LNG

The US was taking hurricane protection measures for July 7 and July 8 as the first major storm of the season, Hurricane Beryl, blew past Jamaica and Mexico and entered the Gulf of Mexico as a severe Tropical Storm headed for Texas and Louisiana, the centres of oil and gas and LNG and feed-gas supplies.

July 4 (LNGJ) - A US LNG cargo was heading for the UK with the National Balancing Point market price at around the equivalent of $9.700 per million British thermal units.

   The “Rioja Knutsen” with 176,300 cubic metres of capacity is scheduled to discharge a US LNG shipment on July 11 at the South Hook terminal at the Welsh port of Milford Haven, according to shipping data. The cargo was lifted on June 27 from the Sabine Pass plant in Louisiana.

Mexico has taken hurricane protection measures through July 7 as the first major storm of the season Hurricane Beryl blew past Jamaica towards Mexico, leading to the closure of airports at Cancún and elsewhere and putting the oil and gas industry on watch in the Gulf of Mexico where most of the US LNG is produced.

June 18 (LNGJ) - Cheniere Energy, the largest US LNG producer with the Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi plants and their expansion projects, has received board approval for an increase in its share repurchase authorisation by an additional $4 billion through 2027, and for a plan to increase its quarterly dividend by 15 percent to $2.00 per common share annualised, commencing with the third quarter 2024.

    Cheniere noted that the capital allocation plan started in 2022 to enable investment in growth projects while returning capital to shareholders. Share repurchases allow companies to re-invest in themselves while boosting the value of the shares as there are fewer outstanding. “Cheniere has funded accretive brownfield growth, bringing the Corpus Christi Stage 3 project to over 60 percent completion, repurchased 10 percent of shares outstanding while growing its dividend by over 30 percent,” Cheniere said.

Cheniere Energy, the largest US liquefied natural gas exporter, shipped 166 LNG cargoes in the first quarter of 2024, though net profits were hit be unfavourable changes to the fair value of derivatives.

The US Department of Energy issued its March 2024 liquefied natural gas and pipelines export and import data with Turkey as the leading destination for LNG shipments while the leadership in highest prices remained with the Calcasieu Pass plant in Louisiana.

Three leading US-based liquefied natural exporters, project developers and infrastructure owners, Cheniere Energy, Kosmos Energy and New Fortress Energy are testing the debt market’s appetite for LNG offerings in the form of senior notes totalling up to $2 billion.

Cheniere, the owner of the Sabine Pass export plant and the Corpus Christi facility in Texas and their expansion projects, intends to use the proceeds from the offering to retire all or a portion of the approximately $1.5 billion outstanding aggregate principal amount of Cheniere Corpus Christi Holdings senior secured notes due in 2025.

The Cheniere 2034 Notes will rank “pari passu”, or on an equal footing, in right of payment with existing senior notes at Cheniere, including the senior notes due 2028.

Kosmos Energy, which is based in Dallas, Texas, announced an offering of $300 million of convertible senior notes due 2030 by way of a private placement.

Kosmos is an exploration and production company with assets in the Atlantic Margin, including a stake in the floating LNG ventures being developed offshore West Africa in partnership with UK major BP and the nations of Senegal and Mauritania.

Africa to GoM

The company is also active in other projects, including offshore Ghana and Equatorial Guinea in West Africa and in the Gulf of Mexico.

Kosmos said it intended to grant the initial purchasers an option to purchase up to an additional $45M aggregate principal amount of notes, for settlement within a 13-day period beginning on, and including, the date on which the notes were first issued.

“The notes will be senior, unsecured obligations of the company and will rank “pari passu” with the company’s existing senior notes and the revolving credit facility,” said Kosmos.

Kosmos said it intended to use the net proceeds from the sale of the notes to repay a portion of outstanding indebtedness under the company’s commercial debt facility and pay the cost of capped call transactions as well as fees and expenses related to the offering.

“The capped call transactions are expected generally to reduce potential dilution to the company’s common stock upon any conversion of the notes and/or offset any cash payments the company is required to make in excess of the principal amount of converted notes,” Kosmos explained.

New Fortress

The third offering came from New York-based New Fortress Energy (NFE) and involved a cash tender for up to $250M of senior secured 6.750-percent notes due in 2025.

NFE activities span Gulf of Mexico LNG production, imports of cargoes to terminals in Brazil linked to gas-fired power and power assets in the US territory of Puerto Rico.

“The tender offer is subject to customary conditions, including, among others, that the offeror receive gross proceeds of at least $500M from a debt financing on terms and conditions acceptable to the offeror,” said NFE.

NFE retained Morgan Stanley & Co to serve as the sole dealer manager for the tender offer.

The official start of the Atlantic Hurricane season is still three months away but forecasters say it’s never too early to start preparing for what may or may not come in 2024, especially along the Gulf Coast of Texas and Louisiana.

Cheniere Energy, the largest US LNG exporter from two plants at Sabine Pass in Louisiana and Corpus Christi in Texas, shipped 637 cargoes last year and the company's registered annual net profits jumped more than six-fold due to very positive changes in the derivatives portfolio, though Cheniere forecasts showed that revenue-based earnings were likely heading for a decline in the coming year.

Cheniere Energy Inc., the largest US liquefied natural gas exporter and operator of the Corpus Christi plant in Texas and Sabine Pass in Louisiana and with both being expanded, has been approved for up-listing to the full New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) from the NYSE American list.