Cheniere Energy sees the market remaining short of LNG for the next four years as it moves to bump up its own production for the longer term.
Speaking on a results call, executive vice president and chief commercial officer Anatol Feygin said the US producer expects the market to tighten this year.
That is due to what he described as the historically low volume of final investment decisions taken between 2015 and 2018, and despite the "substantial growth" in global demand forecast.
But he said: "We now estimate that this tight market could extend well through 2025," which is pushing buyers towards taking long-term supply contracts.
In October, Cheniere Marketing announced two new free-on-board, 13-year LNG sales for which both buyers are likely to require shipping.
It agreed to sell 0.9 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) to Chinese trader ENN LNG (Singapore) from July 2022 and 0.8 mtpa to Glencore from April 2023.
Landmark year
Feygin said 2022 is set to be a landmark year for Cheniere, which is a major charterer of LNG carriers, when it will have all its nine production trains running.
The company is due to start producing the first commissioning cargoes from the last of these — Train 6 at its Sabine Pass LNG facility in Louisiana — towards the end of 2021, and it moves into service early next year.
Cheniere, which describes itself as the world's second-largest producer of LNG, is closing in on greenlighting the planned Stage 3, 11.5-mtpa expansion at its Corpus Christi facility in Texas.
President and chief executive Jack Fusco said a further 3 mtpa of sales are needed to sanction this project.
But answering questions, senior vice president and chief financial officer Zach Davis said the company has bought up adjoining land where it could add 20 million tonnes per annum of production capacity.
Bullish outlook
During its call, Cheniere, which will add cargo emission tags to its shipments from next year, did not mention the global COP26 talks in Glasgow for the world to transition away from fossil fuels.
"On the long-term side, LNG market fundamentals are as constructive for long-term contracting and the construction of new liquefaction capacity as I've seen at any point since I joined Cheniere," Fusco said.
"We are in the midst of an exciting and pivotal time in the global LNG market as the world continues its transition to a cleaner energy mix."
Feygin said the company is "quite sanguine" about the critical role of LNG and natural gas in the energy market.
He described them "both as a destination fuel as well as a key enabler in the global transition to lower-carbon energy sources".
Cheniere reported a 134% increase in its third-quarter net loss, which grew to $1.1m from $463,000 in the same period of 2020.
Revenue soared almost 120% to $3.2m from $1.5m a year earlier.
The company nearly tripled the number of LNG cargoes it exported in the three months to 141 — a quarterly record.
