Cheniere Energy, the biggest U.S. LNG exporter, more than doubled its revenues in 2022 from a year earlier as Europe imported increased volumes and paid high prices for gas as it sought to replace Russian pipeline supply.
Cheniere (NYSEAMERICAN: LNG) reported today total revenues of $33.428 billion for 2022, up from $15.864 billion for 2021. Last year’s revenues beat the analyst consensus expectation of $32.7 billion. Cheniere also reported a net profit of $1.428 billion, compared to a loss of $2.343 billion for 2021.
Europe attracted most of the U.S. exports of LNG last year as demand in Asia was weak while the EU raced to fill inventories ahead of the 2022/2023 winter. The weak demand in Asia due to China’s zero-Covid policy and high prices that south Asian LNG importers couldn’t afford helped Europe stock up ahead of this winter. Cheniere, as the top U.S. LNG exporter, benefited from the European rush to buy LNG.
“Europe had to compete for LNG cargoes resulting in unprecedented price spikes,” Cheniere said in the comments on the market environment in its SEC filing.
“This extreme price increase triggered a strong supply response from the U.S., which played a significant role in balancing the global LNG market. Despite the outage at Freeport LNG, the U.S. exported approximately 77 million tonnes of LNG in 2022, a gain of approximately 9% from 2021, as the market continued to pull on supplies from our facilities and those of our competitors,” the U.S. LNG exporter said.
Cheniere believes it is well positioned to help meet the increased demand of its international LNG customers to overcome their supply shortages, it said.
U.S. exports could rise later this year after Freeport LNG, the second-largest U.S. LNG export facility, earlier this week received regulatory approval to resume commercial operations of its natural gas liquefaction and export facility.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
