sense. And then just want to turn to operations and execution. Could you expand a bit more on the Corpus expansion—seems to be tracking a bit ahead of expectations for timeline there—and at the same time being able to eke out a bit more capacity. What bottlenecks were you able to address, and what more could be possible? Jack A. Fusco: Thank you, Jeremy. As I said in my prepared remarks, I am extremely pleased with what we have been able to do in operations and production engineering. At Corpus, not only have the trains been coming in significantly ahead of the guaranteed schedule from Bechtel, but our ramp-up has been higher and steadier. The team has really learned how to make those smaller midscale trains, and that is producing some very good quantities for us. I would expect those learnings to continue to work their way through 6, 7, 8, and 9 at a minimum. The other thing that has been helpful is we figured out a couple of different operational modes to handle variability of feed gas at both Sabine Pass and at Corpus Christi. We have worked with some good suppliers of solvents to come up with creative ways to use solvents to mitigate the need for defrost. There are a hundred different things in our toolkit right now that we use every single day, and they all seem to be adding up to meaningful amounts of additional production. That is what you are seeing from us in this raise of guidance. Zach Davis: And then, on the growth and the expansions, just to put into perspective, right now on the whiteboard is SPL Train 7. You can tell from the CQP distribution guidance and where we ended up with Q1, we are reserving cash as we are in good shape to start LNTPs later this year and be in a position, with a permit, to FID that project early next year. In terms of the Corpus expansion, that is a bit behind just because we did not file for the permit until after we officially announced FID and NTP on Trains 8 and 9. But that is in good shape and tracking to receive a permit, let us say, mid to late next year. In the context of the previous question to Anatol, we can be very disciplined on the SPAs considering we have approximately 10 million tonnes of SPAs today that have not been used yet to underpin an FID project. That is more than enough to cover the SPL Train 7 project plus debottlenecking, and we are in good shape on even the first train of the first phase of a Corpus expansion. So we can stay quite disciplined not just on how we grow and the parameters that we hold ourselves to—which are leaps and bounds beyond anyone else in the industry, especially in North America—and then we can be disciplined on the SPAs and eventually move forward and create value for the company long term. Operator: We will take our next question from Spiro Michael Dounis with Citi. Spiro Michael Dounis: Thanks, operator. Good morning, everybody. Picking up on contracting, there seems to be some expectation that we will see a wave of contracting for U.S.-sourced LNG. Understand your point that a lot of the focus so far has been filling near-term supply, but is the market wrong in expecting a contracting wave? And based on your discussions, would you be surprised if Corpus IV Phase 1 is not underwritten with SPAs by year-end? Anatol Feygin: Thanks, Spiro. I think your overall thesis is correct. There are not that many options, and we keep demonstrating that this is a great place to source volumes. Customers lifting from us FOB at today’s NYMEX economics are lifting roughly at $6/MMBtu with the reliability and flexibility that we have demonstrated over a decade. If not now, if not us, whom and when? That said, this is a very competitive market. There are some credible projects moving towards FID and a lot of projects that have FID that have spare capacity yet to be placed. We are fortunate in that we will continue to not participate in that commoditized race. We will pick and choose with whom we want to continue to partner. You will continue to see from us the same thing you have seen for the last four or five years, which is additional volumes with existing customers. We have made a significant dent into Corpus Train 4, and whether it is by year-end or by the time we are ready to FID, we think we will be in a very good commercial position to support that. Spiro Michael Dounis: Thanks. And on LNG prices, as you think about Europe needing to refill storage and the aggressive ramp in cargoes that needs to happen, perhaps extending into 2027, are you surprised prices have not been stronger? When would that play out in the curve? Beyond ’27/’28, do you think the curve appropriately reflects lingering supply issues? Anatol Feygin: We are astounded that prices are where they are—that prices in Europe and Asia are backwardated into the winter. U.S. is up 50% into the mid-$4s in the winter, but the world gas market is strangely backwardated. Europe is in a very difficult position with, adjusted for flows, record-low storage, banning Russian gas, and the Indian subcontinent—the price-sensitive market—has already been turned off. We think we will be in an environment in the third and fourth quarters where there is very aggressive competition for volumes globally. China has done an excellent job of using its storage and domestic production to be a relief valve again. The current situation is masked by the shoulder period, and the physical disruption of deliveries from the Strait being closed really only started to be felt a month ago. We are very constructive on where prices will go into the second half of the year, and that likely reverberates into 2027, which again will highlight how attractive the long-term SPA from Cheniere Energy, Inc. is to those that can meet Zach’s stringent credit requirements. Operator: Our next question comes from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bank of America. Jean Ann Salisbury: Hi, good morning. You have suggested in the past that after Sabine Pass 7 and Corpus 4, in the blue-sky growth case, future trains beyond 75 mtpa would be more likely to be at Corpus. Can you talk about the tradeoffs between your two sites for expansion, both for the potentially next two trains—Sabine Pass 7 and Corpus 4—and then beyond that? Jack A. Fusco: Hi, Jean Ann. Corpus has been blessed with another 500 acres of basically untouched land. We bought that land from the old Sherwin Alumina site. We have been working on that property to make sure that it is environmentally ready to go. It has great access to the water. It has a power plant that sits literally right next to it, which is our Gregory Power Plant that we own and control. It is close to the Permian—it is a 40-mile straw to our pipeline system and to Agua Dulce for gas supply. It just has a lot of benefits that make it a compelling place to continue to grow. At Sabine, while we still have property, a lot of it is wetlands that we would have to mitigate appropriately, which adds cost, and there are a few other nuances. On the positive side, we have three berths already at Sabine. So it is not out of the question, but I do think additional growth after the first phases will probably happen at Corpus prior to Sabine—just my gut—and that is way down the road from where we are today. Operator: We will take our next question from Jason Gabelman with TD Cowen. Jason Gabelman: Thanks for taking my questions. First, on the 2026 EBITDA guidance, you typically are a bit more conservative early in the year ahead of summer maintenance. Given that it seems you are guiding to lower maintenance this year, is there a bit less conservatism baked into the plan at this point? And then my follow-up is on what you are seeing across the world from governments in response to higher global gas prices—it is the second period of high and very volatile prices in the past five years—have you seen any reaction, especially from Asian countries, to pivot more toward long-term planning for coal and renewable power over gas? Zach Davis: I hear a lot of analysts say we are often conservative early in the year, but we do not overpromise. Our initial guidance is consistent with how we set budgets and targets. The reason we were able to raise this time is several things: production coming through—not just with midscale trains coming online quicker and ramping up quicker thanks to teamwork with Bechtel handing over—but also all the resiliency work since last year boosting production. That adds roughly $400 million at margins in the $9 to $10 range. Then margins are up since the last call on less than a million tonnes—that adds about $100 million. Optimization: we do not bake in optimization that has not been locked in yet; we were able to add another $100 million that is already locked. Henry Hub has come down since February a bit for the rest of the year, which offset some of that and is why we raised by $500 million. We feel good about the range, but there are moving parts: a $0.50 move in Henry Hub is about a $100 million swing; if Trains 6 and 7 timing moves by half a month, that is roughly a $50 million swing; about $50 million or less for every $1 move on CMI margins; overall LNG production variability adds plus or minus $100 million for 10 TBtu; and O&M is usually plus or minus $20 million. Add it up, and that is why we stick to a $500 million range. We prefer to overperform. Anatol Feygin: On your question about pivoting away from gas, we really have not seen that yet. It is fairly early in this disruption, and the market initially thought the resolution would be quick. We are skeptical it normalizes in weeks; we see months. After the Ukraine war, you did see a couple of governments shift, but we are not seeing that now. Entities that can transact on a long-term basis are seeing delivered gas prices from us that are well within, if not below, their planning ranges. Those that are creditworthy and capable to transact long-term and are not whipped around by spot prices have no reason to reconsider. In the grand scheme, LNG is only about 3% of primary energy. It is not a solution for the world; it is an elegant way to complement reliability, intermittency, and emissions. We are optimistic this will be in the rearview mirror soon, and the world will continue to grow to the 700+ million tonne market we expect in 2040. Operator: Our next question comes from Alexander Bidwell with Research and Advisory. Alexander Bidwell: Good morning. Appreciate the time. Looking at future expansions at Corpus and SPL, we have been seeing a ramp in labor competition across various projects in the U.S. Gulf. Do you expect that to have a knock-on impact in terms of EPC costs for the future Sabine and Corpus expansions? Jack A. Fusco: I think the timing of our FIDs will work very well with Bechtel’s current schedule and their growth projections, and we have not seen an issue with any of our midscale workforce—about 5 thousand workers there. So I do not see a problem. Zach Davis: There is a nice cadence with midscale—completing Stage 3 this year, then 8 and 9, and then the ramp-up starting next year and into 2028–2029 with Sabine 7, and then after that the ramp-up with CCL 4. The cycle is in our favor and slightly off from many projects that have FIDed recently or are desperate to FID right now. Alexander Bidwell: Thank you. And as a follow-up on midscale train performance, can you give a sense of the differences in OpEx and maintenance thus far versus your traditional large-scale trains? Jack A. Fusco: It is a little too soon. They have been roughly equal, maybe a little higher on the midscale as we continue to debottleneck. It is hard to segment sustainable O&M versus debottlenecking activities we are doing to get more output. Give us a bit more time with operations under our belt and we will try to provide more transparency. Zach Davis: One note: the midscale trains require more power, so you will see that incrementally in cost of goods sold. As we scale, it will be straightforward and consistent with the other 15 million tonnes at Corpus. With more scale beyond just five trains, they will get relatively close—it will just be in different buckets to an extent, as midscale requires more power. Operator: We will take our next question from Manav Gupta with UBS. Manav Gupta: Good morning. You are one of the few midstream companies that, besides dividends, also rewards shareholders with buybacks. Given the current environment and the amount of free cash you are generating, how are you thinking about stock buybacks here? Zach Davis: Today, we feel very good about buybacks. Our buyback is meant to be opportunistic and disciplined. Our stock basically varied from sub-$200 to $300 in Q1, and we bought over $500 million at about $202—showing discipline and opportunism. We bought back over $1 billion in Q3 and Q4 last year, but that is because we bought less than $700 million in the first half and rolled over allocations. Deployment may be bumpy quarter to quarter; the allocation and cash reserved for buybacks is not. That is very steady and why we committed to a $10 billion buyback through the rest of this decade. Also look at our payout ratio—dividend plus buyback versus DCF—basically around 50–60% a year, the high end of peers. We are basically the only one doing buybacks to this extent. As DCF grows, there is more cash for buybacks. We are budgeting to FID SPL 7 early next year and a first phase of Corpus by mid to late next year as well. With that cash flow reserved and still committing to $10 billion, you should expect buybacks to continue to compound quarter after quarter. If there is even a month delay in FIDs, that means more free cash flow for buybacks in the near term. Operator: We will take our last question from Burke Charles Sansiviero with Wolfe Research. Burke Charles Sansiviero: Thanks for the time. Understood you are not baking in any optimization that has not been locked in to the updated guide. Could you provide any additional color on what potential upside optimization could look like for the balance of the year, all else equal? Zach Davis: It can come from anything across the integrated platform. We have a different edge versus anyone else in LNG having the pipeline network we do, the two facilities, and then not just CMI handling open capacity but also our DES contracts and our IPM contracts. That scale gives us a different level of ability to optimize, and we do expect more optimization through the rest of the year. In the past quarter, including Winter Storm Fern, we were able to provide some of our gas back into the U.S. gas market as it was needed. There were also spikes in shipping and LNG prices after the war broke out in late February where we were able to provide ships and LNG to customers that needed them. Those are things we could not have forecasted even the same week they occurred. Having the scale and integrated platform gives us an edge. In the past three months, we bought cheaper gas upstream of our facilities as part of optimization upstream of Sabine and Corpus. We were able to source third-party cargoes—over 30 TBtu—freeing up shipping and optimizing certain cargoes as well. More likely to come. If there is one conservative aspect of guidance, it is that we do not bake in any more of that in the current roughly $7.5 billion EBITDA guidance. Anatol Feygin: As the platform continues to expand and these trains come on, additional DES and IPM contracts come with additional shipping that is paid for by those contracts. We have the highest number of vessels we have ever had in our portfolio today, and that will continue to grow—again paid for by long-term commitments—but giving us the opportunity to take advantage of volatility. Our crystal ball is not good enough to tell you what opportunity will be here next week, much less over the second half of this year. Burke Charles Sansiviero: Understood. Have you been able to opportunistically hedge some of your open exposure into 2027 a little earlier than normal as margins improved? Zach Davis: We do use our financial capacity for the prompt year and sometimes the year after. We usually try not to financially hedge too far out considering how much volatility there could be and considering we are in a shoulder season heading into Asia cooling and then European storage filling. Financially hedging is not the priority for 2027. Since the last call, however, we have sold over 1 million tonnes of open capacity in 2027. Margins were under $4 as of the call in February and now are closer to $6 to $7. When we see that and have willing buyers, we lock it in. We have already made a dent on the open capacity next year, which strengthens cash flow visibility and, obviously, cash in the coffers for things like buybacks. Operator: That concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over for any additional or closing remarks. Jack A. Fusco: Hi, this is Jack. I just want to thank you all again for your support of Cheniere Energy, Inc. Operator: This concludes today’s call. Thank you again for your participation. You may now disconnect, and have a great day.