LNG exporter Cheniere makes small piece of history amid profitable year

Sergio Chapa June 13, 2019 Updated: June 13, 2019 12 p.m.   houstonchronicle.com

Houston liquefied natural gas company Cheniere Energy made a small piece of history amid a profitable year in 2018.

A tanker named the Maria Energy left the company’s Corpus Christi facility on Dec. 11 carrying the first LNG export shipment from Texas soil.

The development of the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas and the Permian Basin of West Texas created a surplus of natural gas that has found its way onto global markets through more than 500 shipments sent out through Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG export terminal in Louisiana over the past three years.

But with a second production unit in the startup process and a third under construction, Corpus Christi LNG is expected to come into its own. The Maria Energy delivered its cargo in Greece but since then, Corpus Christi LNG has sent at least 11 more shipments to destinations in France, India, Italy, Jamaica, The Netherlands, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

After enduring years of losses while its capital-intensive facilities were being built, Cheniere has finally emerged as a profitable company. The LNG exporter reporting making $471 million of net income on $8 billion of revenue in 2018, which represented a dramatic improvement over the $393 million loss on $5.6 billion of revenue in 2017.

Those earnings allowed Cheniere to take second place on the Chronicle 100. A similar performance by Cheniere Energy Partners, a publicly traded subsidiary that oversees the company’s Sabine Pass facility and a related pipeline, was ranked as third place on the list.

Looking ahead, Cheniere has momentum on its side. The company signed six long-term supply agreements in 2018 to deliver nearly 7.5 million metric tons of LNG per year to customers in destinations such as China, Malaysia, Poland and Taiwan.

Cheniere is also moving forward with plans to build a sixth production unit at the company’s Sabine Pass LNG export terminal as well as adding nine mid-sized production units at its Corpus Christ facility