CompanyGraph
Cheniere Energy Inc.
LNG · NYSE Arca · United States
Cools U.S. natural gas to minus-260°F at two Gulf Coast terminals, collapsing its volume 600-fold so cryogenic carriers can deliver it to global markets.
Cheniere cools natural gas to minus-260°F at Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi, and because that phase change must hold unbroken from train outlet to destination port, every element of the export chain — berth scheduling, carrier certification, unloading infrastructure — is forced to conform to the thermal and physical specifications of those two sites. Long-term tolling contracts name those terminals by facility, FERC authorizations are non-transferable, and carrier routing is built around their berths, so the entire customer relationship is structurally anchored to two points on the Gulf Coast. That concentration means capacity can only grow through new liquefaction trains, each of which requires its own FERC authorization and a 4–6 year construction timeline that neither capital nor automation can compress, making the pace of regulatory sequencing a co-equal constraint with physical buildout. Both growth and delivery obligations therefore depend on the continued operation of the same two hurricane-exposed coastal facilities, and a disruption severe enough to disable them together would breach contracts at the precise moment no authorized or contractually named alternative loading point exists.
How does this company make money?
Long-term tolling customers pay fixed monthly capacity charges regardless of whether LNG is actually produced in a given period. On top of those fixed payments, variable charges cover the cost of procuring natural gas and the liquefaction service itself. Uncommitted LNG volumes are sold separately at prevailing spot market prices.
What makes this company hard to replace?
Long-term tolling agreements with customers specify delivery from the named Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi terminals, so switching to an alternative supplier would require renegotiating contracts that identify those facilities by name. FERC export authorizations are facility-specific and non-transferable, meaning no other terminal can step in under the existing regulatory approvals. Established ship-loading berths and LNG carrier routing schedules are built around these two terminals, and accommodating a different terminal location and set of loading procedures is not a straightforward operational change.
What limits this company?
Each liquefaction train at Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi requires 4–6 years to construct and cannot be meaningfully expanded once built, so maximum export volume is set at the time of commissioning and cannot respond to gas supply availability or customer demand growth. FERC approval — an authorization issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission — is required individually for each additional train and is non-transferable between facilities, making regulatory sequencing a co-equal bottleneck alongside construction time.
What does this company depend on?
The mechanism depends on natural gas supply contracts from the Permian Basin and other U.S. basins, pipeline capacity through the Creole Trail and Corpus Christi pipelines to deliver that gas to the terminals, FERC export authorization covering LNG shipments to non-free-trade-agreement countries, specialized LNG carrier vessels rated for cryogenic transport, and continuous industrial-scale refrigeration equipment capable of maintaining minus-260°F temperatures across the full liquefaction and loading process.
Who depends on this company?
European utilities would face immediate supply shortfalls during peak winter heating demand if Sabine Pass exports ceased. Japanese power generators would lose baseload fuel, forcing a shift to more expensive oil-fired generation. Global LNG spot markets would experience price spikes from the removal of 45 or more million tonnes per year of export capacity.
How does this company scale?
Additional liquefaction trains replicate the same cooling and loading processes across multiple parallel units at the existing terminal sites. Each new train, however, requires its own individual FERC approval, dedicated pipeline capacity, and a 4–6 year construction timeline that cannot be shortened through additional capital or automation.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
European sanctions and energy security policies are pushing long-term contract demand away from Russian pipeline gas. Chinese industrial growth is generating Asian LNG demand that exceeds global supply growth. Federal climate regulations present the possibility of restrictions on new LNG export permits or the imposition of carbon pricing on natural gas extraction.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
FERC authorizations are facility-specific and long-term tolling contracts name Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi as delivery points, concentrating both structural advantages at two Gulf Coast sites in hurricane-exposed coastal Louisiana and Texas. A storm or port closure severe enough to disable both terminals at the same time would breach delivery obligations to global customers at the precise moment no certified alternative loading point exists under the existing authorization and contract framework.
Supply Chain
Liquefied Natural Gas Supply Chain
The LNG supply chain moves natural gas from producing regions to importing countries by cooling it to -162°C for ocean transport, then reheating it for distribution through domestic pipeline networks to heat homes, generate electricity, and fuel industrial processes. The system is governed by three root constraints: liquefaction infrastructure that costs $10-20 billion per facility and takes five to seven years to build, regasification dependency that prevents importing countries from receiving LNG without their own terminal infrastructure regardless of global supply levels, and long-term contract structures requiring fifteen to twenty-year take-or-pay commitments that lock trade flows into rigid patterns that cannot quickly redirect when geopolitical or market conditions change.
Oil and Gas Supply Chain
The oil and gas supply chain moves crude oil, natural gas, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, and plastics feedstock from subsurface reservoirs to end consumers through an infrastructure system governed by three root constraints: geological fixity of reserves that cannot be manufactured or relocated, capital cycle lengths of five to ten years that make investment decisions effectively irreversible, and infrastructure lock-in from pipelines, refineries, and terminals that are geographically fixed and take decades to build, producing a system where supply responses lag demand observations by years and physical bottlenecks determine competitive outcomes more than pricing power.
Natural Gas Pipeline Supply Chain
The natural gas pipeline supply chain moves methane from production basins to homes, power plants, and factories through networks of buried steel pipes, compressor stations, and underground storage facilities. The system is governed by three root constraints: infrastructure irreversibility that locks specific producers to specific consumers for decades once a pipeline is built, compressor station physics that make pipeline capacity a function of the entire compression chain rather than pipe diameter alone, and storage geography mismatches where seasonal demand buffering depends on underground facilities whose locations were determined by geology rather than proximity to consumption centers.