Two months after the outspoken founder and chief executive officer of Cheniere Energy Inc. was removed from the company, Charif Souki tells Bloomberg he’s starting a new company that will compete with Cheniere and has plans to build its first project in Louisiana.
Souki says he is teaming up with former BG Group Plc executive Martin Houston to start Tellurian Investments. The two are planning to develop their first plant near the Calcasieu River in Louisiana, costing between $6 billion and $8 billion. Souki plans to spend some of his own money on the project but declined to say how much. He also plans to raise capital.
“This is easy compared to what we had at Cheniere,” Souki says. “I have money and we don’t have any debt.”
Souki was removed from Cheniere in December, just months before the company’s first LNG exports were scheduled to ship. Souki, ever bullish on global LNG demand, wanted Cheniere to keep building new export terminals. The company’s board—influenced by weak oil markets, the threat of a looming global LNG glut and billionaire activist investor Carl Icahn—wanted to scale back plans, focus on Cheniere’s initial projects and try to turn a profit for the first time.
Souki attended three board meetings after his ouster as CEO, waiting to see if Cheniere had any plans to continue the LNG export growth he envisioned. When he realized the company didn’t, he announced his new plans.
“It became very clear they did not need my advice,” he says of the board.
Souki says he can probably cut the cost of developing the initial plant by 20% from what it cost Cheniere to build the first liquefaction train at its export terminal at Sabine Pass. Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Cheniere is inching closer to exporting LNG at its Sabine Pass terminal in Cameron Parish after hitting delays.
