Earnings call transcript: Venture Global’s Q2 2025 results show strong growth

Venture Global Inc. reported its second-quarter 2025 earnings, revealing a substantial increase in revenue and operational income compared to the previous year. The company’s earnings per share (EPS) fell short of expectations, with a notable 70.83% miss. Despite this, Venture Global’s stock surged by 9.52% in pre-market trading, reflecting investor optimism about its future prospects and strategic initiatives. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a Fair Value that suggests current overvaluation, with the stock trading at an EV/EBITDA multiple of 22.8x.

Key Takeaways

• Venture Global’s Q2 2025 revenue rose significantly to $3.1 billion, up $2 billion from Q2 2024.
• The company missed EPS expectations, reporting $0.14 versus a forecast of $0.48.
• Pre-market trading saw the stock rise by 9.52%, suggesting positive investor sentiment.
• Venture Global took a final investment decision on CP2 Phase One, boosting its production capacity.
• The company is positioning itself as the largest North American LNG producer.

Company Performance

Venture Global demonstrated robust performance in Q2 2025, with revenue climbing to $3.1 billion, a significant increase from the previous year’s $1.1 billion. The company’s income from operations also saw a substantial rise, reaching $1 billion, up $675 million from Q2 2024. This growth is attributed to increased LNG exports and strategic investments in new production capacities.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $3.1 billion, up from $1.1 billion in Q2 2024
• Earnings per share: $0.14, compared to a forecast of $0.48
• Net Income: $368 million, an increase of $65 million year-over-year
• Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA: $1.4 billion, up 217% from Q2 2024

Earnings vs. Forecast

Venture Global’s EPS of $0.14 was significantly below the forecasted $0.48, resulting in a 70.83% miss. This discrepancy highlights challenges in meeting analyst expectations, although the company’s substantial revenue growth may mitigate some concerns.

Market Reaction

Despite the EPS miss, Venture Global’s stock experienced a notable increase in pre-market trading, climbing 9.52% to $13.97. This movement suggests that investors are optimistic about the company’s long-term growth prospects, driven by its strategic initiatives and strong revenue performance.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking forward, Venture Global projects its 2025 Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA to be between $6.4 billion and $6.8 billion. The company is also focusing on expanding its LNG production capacity, with a goal to have 100 MTPA online or under construction by 2030. This strategic focus is expected to enhance its competitive position in the global LNG market. InvestingPro analysis indicates significant growth potential, with analysts forecasting 185% revenue growth for FY2025, though the company faces challenges with cash burn and high debt levels. For detailed insights into Venture Global’s growth prospects and risks, investors can access the comprehensive Pro Research Report, available exclusively to InvestingPro subscribers.

Executive Commentary

CEO Mike Sable emphasized the company’s role in meeting global energy demands, stating, "The world needs more abundant, low-cost energy, and our company looks forward to playing a leading role in meeting that demand for years to come." He also highlighted the strong demand environment, describing it as "the best we’ve seen in ten years."

Risks and Challenges

• Potential cost increases could impact future profitability.
• Supply chain disruptions may affect project timelines and costs.
• Market saturation in the LNG sector could pressure prices.
• Geopolitical tensions may influence global LNG demand and supply chains.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the resolution of arbitration with Shell, to which the company responded positively. Questions also focused on the company’s gas supply security and future contracting plans, with Venture Global expressing confidence in its long pipeline interconnects and the potential for additional long-term contracts.

Full transcript - Venture Global Inc (VG) Q2 2025:

Conference Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Venture Global Inc. Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference call over to Ben Nolan, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Venture Global Inc. Second quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. I’m joined this morning by Mike Sable, Venture Global’s CEO, Executive Co Chairman and Founder Jack Baer, our CFO and other members of Venture Global’s senior management team. 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.

I encourage you to refer to the disclaimers in our earnings presentation, which is available on the Investors section of our website. Additionally, we may include references to certain non GAAP metrics, such as consolidated adjusted EBITDA. A reconciliation of these metrics to the most relevant GAAP measures can be found in the appendix of the earnings presentation posted on our website. Finally, the guidance in this presentation is only effective as of today. In general, we will not update guidance until the following quarter and will not update or affirm guidance other than through broadly disseminated public disclosure.

I’ll now turn the call over to Mike Sable. Thank you, Ben. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are pleased to share our second quarter twenty twenty five results and update our guidance for 2025, which we believe will be a strong year for Venture Global. I will begin the call with an overview of our second quarter twenty twenty five key accomplishments and results before shifting to our LNG projects individually.

I’ll then make some remarks on the LNG industry broadly before turning over the call to Jack, who will provide a more detailed review of our financial results and updated guidance for fiscal year twenty twenty five. Following all prepared remarks, we will open the call to Q and A. Turning to Page five of the presentation. We are pleased to highlight that the past several months have been especially productive for Venture Global. First, we took our final investment decision, or FID, on Phase one of our CP2 project, which was the single largest stand alone project financing ever.

And as we’ll discuss more in a moment, our team is fully deployed and working to safely build our third large scale LNG production facility. Importantly, we took FID without issuing incremental equity and retaining 100% ownership in the project. Secondly, I’m happy to say that the team here delivered on the commitment I made last quarter to sign multiple long term LNG sales and purchase agreements or FPAs in coming quarters. In July, we signed two new twenty year contracts, one with Petronas and one with Eni, and expanded our long term sales to CEPI in Germany, increasing the total exported volumes under that contract of 3.75 NTPA. We expect our long term contracting activity to continue through the remainder of this year.

And finally, on the capital front, in addition to the $15,100,000,000 of financing we completed as part of the CP2 FID, we also raised $6,500,000,000 in new bonds to refinance construction term debt at Plaquemines. Adding to these notable milestones, Venture Global shipped a record 89 cargoes in the 2025, which is at the top of the guidance range as we continued the production ramp up at Plaquemines. This ramp up in combination with stable output from Capsule Pass enabled us to generate $3,100,000,000 of revenue, dollars 1,000,000,000 in income from operations, net income attributable to common shareholders of $368,000,000 and $1,400,000,000 of consolidated adjusted EBITDA, representing increases of 180%, 186%, 21217%, respectively, compared to the 2024. Once again, this impressive financial performance and the growth in LNG production are attributable to consistent execution and operational excellence by the Venture Global team. As we noted last quarter, changes in natural gas prices, both domestic and international, could impact our consolidated adjusted EBITDA guidance.

While both domestic and international gas prices have fluctuated since our last report, we have continued to lock in future cargo sales and reduce our exposure to pricing variability for the year. As a result, looking ahead to the remainder of 2025, we are maintaining our guidance for $6,400,000,000 to $6,800,000,000 of consolidated adjusted EBITDA for 2025, which reflects a $6 to $7 per MMBtu fixed liquefaction fee range for available cargoes, which is consistent with recent contracting in current and JKM forward price expectations. We will continue to update our guidance each quarter to reflect shift in market forwards, especially during the commissioning phases of our projects. Moving to Slide six. Following the final investment decision of CP2 Phase one, we thought it would be interesting to take a look at how far Venture Global has come in a short time.

Six years ago, this month, we took FID on our first facility, Yakshi Pass. Now based on our three projects in operation, exporting or under construction, totaling approximately 67 NTPA, we would be the largest LNG producer in North America and the second largest in the world and with 46,500,000,000 of assets as of June 30. We have an average remaining contract duration of nineteen years now relative to nameplate capacity, and we expect to have 17 MTPA of excess production capacity from our first three facilities before including brownfield expansions. And we believe we are on track to meet our goal of 100,000,000 tons or more production online or under construction by 02/1930. As I mentioned, but I think it’s worth reiterating, we have not needed to sell any equity interest in either Plaquemines or CP2 to support our financings and retain 100% ownership with our shareholders in both projects.

Our facilities will significantly improve The US balance of trade with potentially more than $1,000,000,000,000 of export value to The United States over coming decades. I’m also extremely proud to continue our industry leading safety record as Venture Global’s top priority is making sure that our hardworking people make it home safely each day. Lastly, Venture Global is continuing to support thousands of jobs in Louisiana and across the country, making a positive impact on the communities in which we operate. Turn to Page eight, and we’ll dive a little deeper into the projects. As you know, we announced the FID for CPT Phase one on July 28.

Phase one has a nameplate capacity of 14.4 MTPA, but following the improvements we have made as a result of our ongoing optimization efforts, we believe the peak run rate production level of Phase one should be closer to 20 MTPA, including Phase two, which we expect the FID in 2026. The 36 factory built liquefaction trains from both phases should be capable of production of 28 MTPA once completed and commissioned. We expect first LNG before the 2027 and continue to estimate more than five fifty cargoes will be exported during the construction and commissioning of the project’s two phases. On June 3, our team fully mobilized and started site work at CP2 following final approval and notices to proceed from FERC as well as our receipt of the conditional non FDA export authorization from the U. S.

Department of Energy. There are now over 1,200 people and more than 500 major pieces of construction equipment on-site. Fee on-site activities include early site preparation, logistics, establishing roads, installing silt fencing, dewatering and drainage, cut and fill soil stabilization, and establishing pile test pads. Key accomplishments including the place including the placement of over 13,000 loads of soil in aggregate, the placement and consumption of over 26,000 tons of cement, the dredging of over 650,000 cubic yards, and the clearing of over 700 acres, including 100% silt fencing. Lastly, we have begun full mobilization, including crane delivery and erection for the storm surge wall construction and the tank construction.

Tank one, floral stabilization, final grade, and test pilot program is now complete and transferred over for construction. Of course, all of this work is being executed in parallel with our off procurement and fabrication activities. In particular, I’d highlight that Baker Hughes has completed the first two liquefaction trains, which are currently being stored at its fabrication facility in Italy. Incidentally, we have included a number of pictures in the appendix showing site progress, equipment under construction, and a number of long lead time items like gas turbines and pipes that have already been delivered and are in storage awaiting construction. The final investment decision of phase one was made possible by the support of 29 banks, spending $15,100,000,000 including the refinancing of the $3,000,000,000 pre FID bridge loan we discussed on the last call.

We appreciate the support of our lending partners, and I’m happy to report the project financing was nearly three times oversubscribed despite already being the largest stand alone project financing in history. With financing in place, a solid start to both on-site work and on the construction of our numerous project components, the project is progressing smoothly, and we believe our early preparation will enable CP2 to potentially reach first LNG production on pace with or even faster than our first two projects. Commercially, we signed two new twenty year offtake agreements last month with Petronas and Eni, respectively, and expanded our sales commitments under an existing FPA with CEPI, increasing their total LNG volumes to 3.75 mcpa of LNG. Importantly, Eni’s two mcpa contract with CPQ was its first ever long term offtake agreements with a U. S.

LNG producer. Collectively, these three new commitments bring the total contracted volume for CP2 up to 13.5 MTPA. At this point, we are contracting for Phase two, which has 5.6 mtpa of nameplate capacity with expected peak production capacity of about eight mtpa. Following several additional offtake agreements, we anticipate Phase two FID at some point next year, funded by internally generated cash flow and project financing similar to what we executed for Phase one. Next, I’d like to focus on Taxi Pass, which is covered by Page nine of the presentation.

During the 2025, Capshu Pass was able to export 38 cargoes and realized a weighted average fixed liquefaction fee of $2.66 per MMBtu in the second quarter. The cargoes were a blend of commissioning cargoes sold prior to 04/15/2025 COD date and cargoes sold under our long term FPAs. The lenders’ reliability test was completed in May and production levels have stabilized. For the 2025, based on liquefaction fees achieved from cargoes sold on a forward basis to date, we anticipate capturing a weighted average liquefaction fee of $1.95 per MMBtu across all forward sold Capsule Pass production, which reflects contracted sales under our long term FTAs plus a small number of excess cargoes. Including the 72 cargoes exported from the facility in the first half, we now anticipate exporting between one hundred and forty four and one hundred and forty nine cargoes by the end of the year, a single cargo decrease in cargoes from our previously reported range due to minor maintenance scheduled for Q3.

On August 4, PAPTCU Pass received approval from the Department of Energy to export an additional 0.4 MTPA to non FTA countries, bringing total DOE export approval for the project to 12.4 MTPA. Moving on to Plaquemines and flipping to Page 10 in the presentation, construction and commissioning continues to progress nicely for Phases one and two. Since the start of the 2025, the Venture Global team added six safe start ups of liquefaction trains, bringing the total to 28 trains now in operation with eight more scheduled over the next month. The continued progress enabled Plaquemines to export 51 commissioning cargoes during the second quarter, surpassing the high end of our previously projected range by one cargo. The facility realized a weighted average fixed liquefaction fee of $7.09 per MMBtu on these cargoes.

As we have discussed in prior reports, Plaquemines is engineered, permitted, procured, and installed approximately 400 megawatts of temporary power at the facility. This proactive measure has enabled Plaquemines to mitigate contractor delays, especially with respect to the power island and continue progressing conditioning and startup activities. We expect to be able to transition from these temporary power units to our permanent power island capacity in the 2025. Including the 80 cargoes exported from Plaquemines in the first half of the year, we now anticipate the facility exporting between two twenty seven and two forty cargoes by the end of the year, which represents a fixed cargo increase to the lower end and a one cargo increase to the high end of our previously reported range. For the second half of the year, Blackmans has contracted 102 or 64% of the remaining cargoes, capturing a weighted average fixed to production fee of $7.04 per MMBtu on those contracted cargoes.

Collectively across Capshi Pass and Plaquemines, we contracted 59 more cargoes for export in the 2025 since our prior report and have contracted a 198 of a potential three twenty six cargoes or roughly 74% of our total Q3 to Q4 twenty twenty five production. We believe this strategy allows us to derisk our LNG production and reduce sensitivity to movement in market prices. Additionally, we have added to the number of cargoes sold for 2026 with a total of 57 commissioning cargoes booked. For the first two quarters of next year, we have 34 cargoes or 19% of the potential cargoes now contracted with a weighted average fixed liquefaction fee of $5.41 per MMBtu. Turning to Page 12.

In LNG industry broadly, we remain optimistic on the outlook for both growth of the global LNG market and continued stability of LNG prices. As you see on the left, the forward curve reflects the market’s expectation for largely stable pricing of LNG in both Asia and Europe, driving healthy spreads above the Henry Hub. Flipping to Page 13, we also have confidence that LNG markets will continue to grow and prices should remain relatively stable. The chart on the left shows twenty years of LNG production growth, which has averaged 5.5% per year. Based only on projects which have made FID final investment decisions, the supply growth rate to the end of the decade would be 7.4%, but that assumes no delays in project timing, which historically has been the case in most new facilities.

Yet as you can see on the right side of the page, meaningful LNG growth has already occurred in the 2025, with Europe in particular stepping up buying actively. As a result, price levels remain unchanged. We continue to monitor the ongoing trade discussions, EU plans to eliminate Russian LNG and potential secondary sanctions on Russia from the Trump administration. Due to our flexible large scale LNG capacity, we are uniquely positioned to scale up our support to European partners should the market demand it. We expect that number is only growing as new countries like Vietnam and The Philippines and others become importers in the countries like China continue to grow their import infrastructure footprint.

China specifically is growing their regasification capacity from a 152 MTPA currently to 260 MTPA by 2030 with some forecasting that number to be more than 300 MTPA by 02/1930, an enormous percentage of the market. And finally, on arbitration, we are pleased with the tribunal determination, which reaffirms what Venture Global has maintained from the outset. The plain language in our contracts mutually agreed upon with all of our customers is clear. We have consistently honored these agreements without exception. Our industry and the investors and lenders who underpin it all rely on respect for both the sanctity of negotiated contracts and the experienced, objective, regulatory, and legal bodies that govern it.

These principles will ensure our industry remains dynamic, fair and competitive, enabling the innovation and breakthroughs that benefit all market participants and the customers we serve. Venture Global’s unique ability to incrementally export commissioning cargoes during the construction of our facilities has brought LNG to the market years faster than ever before and strengthened global energy security. The world needs more abundant, low cost energy, and our company looks forward to playing a leading role in meeting that demand for years to come. Now I’ll hand it over to Jack Baer, our CFO. Thank you, Mike, and good morning to those on the line.

I’ll be referring to the Venture Global, Inc. Form 10 Q for the quarterly period ended 06/30/2025. The 10 Q is available on our website, and some of the key results are summarized on Page 16 of the presentation. During this call, I will highlight results I believe are salient to this audience, and I encourage you to review the entirety of our financial statements in detail. Beginning on Slide 16 with revenue, our top line was $3,100,000,000 for the 2025, a $2,000,000,000 increase from $1,100,000,000 during the equivalent period in 2024.

This increase in revenue was driven by $2,200,000,000 from higher sales volumes, three twenty nine Tbtu in the 2025 compared with 132 TBtu in the 2024, which was partially offset by $241,000,000 from lower prices. Weighted average fixed facility fees were $5.58 per MMBtu in the 2025 versus $6.14 per MMBtu in the 2024, and weighted average commodity fees were $3.97 per MMBtu in the second quarter of twenty twenty five versus $2.2 per MMBtu in the 2024. Our income from operations was $1,000,000,000 in the 2025, a $675,000,000 increase from $363,000,000 in the 2024. The shift was primarily driven by the higher sales volumes I mentioned previously, which resulted in a greater total margin for LNG sold. These increases were partially offset by $197,000,000 higher depreciation and $91,000,000 higher operating costs in support of the ramp up of LNG production at the Plaquens project and operating our LNG tankers.

As I mentioned last quarter, we did see a reduction in our development expenses of $117,000,000 as many of the costs associated with CP2 were able to be capitalized. Our net income attributable to common stockholders, which we will refer to as net income, was $368,000,000 for the 2025, a $65,000,000 increase from $3.00 $3,000,000 in Q2 twenty twenty four. This increase in net income would have been more substantial but was offset by noncash factors such as unfavorable changes in the fair value of our interest rate swaps, which constituted a quarter over quarter decline of $288,000,000 Shifting to consolidated adjusted EBITDA. We realized $1,400,000,000 during the 2025, a $953,000,000 or 217% increase from $440,000,000 in Q2 twenty twenty four. This increase in consolidated adjusted EBITDA was driven chiefly by higher sales volumes.

As Mike discussed, our project exported a total of 89 cargoes in Q2, which increased from 36 cargoes compared with the same period in 2024. Of these cargoes, three twenty nine Tbtu of volumes are reflected in our results for Q2 twenty twenty five compared with 132 Tbtu in Q2 twenty twenty four. Advancing to Page 17. Consistent with our previous outlook, we are guiding to a consolidated adjusted EBITDA range of $6,400,000,000 to $6,800,000,000 for 2025, incorporating a forecasted 144 to 149 cargoes from Caucasus Pass and two twenty seven to two forty cargoes from Platton, inclusive of the 152 cargoes we exported in the first half across both facilities. This consolidated adjusted EBITDA range was determined assuming fixed liquefaction fees of between $6 and $7 per MMBtu for cargoes remaining to be sold over 2025 and it’s consistent with current TTF and JKM forward price expectations.

On average, if fixed liquefaction fees over the remainder of 2025 increase or decrease by one dollar per MMBtu, we expect our consolidated adjusted EBITDA range to adjust accordingly by between $230,000,000 and $240,000,000 down from the $460,000,000 to $480,000,000 range provided in our previous guidance. This reduced sensitivity to market prices reflects the contracting we executed during the second quarter and thus far in the third quarter.

Conference Operator: The question and answer session. Our first question today comes from John McKay, Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Jack Baer, CFO, Venture Global Inc.: Good morning, John.

Analyst: Good morning. Thank you for the time. I wanted to start on the arbitration news from last night. I understand you might be limited in how much you can say at this point. But just wondering how we should think about the remaining cases with other contracts written similarly?

And then kind of more broadly, what does this mean for your ability to contract and kind of commercialize the future projects? Thank you.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Sure. No. Thanks, John. The no. The the contracts are all very similar.

They’re all based on the standard, you know, US project finance contract that’s been used by, multiple companies, including us in the market for years. And we’re extremely pleased, obviously, as we’ve said, with the result of announced yesterday with arbitration with Shell and remain confident of similar outcomes in, you know, in the balance because, you know, it’s the same contract and the and the facts around construction and the facts around the completion of the facility are all the same. So we we remain very confident that that, you know, the the the the straightforward, you know, analysis of of the same contracts You know, this was an unnecessary, we think, distraction because this contract language has always been been clear and standard and straightforward and required as part of the project financing. And and as you all know, we have, you know, recently taken COD for Capshule Pass, which ended up being about sixty eight months from FID, which is, you know, one of the faster greenfield projects and, you know, in line or better than many projects have executed over the years.

And even in the face of being our first project and COVID and a couple hurricanes, the team is still able to safely execute in sixty eight months. And and now our our customers that got to see past have been taking deliveries and will enjoy what we think are the the lowest suite of lowest price suite of contracts that have been done long term contracts that have been done on the project ever.

Analyst: Thanks for that, Mike. And then, yes, but just following up on the contract front, you mentioned in the prepared remarks, you expect the pace to continue. Maybe you can just put a finer point around that. Would you expect to contract out the CP2 Phase two portion this year? And then anything you can share on where you think where you’ve seen pricing kind of trending versus your expectations?

Yes.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: No, yes, thanks. I missed the second half of your question. Yes. No, we’re very pleased with the contracting that we’ve completed recently, long term contracting. And we are confident as we proceed through this year that we’ll execute additional twenty year contracts.

And we’re intending to layer in contracts that will cover what we wanna get done for this the second phase of CP two, and we’ll also look to begin contracting for the the third phase of the brownfield expansion for CP two as well. And we may be doing some of that contracting this year as well. The contract prices in the market are kind of in the, you know, in kind of the the the mid to lower end of of the $2 range. And we believe that we’re the low cost liquefier in the market and are able to price competitively to win the the the contracts that that that we need and want in order to size the construction loans for the next the next phases of CP two and and the third phase of brownfield expansion for Plaquemines as well.

Analyst: All right. That’s great. Appreciate the time. Talk to you soon.

Conference Operator: You. Our next question today comes from Jean Ann Salisbury from Bank of America. Please go ahead. The ramp at Blackmans continues to beat expectations. Can you talk about if you’re starting to bump up on any constraints from here to get all the way to the end, either around the pie power island timing or around gas sourcing constraints?

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: No. Thanks thanks, Jen. No. We feel good about the our plan our ramp up plan from here to the end of the year. It’s, you know, it’s extremely challenging because, you know, we’re still obviously in commissioning.

And so the teams have to deal with typical surprises all the time in commissioning, but are we’re very experienced at operating and and and commissioning and executing the configuration and and and systems in our facilities now. And so we manage it, but we still feel good about the ramp up plan that we’ve guided to for the for the balance of this year. And, you know, the power plan is certainly one of our power plants or one of our our big focus, but but we’re still we’re still on plan.

Conference Operator: Great. Thank you. And for the Blackman expansion, I guess, as you eventually turn to contracting that, are you kind of thinking of doing that in a couple large phases that you’ve done before, or would that one be potentially more gradual, more incremental?

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: No. I think we’ll be able to right now, our plan is to do large scale long term contracting there, you know, twenty year contracts that will allow us to do it as one or two large project financings or financings similar to what what we just did for CP two. And we we feel the demand is is about as strong as it has been in at least in the, you know, fifteen, sixteen years that I’ve been doing this now that that there’s sufficient demand in the market for us to do the long term contracts to do the construction loan financing and sizing the way we like and and and wanna do it and have been guiding to. You know, first first step is gonna be to to do finish the contracting for CP two phase two and phase three, and and and then and then move on to the brownfield expansion for Blockerman’s.

Conference Operator: Great. Very clear. Thank you. Thank you. Our next call to our next question today comes from Manav Gupta from UBS.

Please go ahead.

Analyst: Congrats, guys. Good morning, Manav. Very happy Very, very happy for you, Hibad, our arbitration. We always believed in you. My first question to you is, you will be one of the biggest suppliers of LNG to the world.

And how are you going about securing the supply for this gas from within United States? If you could talk a little bit about that, sir.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Sure. No. Thank you. We we unlike the case for Capshu Pass and really Plaquemines where we had relatively short laterals, you know, 25 to 26 miles. We’re for CP 2 and and the the brownfield expansions are executing on longer longer pipelines that connect in deeper into the gas supply grid.

You know, the laterals for CP 2, it’s a bit you know, the the CPS, which is the primary lateral, is around 90 miles, and that interconnects with multiple pipes, but also with another pipe, Blackfin, which is around a 190 miles that interconnects with more pipes, including up around KD above Houston that interconnects with Permian gas pipes coming over. And and and and for our brownfield expansions, we’ll be doing similar where we’re making larger investments and and and longer longer longer pipeline interconnects. We around around the interconnect points, We’ll continue to do term gas supply deals to to layer in a conservative a conservative gas supply for for our projects. In in this permitting environment where pipelines in the market are getting permitted and built, we feel really good about the the the gas supply from all the basins, being able to to bring liquid gas supply to to not just us, but other demand in the market as well.

Analyst: Thank you, sir. You had a very strong second quarter. We are trying to understand the guidance range is 6.4 to 6.8. So some of the drivers that can push you towards 6.8 and in our hope, maybe even over it, if you could talk about that.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Yeah. We as as Gina asked earlier, we still feel good about the commissioning activity and the and the ramp up of production at Plaquemines. We still have a portion of our supply is uncontracted. We think that’s a huge positive that gives us upside optionality at this point. The third quarter is pretty well covered.

But for the fourth quarter and the winter, we have more on full capacity. And we’re seeing great demand for it. Europe is still below plan and below trend on storage. And so there’s still a lot of required buying that has to happen. China, as you mentioned earlier, has enormous and Asia around it, but China especially has enormous regas capacity to to bid for import of LNG as well.

And as we see globally, a very hot summer going into the winter, there’s still a lot of pent up buying that has to happen. And our capacity at Plaquemines is a large percentage of really the incremental available supply to feed into that. So the upside value, optional value of that on full capacity, we’re we’re very we’re very excited about. And that continues into the next year at a at a larger scale.

Analyst: Thank you for the detailed response, and congrats on all the positive. I’ll turn it over.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Same. Thank thank you very much.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question today comes from Farrin A from INC. Please go ahead.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Hi. Good morning. Good morning, Farrin. Morning.

Analyst: This is Jeremy from JPMorgan. Good morning.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Oh, good morning, Jeremy.

Analyst: Sorry about that. I was just wanting to come back to the eight k if I could with regards to the the the arbitration and the the partial final award. I was just wondering if you could maybe elaborate on that a little bit, what what that means exactly. Do you see any financial obligations here? Is it just kind of immaterial in size?

Just trying to understand that better if we could.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Go ahead. Keith Keith I’ll let Keith Larson, our general counsel, answer that question.

Jack Baer, CFO, Venture Global Inc.: Yeah. Good good morning. The reference to a partial final award is just is is more nomenclature from the ICC than anything. It’s final in in that it is fully resolved, the matter. And it is partial in that there is a a residual proceeding to determine responsibility for legal fees.

Analyst: Okay. Got it. That’s helpful. Thank you for that. And thanks for all the color today.

I was just wondering, as we look into ’26 a bit more, you know, given supply and demand trends as you see it, just wondering thoughts on how you think the market shakes out given geopolitical risk here and thoughts on how much you want to lock in levels versus what you see as kind of fair value for for next year?

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: The we’re very we’re very bullish for next year in terms of of demand, and and we we continue to be optimistic about actually growing demand. The the the net spreads that we’ve been selling into the into market at the end of this year and and and in 2026 are very attractive. We we layer them in periodically. We we’re not making we’re not making price predictions and and that’s on what prices are gonna be in the future. We just kind of dollar cost averaging over time, and and and and it generates very, very attractive returns for us at attractive returns at current prices, at prices below where we are today.

They’re very attractive returns. And but we’re we’re continuing to see, you know, strong bids and strong strong interest in our capacity.

Analyst: Got it. That’s very helpful. I’ll leave it there. Thanks. Yep.

Conference Operator: Our next question today comes from Robert Mosca from Mizuho Securities. Please go ahead.

Jack Baer, CFO, Venture Global Inc.: Hey. Good morning, everyone.

Analyst: Morning, Robert.

Jack Baer, CFO, Venture Global Inc.: Just wondering maybe what your latest project cost outlook is for CP2 Phases one and two. I’ve seen some data points in the market from other brownfield expansions. I’m wondering if you still expect CP2 to be in that $27,000,000,000 to $28,000,000,000 range, just given EPC inflation and potential tariff impacts?

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: We I’ll answer that first, then Jack, you can add additional detail if you want. There’s there’s know, we feel good about the ranges that we’re guiding to now, but it is a very tough market. There’s still wage inflation out there. You know, in our case, not so much for phase one, but phase two and phase three of CP two, there’s still tariff uncertainty. So, yeah, no, there’s still lots of challenges out there.

There’s supply chain inflation that that that the market’s still gonna have to manage. Having said that, our approach we think is is best designed to manage it since so much of our facilities get built in factory settings and and and fabrication facilities where we’re able to to, from a on a long term basis, fix fix both our schedules, but our our prices and and costs as well. We also manage directly more of the EPC function, and so we’ve reduced pretty significantly the portions of CP two that are executed by outside EPC as we hired and recruited very large internal EPC team now. And and so we feel we’re in an extremely strong position relative to the rest of the market to manage that. We also work pretty hard to standardize what we do in our facilities that enables us to place orders well ahead of time as we’re able to complete our engineering really early.

And so we can manage a lot of that exposure by really taking advantage of the the similarities and standardization of our of our facilities, and and we continue to actually make a lot of improvements on that from an engineering standpoint. Don’t Jack, do you want to add to that? Sure. Thanks, Mike. So sorry, just specifically, you may have noticed in the 10 Q that we took our total project guidance CP2 Phase one and two up to $28,500,000,000 to $29,500,000,000 That leverages the the fully financed budget and and understood cost structure for phase one of of CB two.

And then it incorporates some of the learnings from that process, specifically higher interest rates as we’ve navigated a higher interest rate environment. We’ve accounted for that in our Phase two forecast. To the extent that we see rates taper off as some are suggesting the Fed reducing rates. That would obviously be a benefit to us. Other variables that we’ve been addressing, reciprocal tariffs in Phase two, as you’ll recall, we’re largely fully procured for Phase one.

So we have less exposure there given the scale of that project. We had previously guided to a range in the first quarter of tariff impact of $210,000,000 to $350,000,000 That remains a good estimate of the range of exposure there. And obviously, we’re working to find strategies to moderate our tariff exposure. Phase two is a much smaller sized project relative to Phase one, but that has roughly the same exposure as Phase one from a tariff perspective, particularly with respect to some of the variability that we’ve seen of late with reciprocal tariffs. And then finally, two areas where we’ve accounted for in our budget with the successful financing of FID of Phase one, we are now incorporating into our Phase two forecast upsizing of certain components in that phase of the project that will ultimately support the inclusion of the brownfield expansion for Phase three.

And finally, given the competition for exceptional craft labor in the region where we’re constructing, we’ve also built in built in dollars for labor attraction so that we can secure and retain the best talents and build our projects safely and efficiently. So, you know, very modest increase to the overall size and scale of the budget. We think we’re being conservative in how we’re approaching this and building in dollars that we hope we won’t have to use. We have strategies to to optimize that and and reduce that exposure in those areas, but wanted to be fulsome in our estimates.

Jack Baer, CFO, Venture Global Inc.: Thanks, sir. Got it. No. I appreciate that. That’s our answer.

And maybe second for me. Can you talk about the plans to maybe add more liquefaction trains to plaque that plaquemines expansion you laid out in the last call? How much incremental capacity could there be beyond that 18 to 19 MTPA you laid out? And how do you balance the push to maximize that project size with the absolute cost and potential financing needs?

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Sure. We’re we’re right now, we’re we’re guiding to layering on the the Brownfield base three at CPT first, which is on a a all in basis is is approximately 10,000,000 tons. And so that but from a timing standpoint, that’ll go first because if it’s gonna be faster to do the long term contracting that we want to support the sizing we want for the construction loans for that base. For Plaquemines, really, we’re gonna look to manage any increase in the material increase in spending on on the Plaquemines expansion with the pace of the contracting, which we’re we’re bullish on, as I mentioned earlier in this market. And so as we begin to ramp up the the twenty year contracts applied to that that brownfield expansion of Plaquemines, then we’ll we’ll script out we’ll script out the pace of the of the spending for it.

The size is, I think, will end up being north of 24 MTPA for the brownfield. We have, as I mentioned earlier in earlier calls, we’ve advanced engineering analysis on really the throughput capacity of our our jetties and common some common facilities like tanks that enable us to do a lot more brownfield than we expected at Plaquemines 6 Months ago. And so we’re excited about, you know, the the synergies and the the accretion opportunities by layering on top of existing infrastructure, additional production capacity. And as we as we layer in more contracts, we will we’ll talk we’ll talk more about it in in in coming months and quarters. But the first stop is gonna be the brownfield expansion for for C P 2.

Jack Baer, CFO, Venture Global Inc.: Got it. Appreciate the time, everyone. Yes.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next call sorry, our next question today comes from Michael Blum from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Analyst: Good morning, Michael. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions here. Maybe just staying on the the slight, really modest cost increases at Sac of Mines and and CP two. So you did, you know, appreciate all the the explanations of what’s going on there in terms of why the costs are increasing.

But I’m wondering, do those costs increase, are they fully borne by Venture Global and therefore, they would impact the return economics or are there terms in your contracts for what’s contracted so far which which allow for some cost contingency?

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: The when you say contracts, you mean off take the FPA customers? Yes. Yes. Yeah. We’re those those costs are borne by Venture Global, and Bachmann’s is a 100% owned project by by Venture Global.

So when there are cost overruns at at those projects, all that cost is borne by us and the customers. Customers continue to enjoy their their contracted long term prices.

Analyst: Okay. Got it. And then just one other follow-up on the arbitration proceedings. I’m just wondering, since you said that effectively, the terms of disputes are largely the same, I’m wondering, is it the same judge or tribunal that is looking at all these? And is there a chance now that one has been ruled upon that all these could be consolidated into one case?

Thanks.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: No. They’ll still be they’re still separate tribunals, and they’re all looking at the same set of facts and same contract terms, but they’re separate they’re separate tribunal. Thank you.

Analyst: Yep. I

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: wanna I wanna go back to a little bit of extra color on the your first question related to costs. We, in the case of Plaquemines, have now contracted just under $6,000,000,000 so far of contracts for commissioning cargoes for Plaquemines, which is, you know, approaching 50% of the total debt of $12,900,000,000 of Plaquemines. And we still have a large portion of commissioning cargoes for phases one and two yet to to contract. And so the return profile for Plaquemines even even with extra costs are extremely attractive and probably among the the best that have been achieved in the in the LNG industry and will still allow us to come out of construction and take COD and have on a relative net basis historically low levels of of net debt. And when I say net debt, it’s just debt less what we’ve earned and, you know, reinvested again in LNG investments.

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question today comes from Chris Robertson from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Good morning, Chris. Morning, Mike. Yes, I appreciate the time here. Just on the on CB2 Phase 2 and then with the expansion project, what are you guys thinking about now in terms of contracting strategy, either as it relates to just overall strategy with the company or as it relates to lender requirements in terms of percentage of nameplate capacity that you look to put away? The the as as we’ve demonstrated the much higher than expected production total production capacity at Blockerman’s, which we’ve designed into and I I I think I hope even more production capacity at at CP two currently and in future phases.

We’ve we’ve guided previously to doing a little bit more percentage of our nameplate capacity on a long term contracted basis. So, you know, we are a little over 13 MTPA of the 14.4 nameplate capacity at phase one. We will you know, so we ended up around a little over 13 out of around 20, I think, we’ll be able to do at phase one of c p two. So we’re we’re we’re gonna be roughly similar to that for, you know, the second and third phases of c p two and and you know, which results in us being close to the 50% equity that we’ve been guiding to. We’re not required by the banks by any means to do the the 50% level.

But at that level, we’re still getting great returns. It’s much more conservative, which we like. It allows us to carry more uncontracted on a long term basis in the financing. Again, we’re gonna we’re gonna contract all the capacity, but we’re not gonna do all of it on a twenty year basis. And but we are gonna contract all our all all of our production capacity.

And, you know, right now, we’re a little over 43 MTPA of capacity out of nameplate capacity of 50 average term of close to nineteen years. And so we have a very long portfolio right now, and and, you know, it’s gonna continue on an on a, you know, total portfolio basis to be a long term contract portfolio. Got it. Thank you, Mike. To follow-up, just looking at total CP two construction cost here, how much of that is included in the total amount is related to, you know, pipeline construction cost so that we can better compare project cost apples to apples versus other projects.

We’ve broken that broken that out separately. Okay. So I I’m not sure we have So no. No. We I I don’t I don’t believe we have, but but as as Mike mentioned, the blackfin pipes that we have been constructing with our partner partner, Whitewater, that is outside of the c p two forecasted budget.

That’s a 193 mile pipe, 48 inches in in diameter. It’s a very substantive project that links us to Permian gas and provides attractively priced gas that’s sitting outside. The CPX pipe is is also a a 48 inch pipe. It’s it’s a substantive in nature, and, you know, that that is that is roughly 85 to 90 miles in length. And that’s that’s incorporated in our in our in our forecast.

Yeah. I mean, also, there’s a lot of there’s a lot of components of projects that are different with us than others. For example, CP two’s got two large power plants inside the fence. We in phase two, have a a nitrogen removal unit and associated equipment that’s that’s very substantial that enables us uniquely to take enormous volumes of Permian gas that has a lot of extra nitrogen content in into it. And so there there are lots of things beyond just pipelines that are not apples to apples with other projects.

I appreciate that. Yeah. But on a on a net basis on a net basis, we’re meaning that of of commissioning cargoes on a cost basis, we’re confident that we’re well ahead of well ahead of the rest of the market on cost. Our

Conference Operator: next question today comes from Elvira Scotto, RBC Capital Markets. Just a question on demand. How have you seen demand since the tariff negotiations and the EU’s commitment to buy 750,000,000,000 of energy from The US over over the next next three years? I think you’re uniquely positioned to to capitalize on that.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: We think so too. Demand has been fantastic and maybe the best we’ve seen in ten years on on both a long term contract basis and less than, you know, twenty years, but also less than that as well. And given that that demand, you know, is is current, Being able to to build projects and bring them online fast is extremely attractive to customers combined with our ability, we think, to offer the best price with with action fee as well and our proven execution on on on schedule and the advantages of our configuration. So it makes us it makes us very optimistic that we’re gonna be able to sell the incremental contracts for for our capacity for, you know, the second phase of c p two, phase three of c p two, and the expansion for for Plaquemines as well that will enable us to build those build those projects. And really, at this point, our view is that with the brownfield expansions at CP 2 and CP 3 were or Plaquemines, we will be able to to build and bring capacity to the market with high returns and very efficient in excess of 100,000,000 tons, approximately around 2,030.

Conference Operator: Great. Thanks for that. And then for CT two, it sounds like that the pace of construction activity is progressing in line with just slightly ahead of of your other two projects. What are some of the factors that can drive an acceleration in that time line so that you can get to first LNG faster?

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: So we’re you you know, we at FID, we’re approximately 98% complete on engineering, which supports very rapid remaining procurement and fabrication. And, you know, a good place to be for a high performing project at FID is, let’s say, 25 to 30% engineered. And so being 98% is an outlier in in a good way. And combined with that, we did massive scale, we think, the most ever for an LNG project prior to FID of of procurement. And and, you know, as we as we said in the in the recorded script, we already have two trains for craft and stored at Baker Hughes in Italy, and and I think we have our next two trains finishing up there as well.

So to to be just a few weeks past FID and to have that stage of of fabrication complete and in storage, particularly for our configuration where so much of our facility is performed off-site is a is a huge advantage. So I would say the, you know, the data points to really focus on as it relates to schedule is how quickly we’re able to get out of the ground. So it’s soil stabilization, piling, foundations, completion of our perimeter walls, and all the logistics around that. So those those are those are the things that are key for us. And one of the big benefit differentiators of our approach is as soon as those foundations are coming up out of the ground, we’re gonna have several years of procurement and fabricated equipment ready to go immediately on the foundations, which opens up enormous work fronts so that we can start interconnecting equipment at a massive scale, you know, faster than it’s been done before.

This is also this is that, you know, our third project in our our fourth phase with a lot of the team having been with us from the from the, you know, phase one at Cocker Shoe. And so we have tremendous experience in interconnecting and commissioning the equipment. The first two trains at CP two are trains number fifty five and fifty six. And so there’s been enormous repetition and and troubleshooting and problem solving and and mistakes that we we work really hard as a company to to learn from.

Conference Operator: Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, everyone. This concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call over to Mike Sable.

Please continue.

Mike Sable, CEO, Executive Co-Chairman and Founder, Venture Global Inc.: Thank you, everybody. We’re grateful for everybody’s time this morning and consideration as you think about investments in Venture Global. We will continue to work really hard this quarter and the rest of the year to build our facilities for the long term. So we look forward to meeting many of you in coming weeks and months, And thanks for your time. Have a great rest of the summer.

Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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