Golar LNG Limited (NASDAQ:GLNG) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Karl Fredrik Staubo: Yes is the short answer. I think a couple of things. So, we obviously have $1 billion in cash. We have $450 million or so in listed securities. I think it’s fair to say that there is significant refinancing potential on both, Hilli and Gimi, Gimi in particular, post-delivery, that can free up cash and improve terms. If you read the Q2 presentation, when we also spoke about FLNG growth, we have received term sheets for financing of FLNG growth projects, even during construction at attractive terms and a healthy LTV. So, we do not see any balance sheet constraints for FLNG growth for — after the unit we can do — really engineering and operations is basically what puts a cap on capacity and lock balance sheet.

Operator: Thank you. We’ll now move on to our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from the line of Liam Burke from B. Riley Financial.

Liam Burke: Karl, on slide 16, you highlight the production — African gas vis-à-vis Henry Hub. When you look at the FLNG production, just the process itself. Are your next generation FLNG is more efficient and can they reduce the production cost per MMBtu vis-à-vis Hilli or Gimi?

Karl Fredrik Staubo: So, like anything, when you build a new model of a car, you make it and then you have a facelift model of a car, it tends to be somewhat more efficient than the previous one. So, we constantly do improvements. So, it’s slightly more efficient. I don’t think at the end of the day, that’s what’s going to make it or break it. When it comes to operational cost, the Mark II is 3.5 million tons versus around 2.5 million tons for Mark Is. And there is some economies scale, because you don’t need to start-up accordingly. So, if you think operating costs per MMBtu produced, it will be somewhat of more efficient, but by economies of scale and efficiency improvements of the design.

Liam Burke: And do you see any competitive development by anyone else in developing FLNGs? It seems that you are increasing production, you are increasing efficiency and you seem to have a great deal of interest from the energy majors and independent E&P companies.

Karl Fredrik Staubo: Yes. Right now we are the only ones that do FLNG at the service. The only other FLNGs that operate in the world are oil and gas companies owning FLNGs on their own balance sheet for their own operations. So, the only one that is doing this as the service today is Golar. And based on what we see out there, you have other people pursuing that. I think most notably is what NFE is doing on the liquefaction solutions, we encourage that because we think it’s needed in the industry to be able to provide shorter time timeframes, and new liquefaction solutions. But they too are focusing on producing hydrocarbons mainly for their own merchant and where they can use in their downstream development or portfolio. So, as a service, we see limited competition for the size of liquefaction solutions we have from credible competitors.

Liam Burke: Great. Thank you, Karl.

Operator: Thank you. We’ll now move on to our next question. Please standby. Our next question comes from the line of Sean Morgan from Evercore. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Sean Morgan: Hey, Karl and Eduardo. Thanks for taking the question. I think on the last call, for 2Q, we talked about a target date for a new FID announcement by the end of 2022 and we have a month and half left, so obviously there is still possibility for that. But when you think about what the biggest bottlenecks are for reaching an agreement, and I guess sort of FID, a new project, is it the upstream negotiations with partners that are extracting the molecules or is it the nation space that you kind of have to work with the national oil companies in these West African countries?