Cheniere Energy Inc. (AMEX: LNG).(Interview)

Publication: Oil and Gas Investor

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Hart Publications, Inc.

Oil and Gas Investor: You sold all your proved working interests in E&P assets in 2002 and since then, you haven't drilled any wells. Are you officially out of the E&P business?

Souki: No. We continue to generate prospects, mostly offshore Texas, and sell them. It's nice to have a finger on the pulse, even if it is a small part of our business. We have been successful, but the wells are getting smaller and more expensive.

We have 7,000 square miles of prestack time-migration 3-D data. And we own 9% of (privately held producer) Gryphon Exploration. Warburg Pincus owns the remainder.

OGI: Originally investors were skeptical of your ability to execute an LNG plan.

Souki: People are taking us more seriously now. We prefer to be judged by what we do. We developed this LNG business model five years ago, and it has remained the same for those five years. In the beginning, we executed it with very little means.

OGI: How did you arrive at LNG so far ahead of everyone else?

Souki: LNG is going to be a significant amount of domestic consumption by the end of the decade. The U.S. will need 15- to 18 billion cubic feet (Bcf) a day by 2010. That's what convinced us imports are going to be more important. And, we looked at...

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