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Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, July 30, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. ET Vice President of Investor Relations - Megan Light Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Matt Schatzman Chief Financial Officer - John Zuklic Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Next Decade Corporation 2Q 2026 investor call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow management's prepared remarks. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Now I would like to turn the call over to Megan Light, NextDecade's Vice President of Investor Relations. Megan Light: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to NextDecade's second quarter 2026 investor update call and webcast. The slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call are available on our website at www.next-decade.com. Today, I am joined by Matt Schatzman, NextDecade's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and John Zuklic, NextDecade's Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that discussion on this call, including answers to your questions, contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws. These statements have been based on assumptions and analysis made by NextDecade in light of current expectations, perceptions of historical trends, current conditions, and projections about future events and trends. Although NextDecade believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations will prove to be correct. NextDecade's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in NextDecade's periodic reports that are filed with and available from the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, discussion on this call includes references to certain non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow. The definition of and additional information regarding these measures can be found in the appendix to our presentation. Now I will turn the call over to Matt Schatzman, NextDecade's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Matt Schatzman: Thank you, Megan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. First, I'd like to introduce our new Chief Financial Officer, John Zuklic, who joined the company earlier this month. John was previously the Chief Financial Officer at Citgo, where he led the finance organization and was responsible for setting and executing financial strategy, recapitalizing the company, building functions to strengthen forecasting, governance, and decision support. John brings significant expertise to NextDecade after 30 years in the energy industry. We're very happy to have him here at NextDecade. He's an experienced strategic and operational leader who will help us transform from an LNG development company to an LNG operating company. Transitioning to become a safe and reliable LNG operating company is one of our highest company-wide priorities in 2026. We're making great progress toward this goal as Rio Grande LNG Phase 1 construction continues to advance safely, efficiently, and ahead of schedule toward first LNG production. In May, we safely energized the main substation at the site, and in June, we seconded over 100 operational employees to Bechtel in preparation for first LNG production. We continue to expect first gas into the facility later this year, and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027. On our last call, we told you that we're tracking ahead of the schedule reflected in our production guidance, and that remains true today. As we continue to progress toward first LNG and get additional visibility into the production schedule, we will continue to evaluate opportunities to sell uncontracted volumes, and we expect to be able to narrow our forecast window for first LNG. I'd also like to thank the entire NextDecade team for their hard work and continued diligence in preparing for commissioning and startup across the organization. We have a lot of work to do, but I have no doubt we're placing ourselves in a strong position for a safe and effective transition to an LNG operating company. During the second quarter, we also made measurable progress on one of our financial goals for the year by determining out a significant portion of our Phase 1 bank facility debt. John will discuss these transactions in more detail later in the call. In May, we filed the formal FERC application for Train 6. Yesterday we were notified by FERC that the final Environmental Impact Statement will be issued by June 25th, 2027. We believe that Train 6 is one of the most economically advantaged brownfield LNG expansions in the world, and we expect to capitalize on strong demand for LNG to underpin Train 6 and expand our capacity to deliver secure, reliable, and affordable LNG to customers around the world. Now I'd like to give some additional color on what's happening at the site as we progress towards first LNG production. As of June 2026, Trains 1 and 2 were 74% complete with engineering and procurement nearing completion, construction at almost 60%, and the start of commissioning. As of June, Train 3 was over 50% complete, Train 4 was 15.5% complete, and Train 5 was 9.4% complete. We have over 6,000 workers on site daily, and Bechtel is doing an outstanding job advancing construction while maintaining exceptional safety standards and performance. Train 1 continues to progress positively and all major equipment has been set. We safely energized the main substation at the site in May with 138 kV power, and we seconded over 100 operational employees to Bechtel in June. These are all major achievements ahead of first LNG production. Construction beyond Train 1 is also progressing safely, on budget, and ahead of schedule. Train 2 major equipment installation is underway, and the second compressor string and turbine were set in July. Train 3 major equipment installation has also started, including the first compressor string. Welding of the inner tanks continues to progress for Tanks 1 and 2, and Tank 1 pipe installation is underway. The Train 4 soil stabilization process was completed recently, and foundation pours began for the main cryogenic rack. The Train 5 soil stabilization process also began this month, and Tank 3 piling work is underway. Construction of the Bay Runner pipeline continues to be on track for a third quarter 2026 in-service. Significant progress has been made on the inlet gas facilities, and the hot tap to Valley Crossing Pipeline was completed. Across the site, construction of permanent buildings is nearing completion, dredging activities for the berth and the turning basin are substantially complete, and our channel deepening project is complete. Bechtel's continuing to track ahead of what we have shown in our early volume guidance, giving us some buffer for unexpected events during commissioning and startup, while still achieving the production guidance we have provided. We achieved major milestones in development of Train 6 when we filed the formal FERC application in May. Yesterday, we received FERC's schedule of environmental review, which states that we will receive the final EIS on June 25th, 2027. This schedule supports a positive final investment decision or FID on Train 6 in the second half of 2027, contingent upon obtaining sufficient commercial support and financing. Additionally, we submitted our application to the Department of Energy for FTA and non-FTA export authorizations for Train 6 in June. Our goal is to fully commercialize Train 6 and to finalize an EPC contract with Bechtel on a timeline that supports FID in the second half of next year. We're also focused on ensuring that critical long-lead equipment is available when needed. In support of this objective, during the second quarter, we executed a reservation agreement with Baker Hughes to secure the supply of the main refrigeration compressors for Train 6. Commercialization of Train 6 continues to progress, and we're in active discussions for long-term SPAs with a number of high credit quality counterparties. The commercial environment for long-term LNG contracting remains strong. The underlying themes driving demand for incremental LNG supplies in the early 2030s have not changed. Fueling economic growth and industrialization in developing countries, supporting growing power demand and energy security, with energy security and supply diversification becoming even more critical for customers around the world since the Iran conflict began. We expect demand for long-term LNG contracts and prices for these contracts to remain strong as we continue to progress commercialization of Train 6. One of our key financial priorities this year is to determine the most value-accretive way to fund our equity commitments for Train 6. We continue to expect that Train 6 will meaningfully increase future NextDecade distributable cash flow across a wide range of financing scenarios. We're focused on financing Train 6 in a way that both enables us to achieve our goals of maintaining full ownership of Train 6 and maximizing distributable cash flow on a per-share basis. Since our last call, global LNG market dynamics continue to be impacted significantly because of the Iran conflict. Whether stability returns soon or takes longer to materialize, the impact on the LNG market has been material. The ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz has taken almost 20% of the world's LNG supply off the market. Each month that Ras Laffan and Das Island remain shut in results in a loss of approximately 7 million tons of LNG. We now expect the restart of these facilities, once it is safe and viable to do so, will take many months. The two trains that were damaged at Ras Laffan will take years to repair, and the expansion capacity, which has been under construction, could be delayed by a year or more, depending on how long hostilities continue in the region. Before the Iran conflict began, the LNG market was concerned the impending supply wave of LNG might cause a supply overhang. The current uncertainty around the return of LNG supplies from Qatar and the UAE, the amount of time it will take to repair the Qatar trains damaged by the Iranian attacks, and the delays to expansion projects currently under construction in the region will potentially remove additional material amounts of LNG supply from the global market through 2030 or longer. At a minimum, the current expected range of LNG supply scenarios, including the potential for a resolution of the situation in the Middle East this year, points to LNG supply growth through 2030 in line with or below the market's 20-year average growth rate. Based on our updated LNG supply forecast, we expect spot LNG prices to remain elevated through at least 2030. One very effective way for buyers around the world to acquire LNG at attractive prices is through long-term supply. U.S. LNG SPAs indexed to Henry Hub are particularly attractive due to the diversified, prolific natural gas resource base in the U.S., which effectively shelters buyers from spikes in the price of LNG and natural gas in other parts of the world. Henry Hub pricing has been relatively flat to down since the Iran conflict began. Customers with long-term contracts out of the U.S. that are indexed to Henry Hub are currently able to deliver into Europe or Asia at levels below $8 per MMBtu. We expect buyers to increasingly value long-term contracts out of the U.S., which will spur additional capacity growth in the market. With our Trains 6 through 8 under development, we're in an excellent position to provide a meaningful amount of additional capacity to meet that demand. Before and after the Iran conflict began, we've received strong interest for long-term supplies out of Train 6. Now I'd like to turn the call over to NextDecade's new Chief Financial Officer, John Zuklic, to discuss recent financial transactions and highlights. John Zuklic: Thanks, Matt, and thanks to everyone on the line for being with us today. I'm happy to be here at NextDecade and look forward to start meeting with the investment community soon. As Matt said, we recently completed two financing transactions that termed out a significant portion of our outstanding Phase 1 project-level bank facility debt. These transactions diversified our bank maturity stack, our debt maturity stack, and freed up bank capacity for financing Train 6 and additional expansion capacity beyond Train 6. In June, we entered into a credit agreement for a $1 billion term loan at a Phase 1 project holding company level, which bears interest at 7.05% and matures in June 2033. Interest on this term loan is payable in cash or in kind at our election until the first interest payment after June 2029. Proceeds from this term loan were used to reduce outstanding borrowings under the Phase 1 bank facilities. Migrating this portion of Phase 1 bank debt up to the Phase 1 holding company enabled us to achieve investment-grade ratings for our subsequent 144A issuance. In July, Rio Grande LNG, LLC, our Phase 1 operating and financing entity, issued $3.5 billion senior secured notes in a 144A offering. These notes, which are rated BBB- by S&P and Fitch, were issued in four tranches: $1 billion of 5.25% senior secured notes due 2031, $500 million of 5.5% senior secured notes due 2034, $1.25 billion of 5.75% senior secured notes due 2036, and $750 million of 6.15% senior secured notes due 2041. I'd like to thank the treasury and finance team for excellent execution of our inaugural 144A issuance, which was no small lift. We built an initial order book of over $14 billion, and the transaction priced at the tight end of our anticipated range. In conjunction with these capital raises, we unwound a portion of our interest rate swaps associated with the bank debt we retired, resulting in a $109 million settlement receipt in July. We utilized the total proceeds of these three transactions, net of fees, to pay down approximately $4.6 billion of Phase 1 bank facility borrowings. We continue to expect that we will refinance the full bank facility balances at each project-level entity ahead of the guaranteed substantial completion of the respective project and will continue to be opportunistic based on market conditions. Now I'd like to cover a couple of items from our second quarter 10-Q. First, we took delivery of two LNG vessels and their respective charters began during the second quarter, including the new build Clean Texas, the first of three new builds we have chartered to service our long-term Phase 1 DES contract. We currently have three LNG vessels under charter and expect to take delivery of additional vessels over the coming course of this year ahead of first LNG production. We also sub-charter some shipping capacity to third parties to better match our available capacity to our needed capacity. We will continue to charter and sub-charter vessels over time as needed to better match our available shipping capacity to our anticipated needs. The vessel charters are accounted for as finance leases in our financials. Pursuant to lease accounting standards, the leased vessels are recorded as assets and lease liabilities on our balance sheet and are included primarily in depreciation and amortization and interest expense on our statements of operations. Income from sub-chartering vessels is included as an offset to operating and maintenance expense on our statements of operations. The second item I'd like to highlight from the second quarter financials is that we began breaking out our operating and maintenance expense this quarter as we approach first LNG production. In operating and maintenance expense, we have included costs related to the site and pre-operational readiness activities. Once operations begin, this will also include costs directly attributable to revenue-generating activities. Year-to-date 2026, the costs included in operating and maintenance expense consist primarily of labor, property taxes, and our site lease. General and administrative expense continues to include costs relating to corporate management, governance, enterprise-wide support, and other support functions that are not directly attributable to operating assets or activities. As a reminder, our financials consolidate the Rio Grande LNG project entities and total G&A expense includes both NextDecade-level overhead as well as general and administrative expense for Rio Grande LNG. We applied this cost-splitting methodology retrospectively across our financials, and we expect operating and maintenance expense to increase throughout this year as we approach commissioning and operations. With that, we'll now turn the call over for questions. Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question, one follow-up. One moment while we pull for questions. Our first question is from Olivia Foster with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question. Olivia Foster: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking our questions. I wanted to start on operations. With first gas expected at Rio Grande in the second half of this year and first LNG expected in the first half of 2027, could you walk through the commissioning milestones we should be watching over the next two quarters? What are critical path items we need to see completed before we could introduce feed gas to the site and then produce first LNG thereafter? Lastly, when should we expect updated guidance to narrow around these operational milestones? Thank you. Matt Schatzman: Thank you, Olivia, and thanks for the question. There's a list of things, obviously, that are going to happen prior to us introducing first gas into the facility and starting to produce LNG. I think some of the major milestones that we'll highlight when they occur are obviously the completion of the LNG tank, and that should be coming here before probably the end of the year. The completion of the pipeline facilities, which we expect to have completed by this quarter with Bay Runner. As we said in our comments, the interconnect, the hot tap with VCP is already in place. We have that redundancy, but Bay Runner is our primary feed pipeline, and that's expected to be complete here in short order. There's a lot more, obviously, that's going on at the site. We're obviously painting and hydrostatic testing and putting in insulation, all that work is proceeding, as we've already said, as planned or ahead of schedule. We do expect Train 1, assuming no major difficulties during the commissioning process, to be ahead of the schedule. That's even reflected in the volumes that we've got out in the market today. As far as updating the guidance around when we're going to start producing LNG, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to provide that in the fourth quarter. We should know a lot more over the course of the next few months. We'll start to introduce gas into the facility, as you mentioned, and we mentioned in our comments this year. We're still working with Bechtel on exactly the procedure for the commissioning and what order we want to do things. It shouldn't come as a shock if we don't introduce gas really soon that's somehow a message that things are slowing down. There's a couple different ways to do it. You can commission the warm in the facility, you can commission the flares first to be very small introductions of natural gas, or you can start commissioning the turbines and do the flares simultaneously or around the same time. I wouldn't be focused too much on the filings as far as how much or when we start introducing gas. These are things that we're working through with Bechtel to come up with the most efficient way to commission the facility and do it as quickly and as safely as possible. Later this year, I expect to be able to provide the market some more narrowed guidance as to the exact timing of when we're going to start producing LNG. I think as the commissioning goes on, Olivia, and we build confidence in the facility and the operations, we'll be able to update the guidance on the volumes as well. Olivia Foster: That's clear. Thanks for the color. For my follow-up question, I wanted to ask on the geopolitical environment. With the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the associated global LNG supply disruptions, can you describe any shifts you've seen in buyer activity in the market? How has this backdrop impacted your commercial discussions for Train 6? Lastly, how should we think about NextDecade's ability to announce new long-term SPAs in support of a potential Train 6 FID in the coming months and quarters? Thank you. Matt Schatzman: I think the last earnings call, we're all very concerned about what's going on in the Middle East today and what's going on in Ukraine. There's a lot of negative things happening with respect to kinetic activities that people are dying around the world right now, especially in the Middle East and in the Eastern bloc. We'd like to see all that go away. From our perspective, from NextDecade's perspective in the long-term LNG market, clearly the volatility that this has caused and the upward price pressure in the LNG market is actually helping us. The short-term spot prices will benefit NextDecade if they persist, and we expect that they will with our early cargoes and the cash flow we'll generate from Train 1 startup, potentially all the way through Train 5 DFCD. There's a lot of emphasis from suppliers on supply reliability, and the lack of reliability from supplies from the Persian Gulf has pretty much heightened the awareness of a lot of those buyers to focus on other supply sources, especially U.S., where we have become a very reliable and, for all intents and purposes, low-cost supplier of LNG when you look at it on a long-term contracting SPA basis. As I said in my comments, Olivia, we were marketing this before the Iran conflict began, and it was going extremely well, and we've been continuing to market it, and I can tell you that the level of interest has only increased in the past quarter as this conflict has persisted, and that there's more competition for the volumes that we have for sale out of Train 6, 7, and 8. As far as timing of SPAs, I think the market should expect to see some activities there over the course of the next six months. How much we do we'll determine based on how fast we want to move in this area. Clearly, if things get more challenging in the world and prices continue to remain elevated or go higher, that may provide some uplifts in contract pricing, and we'll think through that. But at the end of the day, the goal is to sequence our SPA contracting, EPC contracting financing activities around Train 6 in a way that synchronizes to a second half of next year FID. The news yesterday from the FERC, I think shouldn't be missed. That was an unknown. I think we had told the market we expected the FERC to move rather quickly on permitting, that all signs pointed in that direction, and I think that's been confirmed with yesterday's schedule from FERC saying that they're going to review through an EIS, by the way. Instead of an EA, it's the more complete environmental review. They're going to do that and provide a final EIS in June of next year. That supports what we've been saying to the market, an FID of Train 6 in second half of next year. We expect the FERC order to come out soon after that. It's not going to take many months to do that. We expect this to go very smoothly. We'll provide the market more updates as we receive permits, for example, from some of the agencies that contribute to the permit here as soon as we can. We're very positive there. Train 7 and 8, we are working diligently to try to get that pre-file before the end of the year. The hope is that we'll see a similar type of timeframe from the FERC on 7 and 8. We can get that done by the end of this year, possibly get the formal application filed by second quarter next year. Maybe we're looking at an FEIS the following June, and we're looking at FID-ing Train 7 and 8 a year after Train 6. All that's basically what we've been saying for quite some time, and it looks like everything's lining up to allow us to achieve those goals. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Sunil Sibal with Seaport Global Securities. Please proceed with your question. Sunil Sibal: Yeah. Hi, good morning. Thanks for all the color on the call. I was curious, in terms of your gas supply contracts, if you could provide some update on that. Obviously, U.S. gas prices, especially in some basins, have seen a lot of volatility. If you could talk about how does it impact your contracting strategy on the gas sourcing side? Matt Schatzman: Thanks for the question. As everyone, I think is aware, we are located in South Texas, and we'll be buying our gas primarily at the Agua Dulce hub. That gas today prices off of a Houston Ship Channel index. There isn't a first-of-the-month index at Agua Dulce yet. There is a daily index, but not a first-of-the-month index. That may change over time. In fact, I would expect that it would. The gas that is sold at Agua Dulce, and there is a market there that buys Cheniere's Corpus Christi facility, is connected to the hub. Certain markets in Mexico are connected to that hub as well. Today, that market price is a Ship Channel market price, basically. When you're looking at our gas supply, I would focus your attention on the Houston Ship Channel Index. When you look at the Houston Ship Channel Index today, it trades at a substantial discount to the Henry Hub, which is how we price 99% of our contracts. We have a small portion of our LNG in Phase 1 contracted to Brent. Everything else is priced off of Henry Hub. We think we're in a very enviable position with respect to some of the LNG projects, especially those in Louisiana, where we expect to be able to source our gas at a discount to the Henry Hub, at least for the foreseeable future, but in our view, is probably long-term. The reason for that is due to the prolific nature of associated natural gas coming from the Permian Basin, which continues to grow, has grown in the past quarter, in the past six months, and we expect will continue to grow into the coming years. As well as from the Eagle Ford Basin, which we also expect is going to continue to grow over the course of the next few years. Sunil Sibal: Understood. Seems like you will sign some more contracts to shore up your margins in the next few months as you get more clarity on the Train 1 start. Obviously, we see on screens a lot of volatility in international LNG prices, especially in the near-term. I was curious, how do you think about that dynamic as you approach your contracting strategy? What we see on the screen a good measure of what you're seeing in the market, especially with the market depth in terms of your ability to contract, and obviously, how should we think about that in the context of what you've signed up so far? Matt Schatzman: Yes. I think what you're referring to is when you look at the forward curve for TTF or JKM relative to the forward curve for Henry Hub which is the starting point, of course, as I said, you look at Ship Channel and the forward curve for basis for Ship Channel versus Henry Hub. You're getting a very clear picture of what our potential margins could be for the uncontracted volumes that are still available for us to sell. Clearly, based on where those prices are trading today, especially in 2027 and 2028, they are above the margins that we have guided to, which is $5 margins, which is inclusive of the cost of our gas relative to how we're selling the gas, whether it's FOB or DES. DES, you'd have to exclude shipping from that in order to get a margin. It is looking better in those years than what we've guided to. As you go further out on the curve into, say, 2029 and 2030, the market is backwardated. That is a bullish sign, by the way, when the markets are backwardated. What we would say is that the liquidity, when you're thinking about this and looking at what is most likely, the liquidity of that curve, clearly, there's more of it in the front end of the curve than there is in the back end, and more is trading in the front end than the back end. I would say that the value in your analysis, the value of the front end of that curve is probably extremely high, and the value based on the back end is probably not as reliable. As I said in my comments and what we showed in this slide, the wave has changed. It has ebbed. It is now below. We're not looking at a wave that exceeds the average growth of supply over the last 20 years. We're looking at a growth curve now inclusive of our project coming online during this period and other LNG coming online. We're now looking at a supply curve that is going below that average. Based on that, and I think you see this in the forward curve because the market actually realizes this, prices have strengthened dramatically from when we came out with our guidance originally. We would expect that sort of pricing, maybe not at the levels that we're seeing next year or right now, but we'd expect that pricing to remain elevated, and I expect will allow us to track definitely towards our guidance, maybe higher from time to time, which I think is very positive, and I mentioned in the previous question. In other words, the market looks good for us, and we don't really anticipate this changing anytime soon. I will add, You didn't ask this question, but for context for everybody, you're seeing this in the crude oil markets right now as well. A lot of volatility every day and prices going up and down based upon kinetic activity in the Middle East. Somebody gets bombed, prices go up. Somebody talks about we're going to have peace talks, and the price goes down. This is reflected in some of the stock prices as well as we have correlated with that sort of volatility in the marketplace today. I think the way the market is trading right now, oil, maybe the way it's trading certain stocks, is not really looking at the forward and what is going to happen over the next few years. It's just pricing off of the short term. That is, I think, wrong. We are very, very quickly approaching a wall, unfortunately, both in the crude market and the LNG market. We're running out of SPRS. SPR deliveries are slowing down. Refined products inventories are being reduced. Remember, the Middle East has a lot of refined products as well that they export, as well as crude. In LNG specifically, Europe is not filling storage to a level that you would normally see and running out of time to do so. Add to that the Rough storage situation in the U.K. As I understand, they have yet to get approval from the regulator to inject gas in Rough storage. Europe, U.K. is very quickly reaching a critical point where they're not going to have potentially enough supply to get through the winter next year. If we have a cold winter, things can get much, much worse. This is the dynamic that we're looking at in the market today, and it is not improving. It's clear that the situation with Iran is not going to improve anytime soon. That leads to definitely more volatility, but probably with much greater upward pressure than we're currently seeing. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Wade Suki with Capital One. Please proceed with your question. Wade Suki: Good morning, everyone. Appreciate y'all taking my questions this morning. Maybe expand a little bit, Matt, on the previous question from Sunil. It doesn't sound like there's been much of a change in, let's call it leading edge, 20-year SPA pricing. Feel free to confirm or deny, but any color around that would be great. Thinking, again, more on intermediate term type contracts. I think you kind of alluded to it in your comments, but if you could give us a sense where those are kind of shaking out, let's call them five-year type of contracts. Safe to assume those are sort of north of $5 today? How are you all thinking about those intermediate type of volumes in the context of your kind of overall portfolio management? Matt Schatzman: Thanks, Wade, for the question. The contracting market, as I said, is very, very bullish right now. That said, it's not bullish enough to push a Henry Hub type contract into the $3 range. We're still somewhere definitely north of $2.50, but south of $3. Where we end up will depend on, I think a couple of things, including the ongoing activities in the Middle East and the volatility there, but also impacts of interest rates. The cost of new capacity is sensitized to construction costs, labor costs, interest rates because we finance these projects. Inflationary pressures could push those costs higher, could push interest rates higher. It's not just a matter of pushing the cost of it. It may be something that for new entrants that are trying to get in this, the level that they are going to be able to sell for is going to continue to increase. As you know, this is a competitive market, you can't just go out and pick whatever price you want to sell for and say, "That's my price, and you must take it." People have options. Typically, as I've said in the past, what we've seen is new entrants who are trying to get their projects off the ground offer the most competitive prices, take the most risk on this. We're not in that situation. We're going to make sure that we price this at a level that we believe achieves the best returns we can get for our investors. I think that because of the efficiencies around Train 6, I believe this will exist for Train 7 and 8, as I said in my comments, we think this is one of the most economical brownfield projects in the world today. I think that puts us in a position to be very competitive, we do not have to discount. We will sell at market when we do it. We don't have to discount in order to try to get the customers to sign up with us. I think you all should still expect a range in the $2.50-$3 range, 115% of Henry Hub. Yes, the market has not changed. There's plenty of buyers for that product. There's not a new product way that I'm aware of that people have come up with that's financiable, that works better than a Henry Hub plus a fixed liquefaction fee. On the five-year front, I think what you can expect is that, as I said, the back end of this curve is not as liquid, I don't think it's as reliable as from a pricing perspective. I don't see any other than the curve getting closer to the compounding annual growth rate that we've seen for the past 20 years. That doesn't mean that we're actually going to achieve that. That's currently the forecast based on everything kind of working itself out in the Middle East. Hitting that curve requires things to start to normalize in the Middle East here before the end of the year. If that continues, we're going to be below that line, prices could be much higher. I would be wary about locking in prices on the back end of the curve, because I think there's more chance that we could lose supply than gain extra supply. I definitely am very focused on the front of that curve because I think the value that we're seeing in the market, even though we may be able to achieve more if we kind of just went spot on it, I think that value is starting to look very attractive. We're not prepared to contract for that until we have more certainty around the Train 1, Train 2 startup. We don't want to be short in this market. I'd rather risk not making as much and selling it at a slightly lower price than that on a spot basis potentially than going and selling forward right now and then have some issue crop up with Train 1 startup and end up being short in this market, which I think would be really bad right now. Wade Suki: No, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. All makes sense. Just switch gears a little bit, if I may. Just thinking about during the quarter, I think it was XRG picked off some of GIP's interest in Trains 4 and 5, if I'm not mistaken. I think it was relatively small. Just kind of curious how you guys are thinking about maybe picking off some of these interests over time. Any color, timing, thoughts around that you could share would be great. Thank you again. Matt Schatzman: Yeah. Thanks, Wade. At this point, I don't think we're really interested in selling what we have. I'd probably like to buy more as opposed to selling. If you're talking about picking off some of the interest to purchase, so maybe you can clarify. You're not suggesting we should sell, you're saying maybe we should be buying some of these pieces? Is that what you're suggesting? Wade Suki: Exactly where I was going with that. Matt Schatzman: Yeah. Wade Suki: At some point, you guys think about picking off some of these interests. Matt Schatzman: Yeah. As I've said, we've got tremendous growth opportunities to expand where we own 100% of our expansion capacity. We're going to have opportunities for debottlenecking, which we can do with our partners which should be hopefully very low cost capacity increases. Then as you point out, we do have partners in these projects that probably are not going to be long-term holds for 100% of the position for 20+ years. As those opportunities present themselves, we absolutely would like to look at maybe acquiring more of that capacity back. We feel like we're going to be in a great position to offer hopefully very competitive opportunities to them. Since we're the operator, we know the asset better than anyone else. I think it is a good way and a good steer for some of our investors to think about, Wade, that it's not just the Train 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and debottlenecking. There will be opportunities for us to acquire the additional operating interest from Phase 1, potentially Train 4 and Train 5. It's another opportunity for NextDecade to continue to grow its cash flow if it makes economic sense to do so. Having someone like John around now to help us analyze that is paramount in making the right decisions for investors going forward. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers. Please proceed with your question. Craig Shere: Morning. Congratulations on the continued progress with the construction and the financings. Most of my questions have been asked. I did want to just dig in a little more on Sunil's gas supply question. Any thoughts, and this kind of feeds into financing and Train 6 FID. Any thoughts about the ability to lock in some long-term feed gas at a set discount to Henry Hub? That to your point, well, we don't want to get the max riding on the spot all the time on the sales. Similarly on the other side, if you can lock in some supply at a fixed margin that is bankable, even if that's not as profitable quarter-to-quarter over a number of years, could that be an opportunity to definitively show the market, show investors, show those who would be lending for expansion that you do have better margins and you are a good credit? Matt Schatzman: Let me start with the financing aspect. The lenders don't really look when they're sizing the debt, they don't really look at the gas supply, the value associated with purchasing gas at a discount to Henry Hub. I think your point is, if you did, if you could actually lock that component in, could you get credit for that and possibly increase the size of the debt that they're willing to provide? Yes, but there's a caveat. We don't think that the lenders will provide more than 75% of the total capital required for these projects anyway. We believe that, and we always strive to get to that, and I hope for Train 6 that we're able to get to 75% project-level debt. That's going to be based upon what those contracts rates are. From a debt perspective, Craig, I think if we're able to achieve that 75% leverage without it, which is what our goal is, that'll be great. Therefore, if we can lock in, it doesn't affect how much debt we can put on at the project-level. I think it does obviously lock in value and cash flow, which probably could be viewed differently by investors as far as how they value the company. We have looked at this, I think it's one of the opportunities that we have being in South Texas, the ability to provide producers, both the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford, with the ability to buy at a percentage, a discounted percentage of Henry Hub, thereby locking in their basis differential long term to the Henry Hub and also locking in our basis differential. As you'd expect, at the end of the day, it boils down to a bid-offer spread and whether or not we want to lock in at whatever that discount is assumed to be, because it's obviously going to be a percentage of Henry Hub. Henry Hub prices go up, it's a wider basis. If Henry Hub prices go down, it's a lower basis. I definitely think there's an opportunity there. How big that could be, it's going to be subject to how many producers want to lock in that basis differential long term, which tends to be sensitized to royalty issues. They don't have to do this. They tend to go at market, especially around royalties. I definitely think there are some out there that are interested in this. Whether or not we're going to be able to do it will be based upon, like I said, that bid-offer spread. Hopefully that was clear. Craig Shere: Yeah. Very clear. I appreciate it. Operator: Thank you. Our last question comes from Alexander Bidwell with Webber Research. Please proceed with your question. Alexander Bidwell: Morning. Appreciate the time. We're seeing increasing labor competition in the U.S. Gulf, driven by the current slate of projects under construction. With the recent U.S. FIDs likely to further stretch craft resources in the back half of the decade. For both Rio Grande as well as other U.S. projects, what sort of knock-on impacts do you anticipate from this growing competition in terms of EPC costs, potential craft labor shortages, construction progress, et cetera? Matt Schatzman: Thanks for the question. We've talked about this in the past, and I'm happy to say it hasn't changed for us. We are situated in the Rio Grande Valley, and the Rio Grande Valley has not been an area where there's been a tremendous amount of infrastructure development where craft labor jobs were readily available. The people that lived in that region had to travel to Corpus Christi or the Louisiana Gulf Coast or Permian Basin to find work. Bechtel is a direct hire model, these are all Bechtel employees. We have not seen any issues today ramping up our activities on site. As you know, we've gone from 5,000 employees to over 6,000 employees today. We got approval to increase that and go 24/7 with FERC. We have not seen any issue. We have said in our comments we're over 6,000 right now. We haven't seen, I don't think Bechtel's seen, an issue ramping that up, and I think there's a reason for that. There's a lot of people in the Valley that are skilled at these jobs, and they like the idea that they can work where they live. That's the unique opportunity that Rio Grande LNG presents. Many of these construction workers, especially now that we have Train 4 and 5 under construction, and that the company is rapidly developing Trains 6, 7, and 8, which we expect to FID second half of next year and hopefully a year after for 7 and 8. That this is an opportunity to have a construction job, be able to make a phenomenal living for the next 10 years, potentially, if we keep going out to 9 and 10, and live at home and watch your kids grow up, go home to your significant other at night. This is fairly unique. Even for our own team, our own construction team. These people have worked, they have a lot of experience, and they work on projects. They tend to be on those projects for three to four years, and then you have to let them go because you're not building anything anymore, and they got to go work on a different project. We pull people from Cheniere and Cameron and other LNG projects around the world. I think this is a fairly unique situation for us. Even when there's another project that may FID close to us, they don't offer the same sort of construction work that a NextDecade's project does, where it's like, well, you could go work there for two or three years, or you can work here and get paid as much, maybe more, and do this for the next seven or eight years. Which one would you like to choose? That's not the case necessarily in Louisiana, where there's a lot of activity going on, and there's a lot of competition. Maybe the contractors aren't direct hire models either, so there's a lot of folks that they subcontract out, and it's very difficult for them to control the labor force. I think we're in a good shape right now. That doesn't mean it won't change. It could change. From what we've seen over the past year, as those activities have increased that you mentioned with other projects around the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast, we haven't seen any issues getting what we need and keeping it. Alexander Bidwell: All right. Thank you for the color there. Real quick, just wanted to take a look at the sub-chartering of those LNG carriers. With the current freight rates modestly elevated compared to the last couple of years, have you been able to capture any upside in the carrier market from sub-chartering out those assets? Matt Schatzman: Yeah. Look, that's really not our focus. We're not trading these vessels. We only sub-charter them when we don't need them. The interesting about the shipping market, especially these new builds, and I've said this before and I think it's been true for the past 20 years, is especially in Korea, these shipyards are unbelievable at how fast they can build these ships. There was always going to be a slight gap between when we receive our ships and when we're going to need them. Obviously, that gap, we believe, is closing because we're going to be earlier than what we originally expected. At least that's the current trend, as we've said. We're not really focused on trading them. What we're actually focused on is if we sub-charter them, making sure that whatever we do, that we get those ships back in time to load our early cargoes and to start our long-term contracts. Operator: Thank you. That concludes our call today. Thank you for joining and for your interest in NextDecade. Before you buy stock in NextDecade, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and NextDecade wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. 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As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. NextDecade (NEXT) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, July 30, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. ET Vice President of Investor Relations - Megan Light Chairman and Chief Executive Officer - Matt Schatzman Chief Financial Officer - John Zuklic Operator: Good morning, and welcome to the Next Decade Corporation 2Q 2026 investor call and webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow management's prepared remarks. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Now I would like to turn the call over to Megan Light, NextDecade's Vice President of Investor Relations. Megan Light: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to NextDecade's second quarter 2026 investor update call and webcast. The slide presentation and access to the webcast for today's call are available on our website at www.next-decade.com. Today, I am joined by Matt Schatzman, NextDecade's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and John Zuklic, NextDecade's Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind listeners that discussion on this call, including answers to your questions, contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws. These statements have been based on assumptions and analysis made by NextDecade in light of current expectations, perceptions of historical trends, current conditions, and projections about future events and trends. Although NextDecade believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations will prove to be correct. NextDecade's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in NextDecade's periodic reports that are filed with and available from the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, discussion on this call includes references to certain non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow. The definition of and additional information regarding these measures can be found in the appendix to our presentation. Now I will turn the call over to Matt Schatzman, NextDecade's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Matt Schatzman: Thank you, Megan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. First, I'd like to introduce our new Chief Financial Officer, John Zuklic, who joined the company earlier this month. John was previously the Chief Financial Officer at Citgo, where he led the finance organization and was responsible for setting and executing financial strategy, recapitalizing the company, building functions to strengthen forecasting, governance, and decision support. John brings significant expertise to NextDecade after 30 years in the energy industry. We're very happy to have him here at NextDecade. He's an experienced strategic and operational leader who will help us transform from an LNG development company to an LNG operating company. Transitioning to become a safe and reliable LNG operating company is one of our highest company-wide priorities in 2026. We're making great progress toward this goal as Rio Grande LNG Phase 1 construction continues to advance safely, efficiently, and ahead of schedule toward first LNG production. In May, we safely energized the main substation at the site, and in June, we seconded over 100 operational employees to Bechtel in preparation for first LNG production. We continue to expect first gas into the facility later this year, and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027. On our last call, we told you that we're tracking ahead of the schedule reflected in our production guidance, and that remains true today. As we continue to progress toward first LNG and get additional visibility into the production schedule, we will continue to evaluate opportunities to sell uncontracted volumes, and we expect to be able to narrow our forecast window for first LNG. I'd also like to thank the entire NextDecade team for their hard work and continued diligence in preparing for commissioning and startup across the organization. We have a lot of work to do, but I have no doubt we're placing ourselves in a strong position for a safe and effective transition to an LNG operating company. During the second quarter, we also made measurable progress on one of our financial goals for the year by determining out a significant portion of our Phase 1 bank facility debt. John will discuss these transactions in more detail later in the call. In May, we filed the formal FERC application for Train 6. Yesterday we were notified by FERC that the final Environmental Impact Statement will be issued by June 25th, 2027. We believe that Train 6 is one of the most economically advantaged brownfield LNG expansions in the world, and we expect to capitalize on strong demand for LNG to underpin Train 6 and expand our capacity to deliver secure, reliable, and affordable LNG to customers around the world. Now I'd like to give some additional color on what's happening at the site as we progress towards first LNG production. As of June 2026, Trains 1 and 2 were 74% complete with engineering and procurement nearing completion, construction at almost 60%, and the start of commissioning. As of June, Train 3 was over 50% complete, Train 4 was 15.5% complete, and Train 5 was 9.4% complete. We have over 6,000 workers on site daily, and Bechtel is doing an outstanding job advancing construction while maintaining exceptional safety standards and performance. Train 1 continues to progress positively and all major equipment has been set. We safely energized the main substation at the site in May with 138 kV power, and we seconded over 100 operational employees to Bechtel in June. These are all major achievements ahead of first LNG production. Construction beyond Train 1 is also progressing safely, on budget, and ahead of schedule. Train 2 major equipment installation is underway, and the second compressor string and turbine were set in July. Train 3 major equipment installation has also started, including the first compressor string. Welding of the inner tanks continues to progress for Tanks 1 and 2, and Tank 1 pipe installation is underway. The Train 4 soil stabilization process was completed recently, and foundation pours began for the main cryogenic rack. The Train 5 soil stabilization process also began this month, and Tank 3 piling work is underway. Construction of the Bay Runner pipeline continues to be on track for a third quarter 2026 in-service. Significant progress has been made on the inlet gas facilities, and the hot tap to Valley Crossing Pipeline was completed. Across the site, construction of permanent buildings is nearing completion, dredging activities for the berth and the turning basin are substantially complete, and our channel deepening project is complete. Bechtel's continuing to track ahead of what we have shown in our early volume guidance, giving us some buffer for unexpected events during commissioning and startup, while still achieving the production guidance we have provided. We achieved major milestones in development of Train 6 when we filed the formal FERC application in May. Yesterday, we received FERC's schedule of environmental review, which states that we will receive the final EIS on June 25th, 2027. This schedule supports a positive final investment decision or FID on Train 6 in the second half of 2027, contingent upon obtaining sufficient commercial support and financing. Additionally, we submitted our application to the Department of Energy for FTA and non-FTA export authorizations for Train 6 in June. Our goal is to fully commercialize Train 6 and to finalize an EPC contract with Bechtel on a timeline that supports FID in the second half of next year. We're also focused on ensuring that critical long-lead equipment is available when needed. In support of this objective, during the second quarter, we executed a reservation agreement with Baker Hughes to secure the supply of the main refrigeration compressors for Train 6. Commercialization of Train 6 continues to progress, and we're in active discussions for long-term SPAs with a number of high credit quality counterparties. The commercial environment for long-term LNG contracting remains strong. The underlying themes driving demand for incremental LNG supplies in the early 2030s have not changed. Fueling economic growth and industrialization in developing countries, supporting growing power demand and energy security, with energy security and supply diversification becoming even more critical for customers around the world since the Iran conflict began. We expect demand for long-term LNG contracts and prices for these contracts to remain strong as we continue to progress commercialization of Train 6. One of our key financial priorities this year is to determine the most value-accretive way to fund our equity commitments for Train 6. We continue to expect that Train 6 will meaningfully increase future NextDecade distributable cash flow across a wide range of financing scenarios. We're focused on financing Train 6 in a way that both enables us to achieve our goals of maintaining full ownership of Train 6 and maximizing distributable cash flow on a per-share basis. Since our last call, global LNG market dynamics continue to be impacted significantly because of the Iran conflict. Whether stability returns soon or takes longer to materialize, the impact on the LNG market has been material. The ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz has taken almost 20% of the world's LNG supply off the market. Each month that Ras Laffan and Das Island remain shut in results in a loss of approximately 7 million tons of LNG. We now expect the restart of these facilities, once it is safe and viable to do so, will take many months. The two trains that were damaged at Ras Laffan will take years to repair, and the expansion capacity, which has been under construction, could be delayed by a year or more, depending on how long hostilities continue in the region. Before the Iran conflict began, the LNG market was concerned the impending supply wave of LNG might cause a supply overhang. The current uncertainty around the return of LNG supplies from Qatar and the UAE, the amount of time it will take to repair the Qatar trains damaged by the Iranian attacks, and the delays to expansion projects currently under construction in the region will potentially remove additional material amounts of LNG supply from the global market through 2030 or longer. At a minimum, the current expected range of LNG supply scenarios, including the potential for a resolution of the situation in the Middle East this year, points to LNG supply growth through 2030 in line with or below the market's 20-year average growth rate. Based on our updated LNG supply forecast, we expect spot LNG prices to remain elevated through at least 2030. One very effective way for buyers around the world to acquire LNG at attractive prices is through long-term supply. U.S. LNG SPAs indexed to Henry Hub are particularly attractive due to the diversified, prolific natural gas resource base in the U.S., which effectively shelters buyers from spikes in the price of LNG and natural gas in other parts of the world. Henry Hub pricing has been relatively flat to down since the Iran conflict began. Customers with long-term contracts out of the U.S. that are indexed to Henry Hub are currently able to deliver into Europe or Asia at levels below $8 per MMBtu. We expect buyers to increasingly value long-term contracts out of the U.S., which will spur additional capacity growth in the market. With our Trains 6 through 8 under development, we're in an excellent position to provide a meaningful amount of additional capacity to meet that demand. Before and after the Iran conflict began, we've received strong interest for long-term supplies out of Train 6. Now I'd like to turn the call over to NextDecade's new Chief Financial Officer, John Zuklic, to discuss recent financial transactions and highlights. John Zuklic: Thanks, Matt, and thanks to everyone on the line for being with us today. I'm happy to be here at NextDecade and look forward to start meeting with the investment community soon. As Matt said, we recently completed two financing transactions that termed out a significant portion of our outstanding Phase 1 project-level bank facility debt. These transactions diversified our bank maturity stack, our debt maturity stack, and freed up bank capacity for financing Train 6 and additional expansion capacity beyond Train 6. In June, we entered into a credit agreement for a $1 billion term loan at a Phase 1 project holding company level, which bears interest at 7.05% and matures in June 2033. Interest on this term loan is payable in cash or in kind at our election until the first interest payment after June 2029. Proceeds from this term loan were used to reduce outstanding borrowings under the Phase 1 bank facilities. Migrating this portion of Phase 1 bank debt up to the Phase 1 holding company enabled us to achieve investment-grade ratings for our subsequent 144A issuance. In July, Rio Grande LNG, LLC, our Phase 1 operating and financing entity, issued $3.5 billion senior secured notes in a 144A offering. These notes, which are rated BBB- by S&P and Fitch, were issued in four tranches: $1 billion of 5.25% senior secured notes due 2031, $500 million of 5.5% senior secured notes due 2034, $1.25 billion of 5.75% senior secured notes due 2036, and $750 million of 6.15% senior secured notes due 2041. I'd like to thank the treasury and finance team for excellent execution of our inaugural 144A issuance, which was no small lift. We built an initial order book of over $14 billion, and the transaction priced at the tight end of our anticipated range. In conjunction with these capital raises, we unwound a portion of our interest rate swaps associated with the bank debt we retired, resulting in a $109 million settlement receipt in July. We utilized the total proceeds of these three transactions, net of fees, to pay down approximately $4.6 billion of Phase 1 bank facility borrowings. We continue to expect that we will refinance the full bank facility balances at each project-level entity ahead of the guaranteed substantial completion of the respective project and will continue to be opportunistic based on market conditions. Now I'd like to cover a couple of items from our second quarter 10-Q. First, we took delivery of two LNG vessels and their respective charters began during the second quarter, including the new build Clean Texas, the first of three new builds we have chartered to service our long-term Phase 1 DES contract. We currently have three LNG vessels under charter and expect to take delivery of additional vessels over the coming course of this year ahead of first LNG production. We also sub-charter some shipping capacity to third parties to better match our available capacity to our needed capacity. We will continue to charter and sub-charter vessels over time as needed to better match our available shipping capacity to our anticipated needs. The vessel charters are accounted for as finance leases in our financials. Pursuant to lease accounting standards, the leased vessels are recorded as assets and lease liabilities on our balance sheet and are included primarily in depreciation and amortization and interest expense on our statements of operations. Income from sub-chartering vessels is included as an offset to operating and maintenance expense on our statements of operations. The second item I'd like to highlight from the second quarter financials is that we began breaking out our operating and maintenance expense this quarter as we approach first LNG production. In operating and maintenance expense, we have included costs related to the site and pre-operational readiness activities. Once operations begin, this will also include costs directly attributable to revenue-generating activities. Year-to-date 2026, the costs included in operating and maintenance expense consist primarily of labor, property taxes, and our site lease. General and administrative expense continues to include costs relating to corporate management, governance, enterprise-wide support, and other support functions that are not directly attributable to operating assets or activities. As a reminder, our financials consolidate the Rio Grande LNG project entities and total G&A expense includes both NextDecade-level overhead as well as general and administrative expense for Rio Grande LNG. We applied this cost-splitting methodology retrospectively across our financials, and we expect operating and maintenance expense to increase throughout this year as we approach commissioning and operations. With that, we'll now turn the call over for questions. Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that you please limit yourself to one question, one follow-up. One moment while we pull for questions. Our first question is from Olivia Foster with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question. Olivia Foster: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking our questions. I wanted to start on operations. With first gas expected at Rio Grande in the second half of this year and first LNG expected in the first half of 2027, could you walk through the commissioning milestones we should be watching over the next two quarters? What are critical path items we need to see completed before we could introduce feed gas to the site and then produce first LNG thereafter? Lastly, when should we expect updated guidance to narrow around these operational milestones? Thank you. Matt Schatzman: Thank you, Olivia, and thanks for the question. There's a list of things, obviously, that are going to happen prior to us introducing first gas into the facility and starting to produce LNG. I think some of the major milestones that we'll highlight when they occur are obviously the completion of the LNG tank, and that should be coming here before probably the end of the year. The completion of the pipeline facilities, which we expect to have completed by this quarter with Bay Runner. As we said in our comments, the interconnect, the hot tap with VCP is already in place. We have that redundancy, but Bay Runner is our primary feed pipeline, and that's expected to be complete here in short order. There's a lot more, obviously, that's going on at the site. We're obviously painting and hydrostatic testing and putting in insulation, all that work is proceeding, as we've already said, as planned or ahead of schedule. We do expect Train 1, assuming no major difficulties during the commissioning process, to be ahead of the schedule. That's even reflected in the volumes that we've got out in the market today. As far as updating the guidance around when we're going to start producing LNG, I'm hopeful that we'll be able to provide that in the fourth quarter. We should know a lot more over the course of the next few months. We'll start to introduce gas into the facility, as you mentioned, and we mentioned in our comments this year. We're still working with Bechtel on exactly the procedure for the commissioning and what order we want to do things. It shouldn't come as a shock if we don't introduce gas really soon that's somehow a message that things are slowing down. There's a couple different ways to do it. You can commission the warm in the facility, you can commission the flares first to be very small introductions of natural gas, or you can start commissioning the turbines and do the flares simultaneously or around the same time. I wouldn't be focused too much on the filings as far as how much or when we start introducing gas. These are things that we're working through with Bechtel to come up with the most efficient way to commission the facility and do it as quickly and as safely as possible. Later this year, I expect to be able to provide the market some more narrowed guidance as to the exact timing of when we're going to start producing LNG. I think as the commissioning goes on, Olivia, and we build confidence in the facility and the operations, we'll be able to update the guidance on the volumes as well. Olivia Foster: That's clear. Thanks for the color. For my follow-up question, I wanted to ask on the geopolitical environment. With the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the associated global LNG supply disruptions, can you describe any shifts you've seen in buyer activity in the market? How has this backdrop impacted your commercial discussions for Train 6? Lastly, how should we think about NextDecade's ability to announce new long-term SPAs in support of a potential Train 6 FID in the coming months and quarters? Thank you. Matt Schatzman: I think the last earnings call, we're all very concerned about what's going on in the Middle East today and what's going on in Ukraine. There's a lot of negative things happening with respect to kinetic activities that people are dying around the world right now, especially in the Middle East and in the Eastern bloc. We'd like to see all that go away. From our perspective, from NextDecade's perspective in the long-term LNG market, clearly the volatility that this has caused and the upward price pressure in the LNG market is actually helping us. The short-term spot prices will benefit NextDecade if they persist, and we expect that they will with our early cargoes and the cash flow we'll generate from Train 1 startup, potentially all the way through Train 5 DFCD. There's a lot of emphasis from suppliers on supply reliability, and the lack of reliability from supplies from the Persian Gulf has pretty much heightened the awareness of a lot of those buyers to focus on other supply sources, especially U.S., where we have become a very reliable and, for all intents and purposes, low-cost supplier of LNG when you look at it on a long-term contracting SPA basis. As I said in my comments, Olivia, we were marketing this before the Iran conflict began, and it was going extremely well, and we've been continuing to market it, and I can tell you that the level of interest has only increased in the past quarter as this conflict has persisted, and that there's more competition for the volumes that we have for sale out of Train 6, 7, and 8. As far as timing of SPAs, I think the market should expect to see some activities there over the course of the next six months. How much we do we'll determine based on how fast we want to move in this area. Clearly, if things get more challenging in the world and prices continue to remain elevated or go higher, that may provide some uplifts in contract pricing, and we'll think through that. But at the end of the day, the goal is to sequence our SPA contracting, EPC contracting financing activities around Train 6 in a way that synchronizes to a second half of next year FID. The news yesterday from the FERC, I think shouldn't be missed. That was an unknown. I think we had told the market we expected the FERC to move rather quickly on permitting, that all signs pointed in that direction, and I think that's been confirmed with yesterday's schedule from FERC saying that they're going to review through an EIS, by the way. Instead of an EA, it's the more complete environmental review. They're going to do that and provide a final EIS in June of next year. That supports what we've been saying to the market, an FID of Train 6 in second half of next year. We expect the FERC order to come out soon after that. It's not going to take many months to do that. We expect this to go very smoothly. We'll provide the market more updates as we receive permits, for example, from some of the agencies that contribute to the permit here as soon as we can. We're very positive there. Train 7 and 8, we are working diligently to try to get that pre-file before the end of the year. The hope is that we'll see a similar type of timeframe from the FERC on 7 and 8. We can get that done by the end of this year, possibly get the formal application filed by second quarter next year. Maybe we're looking at an FEIS the following June, and we're looking at FID-ing Train 7 and 8 a year after Train 6. All that's basically what we've been saying for quite some time, and it looks like everything's lining up to allow us to achieve those goals. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Sunil Sibal with Seaport Global Securities. Please proceed with your question. Sunil Sibal: Yeah. Hi, good morning. Thanks for all the color on the call. I was curious, in terms of your gas supply contracts, if you could provide some update on that. Obviously, U.S. gas prices, especially in some basins, have seen a lot of volatility. If you could talk about how does it impact your contracting strategy on the gas sourcing side? Matt Schatzman: Thanks for the question. As everyone, I think is aware, we are located in South Texas, and we'll be buying our gas primarily at the Agua Dulce hub. That gas today prices off of a Houston Ship Channel index. There isn't a first-of-the-month index at Agua Dulce yet. There is a daily index, but not a first-of-the-month index. That may change over time. In fact, I would expect that it would. The gas that is sold at Agua Dulce, and there is a market there that buys Cheniere's Corpus Christi facility, is connected to the hub. Certain markets in Mexico are connected to that hub as well. Today, that market price is a Ship Channel market price, basically. When you're looking at our gas supply, I would focus your attention on the Houston Ship Channel Index. When you look at the Houston Ship Channel Index today, it trades at a substantial discount to the Henry Hub, which is how we price 99% of our contracts. We have a small portion of our LNG in Phase 1 contracted to Brent. Everything else is priced off of Henry Hub. We think we're in a very enviable position with respect to some of the LNG projects, especially those in Louisiana, where we expect to be able to source our gas at a discount to the Henry Hub, at least for the foreseeable future, but in our view, is probably long-term. The reason for that is due to the prolific nature of associated natural gas coming from the Permian Basin, which continues to grow, has grown in the past quarter, in the past six months, and we expect will continue to grow into the coming years. As well as from the Eagle Ford Basin, which we also expect is going to continue to grow over the course of the next few years. Sunil Sibal: Understood. Seems like you will sign some more contracts to shore up your margins in the next few months as you get more clarity on the Train 1 start. Obviously, we see on screens a lot of volatility in international LNG prices, especially in the near-term. I was curious, how do you think about that dynamic as you approach your contracting strategy? What we see on the screen a good measure of what you're seeing in the market, especially with the market depth in terms of your ability to contract, and obviously, how should we think about that in the context of what you've signed up so far? Matt Schatzman: Yes. I think what you're referring to is when you look at the forward curve for TTF or JKM relative to the forward curve for Henry Hub which is the starting point, of course, as I said, you look at Ship Channel and the forward curve for basis for Ship Channel versus Henry Hub. You're getting a very clear picture of what our potential margins could be for the uncontracted volumes that are still available for us to sell. Clearly, based on where those prices are trading today, especially in 2027 and 2028, they are above the margins that we have guided to, which is $5 margins, which is inclusive of the cost of our gas relative to how we're selling the gas, whether it's FOB or DES. DES, you'd have to exclude shipping from that in order to get a margin. It is looking better in those years than what we've guided to. As you go further out on the curve into, say, 2029 and 2030, the market is backwardated. That is a bullish sign, by the way, when the markets are backwardated. What we would say is that the liquidity, when you're thinking about this and looking at what is most likely, the liquidity of that curve, clearly, there's more of it in the front end of the curve than there is in the back end, and more is trading in the front end than the back end. I would say that the value in your analysis, the value of the front end of that curve is probably extremely high, and the value based on the back end is probably not as reliable. As I said in my comments and what we showed in this slide, the wave has changed. It has ebbed. It is now below. We're not looking at a wave that exceeds the average growth of supply over the last 20 years. We're looking at a growth curve now inclusive of our project coming online during this period and other LNG coming online. We're now looking at a supply curve that is going below that average. Based on that, and I think you see this in the forward curve because the market actually realizes this, prices have strengthened dramatically from when we came out with our guidance originally. We would expect that sort of pricing, maybe not at the levels that we're seeing next year or right now, but we'd expect that pricing to remain elevated, and I expect will allow us to track definitely towards our guidance, maybe higher from time to time, which I think is very positive, and I mentioned in the previous question. In other words, the market looks good for us, and we don't really anticipate this changing anytime soon. I will add, You didn't ask this question, but for context for everybody, you're seeing this in the crude oil markets right now as well. A lot of volatility every day and prices going up and down based upon kinetic activity in the Middle East. Somebody gets bombed, prices go up. Somebody talks about we're going to have peace talks, and the price goes down. This is reflected in some of the stock prices as well as we have correlated with that sort of volatility in the marketplace today. I think the way the market is trading right now, oil, maybe the way it's trading certain stocks, is not really looking at the forward and what is going to happen over the next few years. It's just pricing off of the short term. That is, I think, wrong. We are very, very quickly approaching a wall, unfortunately, both in the crude market and the LNG market. We're running out of SPRS. SPR deliveries are slowing down. Refined products inventories are being reduced. Remember, the Middle East has a lot of refined products as well that they export, as well as crude. In LNG specifically, Europe is not filling storage to a level that you would normally see and running out of time to do so. Add to that the Rough storage situation in the U.K. As I understand, they have yet to get approval from the regulator to inject gas in Rough storage. Europe, U.K. is very quickly reaching a critical point where they're not going to have potentially enough supply to get through the winter next year. If we have a cold winter, things can get much, much worse. This is the dynamic that we're looking at in the market today, and it is not improving. It's clear that the situation with Iran is not going to improve anytime soon. That leads to definitely more volatility, but probably with much greater upward pressure than we're currently seeing. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Wade Suki with Capital One. Please proceed with your question. Wade Suki: Good morning, everyone. Appreciate y'all taking my questions this morning. Maybe expand a little bit, Matt, on the previous question from Sunil. It doesn't sound like there's been much of a change in, let's call it leading edge, 20-year SPA pricing. Feel free to confirm or deny, but any color around that would be great. Thinking, again, more on intermediate term type contracts. I think you kind of alluded to it in your comments, but if you could give us a sense where those are kind of shaking out, let's call them five-year type of contracts. Safe to assume those are sort of north of $5 today? How are you all thinking about those intermediate type of volumes in the context of your kind of overall portfolio management? Matt Schatzman: Thanks, Wade, for the question. The contracting market, as I said, is very, very bullish right now. That said, it's not bullish enough to push a Henry Hub type contract into the $3 range. We're still somewhere definitely north of $2.50, but south of $3. Where we end up will depend on, I think a couple of things, including the ongoing activities in the Middle East and the volatility there, but also impacts of interest rates. The cost of new capacity is sensitized to construction costs, labor costs, interest rates because we finance these projects. Inflationary pressures could push those costs higher, could push interest rates higher. It's not just a matter of pushing the cost of it. It may be something that for new entrants that are trying to get in this, the level that they are going to be able to sell for is going to continue to increase. As you know, this is a competitive market, you can't just go out and pick whatever price you want to sell for and say, "That's my price, and you must take it." People have options. Typically, as I've said in the past, what we've seen is new entrants who are trying to get their projects off the ground offer the most competitive prices, take the most risk on this. We're not in that situation. We're going to make sure that we price this at a level that we believe achieves the best returns we can get for our investors. I think that because of the efficiencies around Train 6, I believe this will exist for Train 7 and 8, as I said in my comments, we think this is one of the most economical brownfield projects in the world today. I think that puts us in a position to be very competitive, we do not have to discount. We will sell at market when we do it. We don't have to discount in order to try to get the customers to sign up with us. I think you all should still expect a range in the $2.50-$3 range, 115% of Henry Hub. Yes, the market has not changed. There's plenty of buyers for that product. There's not a new product way that I'm aware of that people have come up with that's financiable, that works better than a Henry Hub plus a fixed liquefaction fee. On the five-year front, I think what you can expect is that, as I said, the back end of this curve is not as liquid, I don't think it's as reliable as from a pricing perspective. I don't see any other than the curve getting closer to the compounding annual growth rate that we've seen for the past 20 years. That doesn't mean that we're actually going to achieve that. That's currently the forecast based on everything kind of working itself out in the Middle East. Hitting that curve requires things to start to normalize in the Middle East here before the end of the year. If that continues, we're going to be below that line, prices could be much higher. I would be wary about locking in prices on the back end of the curve, because I think there's more chance that we could lose supply than gain extra supply. I definitely am very focused on the front of that curve because I think the value that we're seeing in the market, even though we may be able to achieve more if we kind of just went spot on it, I think that value is starting to look very attractive. We're not prepared to contract for that until we have more certainty around the Train 1, Train 2 startup. We don't want to be short in this market. I'd rather risk not making as much and selling it at a slightly lower price than that on a spot basis potentially than going and selling forward right now and then have some issue crop up with Train 1 startup and end up being short in this market, which I think would be really bad right now. Wade Suki: No, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. All makes sense. Just switch gears a little bit, if I may. Just thinking about during the quarter, I think it was XRG picked off some of GIP's interest in Trains 4 and 5, if I'm not mistaken. I think it was relatively small. Just kind of curious how you guys are thinking about maybe picking off some of these interests over time. Any color, timing, thoughts around that you could share would be great. Thank you again. Matt Schatzman: Yeah. Thanks, Wade. At this point, I don't think we're really interested in selling what we have. I'd probably like to buy more as opposed to selling. If you're talking about picking off some of the interest to purchase, so maybe you can clarify. You're not suggesting we should sell, you're saying maybe we should be buying some of these pieces? Is that what you're suggesting? Wade Suki: Exactly where I was going with that. Matt Schatzman: Yeah. Wade Suki: At some point, you guys think about picking off some of these interests. Matt Schatzman: Yeah. As I've said, we've got tremendous growth opportunities to expand where we own 100% of our expansion capacity. We're going to have opportunities for debottlenecking, which we can do with our partners which should be hopefully very low cost capacity increases. Then as you point out, we do have partners in these projects that probably are not going to be long-term holds for 100% of the position for 20+ years. As those opportunities present themselves, we absolutely would like to look at maybe acquiring more of that capacity back. We feel like we're going to be in a great position to offer hopefully very competitive opportunities to them. Since we're the operator, we know the asset better than anyone else. I think it is a good way and a good steer for some of our investors to think about, Wade, that it's not just the Train 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and debottlenecking. There will be opportunities for us to acquire the additional operating interest from Phase 1, potentially Train 4 and Train 5. It's another opportunity for NextDecade to continue to grow its cash flow if it makes economic sense to do so. Having someone like John around now to help us analyze that is paramount in making the right decisions for investors going forward. Thanks for the question. Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Craig Shere with Tuohy Brothers. Please proceed with your question. Craig Shere: Morning. Congratulations on the continued progress with the construction and the financings. Most of my questions have been asked. I did want to just dig in a little more on Sunil's gas supply question. Any thoughts, and this kind of feeds into financing and Train 6 FID. Any thoughts about the ability to lock in some long-term feed gas at a set discount to Henry Hub? That to your point, well, we don't want to get the max riding on the spot all the time on the sales. Similarly on the other side, if you can lock in some supply at a fixed margin that is bankable, even if that's not as profitable quarter-to-quarter over a number of years, could that be an opportunity to definitively show the market, show investors, show those who would be lending for expansion that you do have better margins and you are a good credit? Matt Schatzman: Let me start with the financing aspect. The lenders don't really look when they're sizing the debt, they don't really look at the gas supply, the value associated with purchasing gas at a discount to Henry Hub. I think your point is, if you did, if you could actually lock that component in, could you get credit for that and possibly increase the size of the debt that they're willing to provide? Yes, but there's a caveat. We don't think that the lenders will provide more than 75% of the total capital required for these projects anyway. We believe that, and we always strive to get to that, and I hope for Train 6 that we're able to get to 75% project-level debt. That's going to be based upon what those contracts rates are. From a debt perspective, Craig, I think if we're able to achieve that 75% leverage without it, which is what our goal is, that'll be great. Therefore, if we can lock in, it doesn't affect how much debt we can put on at the project-level. I think it does obviously lock in value and cash flow, which probably could be viewed differently by investors as far as how they value the company. We have looked at this, I think it's one of the opportunities that we have being in South Texas, the ability to provide producers, both the Permian Basin and the Eagle Ford, with the ability to buy at a percentage, a discounted percentage of Henry Hub, thereby locking in their basis differential long term to the Henry Hub and also locking in our basis differential. As you'd expect, at the end of the day, it boils down to a bid-offer spread and whether or not we want to lock in at whatever that discount is assumed to be, because it's obviously going to be a percentage of Henry Hub. Henry Hub prices go up, it's a wider basis. If Henry Hub prices go down, it's a lower basis. I definitely think there's an opportunity there. How big that could be, it's going to be subject to how many producers want to lock in that basis differential long term, which tends to be sensitized to royalty issues. They don't have to do this. They tend to go at market, especially around royalties. I definitely think there are some out there that are interested in this. Whether or not we're going to be able to do it will be based upon, like I said, that bid-offer spread. Hopefully that was clear. Craig Shere: Yeah. Very clear. I appreciate it. Operator: Thank you. Our last question comes from Alexander Bidwell with Webber Research. Please proceed with your question. Alexander Bidwell: Morning. Appreciate the time. We're seeing increasing labor competition in the U.S. Gulf, driven by the current slate of projects under construction. With the recent U.S. FIDs likely to further stretch craft resources in the back half of the decade. For both Rio Grande as well as other U.S. projects, what sort of knock-on impacts do you anticipate from this growing competition in terms of EPC costs, potential craft labor shortages, construction progress, et cetera? Matt Schatzman: Thanks for the question. We've talked about this in the past, and I'm happy to say it hasn't changed for us. We are situated in the Rio Grande Valley, and the Rio Grande Valley has not been an area where there's been a tremendous amount of infrastructure development where craft labor jobs were readily available. The people that lived in that region had to travel to Corpus Christi or the Louisiana Gulf Coast or Permian Basin to find work. Bechtel is a direct hire model, these are all Bechtel employees. We have not seen any issues today ramping up our activities on site. As you know, we've gone from 5,000 employees to over 6,000 employees today. We got approval to increase that and go 24/7 with FERC. We have not seen any issue. We have said in our comments we're over 6,000 right now. We haven't seen, I don't think Bechtel's seen, an issue ramping that up, and I think there's a reason for that. There's a lot of people in the Valley that are skilled at these jobs, and they like the idea that they can work where they live. That's the unique opportunity that Rio Grande LNG presents. Many of these construction workers, especially now that we have Train 4 and 5 under construction, and that the company is rapidly developing Trains 6, 7, and 8, which we expect to FID second half of next year and hopefully a year after for 7 and 8. That this is an opportunity to have a construction job, be able to make a phenomenal living for the next 10 years, potentially, if we keep going out to 9 and 10, and live at home and watch your kids grow up, go home to your significant other at night. This is fairly unique. Even for our own team, our own construction team. These people have worked, they have a lot of experience, and they work on projects. They tend to be on those projects for three to four years, and then you have to let them go because you're not building anything anymore, and they got to go work on a different project. We pull people from Cheniere and Cameron and other LNG projects around the world. I think this is a fairly unique situation for us. Even when there's another project that may FID close to us, they don't offer the same sort of construction work that a NextDecade's project does, where it's like, well, you could go work there for two or three years, or you can work here and get paid as much, maybe more, and do this for the next seven or eight years. Which one would you like to choose? That's not the case necessarily in Louisiana, where there's a lot of activity going on, and there's a lot of competition. Maybe the contractors aren't direct hire models either, so there's a lot of folks that they subcontract out, and it's very difficult for them to control the labor force. I think we're in a good shape right now. That doesn't mean it won't change. It could change. From what we've seen over the past year, as those activities have increased that you mentioned with other projects around the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast, we haven't seen any issues getting what we need and keeping it. Alexander Bidwell: All right. Thank you for the color there. Real quick, just wanted to take a look at the sub-chartering of those LNG carriers. With the current freight rates modestly elevated compared to the last couple of years, have you been able to capture any upside in the carrier market from sub-chartering out those assets? Matt Schatzman: Yeah. Look, that's really not our focus. We're not trading these vessels. We only sub-charter them when we don't need them. The interesting about the shipping market, especially these new builds, and I've said this before and I think it's been true for the past 20 years, is especially in Korea, these shipyards are unbelievable at how fast they can build these ships. There was always going to be a slight gap between when we receive our ships and when we're going to need them. Obviously, that gap, we believe, is closing because we're going to be earlier than what we originally expected. At least that's the current trend, as we've said. We're not really focused on trading them. What we're actually focused on is if we sub-charter them, making sure that whatever we do, that we get those ships back in time to load our early cargoes and to start our long-term contracts. Operator: Thank you. That concludes our call today. Thank you for joining and for your interest in NextDecade. Before you buy stock in NextDecade, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and NextDecade wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $397,081!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,166,221!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 889% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 203% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 30, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. NextDecade (NEXT) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Release Date: July 30, 2026 For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript. Construction of Rio Grande LNG Phase 1 is progressing ahead of schedule, with first gas expected later this year and first LNG production in the first half of 2027. The company successfully completed significant financing transactions, including a $1 billion term loan and a $3.5 billion senior secured notes offering, reducing bank facility debt and achieving investment-grade ratings. Train 6 development is advancing with a formal FERC application filed and a final EIS schedule supporting a potential FID in the second half of 2027. The Iran conflict has tightened global LNG supply, leading to elevated spot prices and increased buyer interest in long-term U.S. LNG contracts, benefiting NextDecade's commercial discussions for Train 6. The company has a strategic advantage in gas sourcing at the Agua Dulce hub, which trades at a discount to Henry Hub, enhancing margins for its LNG sales. The ongoing Iran conflict and closure of the Strait of Hormuz have removed nearly 20% of global LNG supply, creating market uncertainty and potential delays in supply recovery. The company faces risks from potential labor competition in the U.S. Gulf Coast, though it has not yet impacted construction at the Rio Grande site. Interest rates and inflationary pressures could increase construction and financing costs for future expansions like Train 6, potentially affecting project economics. The company is cautious about contracting uncontracted volumes due to uncertainty around Train 1 startup, risking potential missed opportunities in a favorable spot market. Back-end LNG forward curves are less liquid and reliable, making it challenging to lock in long-term pricing for Train 6 without exposure to market volatility. Here are the key highlights from the NextDecade Corp (NASDAQ:NEXT) Q2 2026 earnings call, presented as summarized Q&A pairs. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Signs with NEXT. Is NEXT fairly valued? Test your thesis with our free DCF calculator. Q: With the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and global LNG supply disruptions, how has buyer activity shifted, and how does this impact your commercial discussions for Train 6? A: Matt Schotzman, Chairman and CEO: The conflict has heightened buyer awareness of supply reliability, pushing them to focus on U.S. suppliers. The level of interest for Train 6 has increased significantly. We expect to announce new long-term SPAs over the next six months, with the goal of synchronizing contracting, EPC, and financing for a second-half 2027 FID. The recent FERC schedule, which supports a final EIS by June 2027, confirms our timeline. Q: Can you walk us through the key commissioning milestones for Rio Grande LNG over the next two quarters, and when should we expect updated guidance on first LNG? A: Matt Schotzman, Chairman and CEO: Key milestones include the completion of the LNG tank and the Bayrunner pipeline. We are working with Bechtel on the most efficient commissioning sequence. We expect to provide narrower guidance on first LNG timing in the fourth quarter of 2026. We remain ahead of the schedule reflected in our production guidance. Q: How are you thinking about the current market for long-term and intermediate-term SPA pricing, and how does that influence your portfolio management strategy? A: Matt Schotzman, Chairman and CEO: The contracting market is very bullish. For 20-year Henry Hub-linked contracts, we still expect pricing in the $2.50 to $3.00 per MMBtu range (150% of Henry Hub). We are wary of locking in prices on the back end of the curve due to supply uncertainty. However, the front end of the curve looks very attractive, though we are not contracting for those volumes until we have more certainty around Train 1 startup to avoid being short in this market. Q: With increasing labor competition in the U.S. Gulf, what impacts do you anticipate on EPC costs and construction progress for Rio Grande? A: Matt Schotzman, Chairman and CEO: We have not seen any issues. Our location in the Rio Grande Valley is unique, as it allows local skilled workers to live at home. Bechtel uses a direct-hire model, and we have successfully ramped up to over 6,000 workers. The potential for a 10-year construction program (Trains 6-10) is a strong draw for labor, differentiating us from projects with shorter durations. Q: Regarding your gas supply strategy, how does the discount of Houston Ship Channel gas to Henry Hub impact your margins, and have you considered locking in this basis differential? A: Matt Schotzman, Chairman and CEO: We source gas at the Agua Dulce hub, which trades at a substantial discount to Henry Hub. This gives us an enviable position versus projects in Louisiana. We have looked at locking in this basis differential with producers, but it comes down to a bid-offer spread. While it could lock in value, it is not a focus for project financing, as we aim for 75% leverage based on our SPA rates. Q: Could you provide an update on the recent financing transactions and how they position the company for Train 6? A: John Zublik, CFO: We completed two key transactions: a $1 billion term loan at the Phase 1 holding company level and a $3.5 billion senior secured notes offering (rated BBB-). These transactions paid down approximately $4.6 billion of Phase 1 bank facility debt, diversified our maturity stack, and freed up bank capacity for financing Train 6 and future expansions. Q: With the recent sale of interests in Trains 4 and 5, are you interested in acquiring more of these partner stakes over time? A: Matt Schotzman, Chairman and CEO: We are not interested in selling our interests; we would prefer to buy more. As the operator, we are in a great position to potentially acquire additional operating interests from our Phase 1 partners when opportunities arise. This represents another avenue for NextDecade to grow its cash flow, alongside the Train 6, 7, 8 expansions and debottlenecking. Q: Regarding the subchartering of your LNG carriers, have you been able to capture any upside from elevated freight rates? A: Matt Schotzman, Chairman and CEO: That is not our focus. We only subcharter vessels when we do not need them to match our capacity. Our primary goal is to ensure we get those ships back in time to load our early cargoes and start our long-term contracts. We are not trading these vessels. For the complete transcript of the earnings call, please refer to the full earnings call transcript.

Interested in NextDecade Corporation? Here are five stocks we like better. Rio Grande LNG remains ahead of schedule: Trains 1 and 2 were 74% complete as of June, with commissioning underway. NextDecade continues to target first gas later in 2026 and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027. Train 6 is advancing toward permitting and commercialization: NextDecade filed its FERC application, secured key compressor equipment from Baker Hughes and is pursuing long-term sales agreements ahead of a potential final investment decision in the second half of 2027. Financing significantly reduced Phase 1 bank debt: The company raised $1 billion through a term loan and $3.5 billion via senior secured notes, using the proceeds to repay approximately $4.6 billion of project bank-facility borrowings. NextDecade Stock Could Be the Next Big Clean Energy Play NextDecade (NASDAQ:NEXT) said construction of its Rio Grande LNG Phase 1 project continued ahead of the schedule reflected in its production guidance, with the company still targeting first gas later in 2026 and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Matt Schatzman said the company is preparing to shift from an LNG developer into an operating company, calling safe and reliable operations a key priority for 2026. NextDecade energized the site’s main substation in May and seconded more than 100 operations employees to engineering contractor Bechtel in June ahead of startup activities. → Why SK hynix Could Be the Best AI Chip Stock to Buy Now “We continue to expect first gas into the facility later this year, and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027,” Schatzman said. He added that the project remains ahead of the schedule underlying the company’s production outlook, although the company will continue evaluating the commissioning timeline before narrowing its first-LNG forecast. As of June, Trains 1 and 2 were 74% complete, according to the company, with engineering and procurement nearing completion, construction nearly 60% complete and commissioning beginning. Train 3 was more than 50% complete, while Trains 4 and 5 were 15.5% and 9.4% complete, respectively. → 3 Value ETFs to Consider as Growth Stocks Lag Behind More than 6,000 workers are on site each day, Schatzman said. All major equipment has been installed for Train 1. Train 2’s major-equipment installation is underway, including the setting of its second compressor string and turbine in July. Train 3 has begun major-equipment installation, including its first compressor string. Other project milestones include continued work on LNG storage tanks, foundation work for Train 4’s main cryogenic rack, and piling work for Tank 3. Construction of the Bay Runner pipeline remains on track for third-quarter 2026 in-service, while the hot tap to the Valley Crossing Pipeline has been completed. Dredging for the berth and turning basin is substantially complete, and the channel-deepening project has been completed. → 5 AI Stocks Are Pulling Back—Which Growth Catalysts Still Look Strongest? During the question-and-answer session, Schatzman said the completion of LNG tank work and pipeline facilities are among milestones investors should watch before feed gas is introduced. He said the company may provide more specific first-LNG timing guidance in the fourth quarter as commissioning activities progress. NextDecade filed its formal application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for Train 6 in May. The company said FERC informed it that the final environmental impact statement is scheduled for June 25, 2027, a timeline that supports a potential final investment decision in the second half of 2027, provided sufficient commercial support and financing are secured. The company also applied to the Department of Energy in June for Free Trade Agreement and non-FTA export authorizations for Train 6. It executed a reservation agreement with Baker Hughes during the second quarter to secure supply of the train’s main refrigeration compressors. Schatzman said NextDecade is in discussions with several high-credit-quality counterparties regarding long-term sales and purchase agreements, or SPAs, for Train 6. He said the company expects market activity related to SPAs over the next six months, while seeking to coordinate commercial contracts, engineering work and financing with its targeted 2027 FID. The CEO said the company also aims to initiate FERC pre-filing work for Trains 7 and 8 by year-end. He said that, if the permitting schedule proceeds as expected, the company could seek FIDs for those trains about a year after Train 6. New Chief Financial Officer John Zuklic, who joined NextDecade earlier in July after serving as CFO of Citgo, detailed financing transactions intended to extend maturities and create bank capacity for Train 6 and additional expansions. In June, the company entered a $1 billion Phase 1 project holding-company term loan carrying 7.05% interest and maturing in June 2033. In July, Rio Grande LNG LLC issued $3.5 billion of senior secured notes in a 144A offering across four maturities ranging from 2031 to 2041. The notes were rated BBB- by S&P and Fitch, according to the company. NextDecade also unwound a portion of interest-rate swaps tied to retired bank debt, generating a $109 million settlement receipt in July. Zuklic said the company used proceeds from the transactions, net of fees, to repay about $4.6 billion of Phase 1 bank-facility borrowings. The company expects to refinance the remaining bank-facility balances at each project-level entity before guaranteed substantial completion, subject to market conditions. NextDecade took delivery of two LNG vessels during the second quarter, including the new-build Clean Texas, the first of three new-build vessels chartered for Phase 1 delivery-ex-ship contracts. The company currently has three LNG carriers under charter and expects to receive more vessels later in 2026 before first LNG production. The company said it may sub-charter shipping capacity to third parties when capacity exceeds its near-term needs, but Schatzman emphasized that the focus is on ensuring vessels are available for early cargoes and long-term customer commitments. NextDecade also began separately reporting operating and maintenance expenses as it approaches operations. Zuklic said year-to-date 2026 O&M costs primarily included labor, property taxes and the site lease, and are expected to rise through the remainder of the year as commissioning and operations approach. NextDecade Corporation is a Houston‐based liquefied natural gas (LNG) and decarbonization company focused on the development, engineering, construction and operation of large‐scale LNG export facilities. The company's core mission is to deliver cleaner energy solutions to global customers while integrating carbon capture and sequestration technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. NextDecade's projects are designed to leverage abundant U.S. natural gas supplies to meet growing worldwide demand for low‐carbon fuel. NextDecade's flagship project, Rio Grande LNG, is located at the Port of Brownsville in southern Texas. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "NextDecade Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for July 2026.

Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Rio Grande LNG Phase 1 construction is tracking ahead of schedule, with Train 1 first LNG production now expected in the first half of 2027. The company is transitioning from a development-stage entity to an operating company, evidenced by the secondment of over 100 operational employees to Bechtel. Management attributes the accelerated timeline to Bechtel's construction efficiency, with Trains 1 and 2 reaching 74% completion as of June 2026. The Iran conflict has fundamentally altered the global LNG supply outlook, removing approximately 7 million tons per month from the market due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Strategic positioning in South Texas provides a structural cost advantage, as feed gas sourced from the Permian and Eagle Ford basins typically trades at a discount to Henry Hub. The company is leveraging its brownfield expansion status for Train 6, which management describes as one of the most economically advantaged LNG expansions globally. Final Investment Decision (FID) for Train 6 is targeted for the second half of 2027, supported by a FERC final Environmental Impact Statement scheduled for June 25, 2027. Management expects to narrow the forecast window for first LNG production and provide updated volume guidance during the fourth quarter of 2026. The company aims to maintain 100% ownership of Train 6 while maximizing distributable cash flow per share through value-accretive equity funding. Long-term LNG demand is expected to remain robust through 2030, driven by energy security concerns and the need for supply diversification away from the Middle East. Future growth plans include pre-filing for Trains 7 and 8 by year-end 2026, targeting a sequential FID approximately one year after Train 6. Completed a $4.6 billion debt reduction of Phase 1 bank facilities through a $1 billion term loan and a $3.5 billion inaugural 144A investment-grade bond issuance. Unwound a portion of interest rate swaps associated with retired bank debt, resulting in a $109 million settlement receipt in July. The ongoing Middle East conflict presents a dual-edged dynamic: while increasing global price volatility, it reinforces the value of reliable U.S.-based long-term contracts. Operating and maintenance expenses are expected to increase throughout 2026 as the company ramps up pre-operational readiness activities. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here. Management expects to introduce first gas to the facility later this year, with specific procedures currently being coordinated with Bechtel to ensure safety. Critical path items include the completion of the Bay Runner pipeline, expected by the end of the current quarter, and the first LNG tank, which is expected by the end of the year. Buyer interest has intensified since the Iran conflict began, with increased competition for volumes from Trains 6, 7, and 8. Management anticipates announcing new long-term Sale and Purchase Agreements (SPAs) within the next six months to support the 2027 FID. NextDecade claims a unique advantage in the Rio Grande Valley, utilizing a direct-hire model that attracts local skilled labor who prefer not to travel for work. The multi-train development pipeline offers workers long-term job stability (up to 10 years), reducing the risk of craft labor shortages seen in other Gulf Coast regions. Management expressed interest in potentially buying back operating interests from partners in Phase 1 if it makes economic sense, rather than selling current stakes. This strategy would focus on capturing more cash flow from existing assets as they transition into the operational phase.

HOUSTON, July 30, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NextDecade Corporation ("NextDecade," "we," or the "Company") (NASDAQ: NEXT) today provided an update on developmental and strategic activities for the second quarter of 2026. CEO Commentary "Construction at Rio Grande LNG continues to progress positively toward first LNG, ahead of schedule and within budget, while maintaining robust safety standards," said Matt Schatzman, NextDecade’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "We are working with Bechtel to coordinate an efficient commissioning and start-up process, and we continue to expect first LNG production in the first half of 2027." "We are focused not only on bringing our first five trains online, but also on progressing our expansion capacity to maximize NextDecade’s impact in bringing much-needed secure, reliable, and affordable LNG to customers around the world." "During the second quarter of 2026, we filed a formal application for Train 6 with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and, yesterday, we received FERC’s schedule of environmental review, which states that the final Environmental Impact Statement will be issued on June 25, 2027. This timing supports our goal of achieving a final investment decision on Train 6 in the second half of 2027. In addition, we are progressing our EPC with Bechtel and long-term LNG offtake discussions with high-quality potential counterparties to commercially underpin Train 6." Significant Recent Developments Construction and Commissioning Progress on Trains 1 through 5 under the engineering, procurement, and construction ("EPC") contracts with Bechtel Energy, Inc. ("Bechtel") as of June 2026 consisted of: We safely energized our main substation with 138kV power in May, and we seconded over 100 operational employees to Bechtel in June as part of preparations for first LNG production. We continue to expect first gas into the Rio Grande LNG Facility in the second half of 2026 and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027. Development In May 2026, we filed a formal application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC") for expansion at the Rio Grande LNG Facility that includes Train 6 and an additional marine berth. In June 2026, we filed an application with the Department of Energy for LNG export authorizations for Train 6. In June 2026, we executed a Reservation Agreement with Baker Hughes for the supply of main refrigeration compressors for Train 6. On July 29, 2026, FERC released the schedule of environmental review for Train 6, stating that the final Environmental Impact Statement will be issued on June 25, 2027. Financial In April 2026, Rio Grande LNG Train 5, LLC issued a second installment of $100 million and in July 2026 issued a third installment of $100 million of 6.56% Senior Secured Notes due in 2050, pursuant to the Note Purchase Agreement entered into in conjunction with the positive final investment decision on Train 5 in October 2025, for the issuance of $500 million aggregate senior secured notes. As of July 30, 2026, $350 million of these notes were issued and outstanding. In June 2026, Rio Grande LNG Intermediate HoldCo Borrower, LLC ("Phase 1 HoldCo Borrower") entered into a credit agreement for a $1.0 billion term loan which bears interest at 7.05%, payable in cash or in-kind at our election until the first interest payment date after June 2029 and in cash thereafter, and matures in June 2033. Net proceeds from this term loan were used to reduce outstanding borrowings under the Rio Grande LNG, LLC ("Phase 1 LLC") credit facilities, to pay fees and expenses associated with the transaction, and to pay general and administrative expenses of Phase 1 HoldCo Borrower. In July 2026, Phase 1 LLC completed an offering of $3.5 billion aggregate principal amount of senior secured notes. The net proceeds from the offering were used to repay approximately $3.5 billion of outstanding borrowings under the Phase 1 LLC credit facilities and to pay fees and expenses associated with the transaction. The tranches of senior secured notes issued were: In conjunction with the Phase 1 HoldCo Borrower credit agreement and the Phase 1 LLC senior secured notes offering and repayment of credit facility borrowings, Phase 1 LLC also reduced the notional amount of certain of its interest rate swaps, resulting in settlement receipts totaling approximately $109 million in July 2026. These settlement receipts were used to reduce outstanding borrowings under the Phase 1 LLC Credit facilities. Rio Grande LNG Facility We are constructing and developing the Rio Grande LNG Facility on the north shore of the Brownsville Ship Channel in south Texas. The site is located on approximately 1,000 acres of land, which has been leased long-term and includes 15,000 feet of frontage on the Brownsville Ship Channel. We believe the site is advantaged due to its proximity to abundant natural gas resources in the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale, location in a region that has historically been subject to fewer and less severe weather events relative to other locations along the U.S. Gulf Coast, access to an uncongested waterway for vessel loading, access to a large, skilled local labor force, and strong geotechnical conditions requiring less piling for soil stabilization than liquefaction facilities in other areas of the U.S. Gulf Coast. Trains 1 through 5 at the Rio Grande LNG Facility are under construction, and we are developing and advancing the permitting process for Trains 6 through 8. There is sufficient space at the Rio Grande LNG Facility site for up to 10 liquefaction trains. Liquefaction Capacity Under Construction (Trains 1-5) Construction commenced on Phase 1 at the Rio Grande LNG Facility in July 2023, on Train 4 in September 2025, and on Train 5 in October 2025, in each case following a positive final investment decision ("FID") and the closing of project financing by the Company's subsidiaries. Construction will be completed by Bechtel under fully wrapped, lump-sum turnkey EPC contracts, and the liquefaction trains will utilize Honeywell AP-C3MR liquefaction technology, which is a predominant liquefaction technology utilized globally. The combined scope of Phase 1, Train 4, and Train 5 includes five liquefaction trains with a total expected LNG production capacity of approximately 30 million tonnes per annum ("MTPA"), four 180,000 cubic meter full containment LNG storage tanks, two jetty berthing structures designed to load LNG carriers up to 216,000 cubic meters in capacity, and associated site infrastructure and common facilities including feed gas pretreatment facilities, electric and water utilities, ground flares, roads, levees surrounding the entire site, warehouses, and operations control room, maintenance, and administrative buildings. Progress on Phase 1 as of June 2026 is ahead of the guaranteed completion schedule under the EPC contracts. All major equipment has been set for Train 1, including the main cryogenic heat exchanger ("MCHE"), and electrical commissioning of Train 1 is progressing. Train 2 equipment installation is underway, and the second compressor string and turbine was set in July 2026. Train 3 equipment installation has begun, including the first compressor string. Welding of the inner tanks continues to progress for Tanks 1 and 2, and Tank 1 pipe installation is underway. Progress on Trains 4 and 5 as of June 2026 is in line with the guaranteed completion schedule under the EPC contracts. The Train 4 soil stabilization process was completed, and foundation pours began for the main cryogenic rack. The Train 5 soil stabilization process began in early July 2026. Tank 3 piling work is underway. The main intake substation at the Rio Grande LNG Facility was energized safely in early May 2026. Construction of the Bay Runner pipeline continues to progress and is on track to reach in-service in the third quarter of 2026. Across the site as of June 2026, construction of permanent buildings is nearing completion, construction activities in the gas inlet area has progressed significantly, dredging activities for the berths and turning basin are substantially complete, and the channel deepening project is complete. NextDecade holds equity interests in the Phase 1 joint venture that entitle it to receive up to 20.8% of the distributions of available cash during operations. NextDecade holds equity interests in the Train 4 joint venture that entitle it to receive an initial economic interest of 40% of the distributions of available cash during operations, which will increase to 60% when the Company’s equity partners achieve certain returns on their investments in Train 4. NextDecade holds equity interests in the Train 5 joint venture that entitle it to receive an initial economic interest of 50% of the distributions of available cash during operations, which will increase to 70% when the Company’s equity partners achieve certain returns on their investments in Train 5. Development of Additional Liquefaction Capacity We are developing and advancing the permitting process for Trains 6 through 8 at the Rio Grande LNG Facility. These trains are currently wholly-owned by NextDecade and are cumulatively expected to increase the Company's total liquefaction capacity by approximately 18 MTPA once constructed and placed into operation. Train 6 is being developed inside the existing levee at the Rio Grande LNG Facility and adjacent to Trains 1 through 5. In May 2026, we filed a formal application with FERC for expansion at the Rio Grande LNG Facility that includes Train 6 and an additional marine berth. On July 29, 2026, FERC released the schedule of environmental review, stating the final Environmental Impact Statement will be issued on June 25, 2027. We are evaluating multiple areas on the site for the development of Trains 7 and 8 and expect to advance the development of these trains throughout 2026. There is sufficient space at the Rio Grande LNG Facility site for up to 10 liquefaction trains. Investor Presentation and Webcast NextDecade will host a conference call and webcast on Thursday, July 30, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time (8:00 a.m. Central Time) to discuss developments from the second quarter of 2026. The webcast and accompanying presentation may be accessed through the Company’s website at https://investors.next-decade.com. A replay will also be available after the webcast concludes. About NextDecade Corporation NextDecade is committed to providing the world access to reliable, cleaner energy. We are focused on delivering secure and affordable energy through the safe and efficient development and operation of natural gas liquefaction capacity at Rio Grande LNG. Through our subsidiaries, we are constructing and developing the Rio Grande LNG natural gas liquefaction and export facility near Brownsville, Texas, with approximately 48 MTPA of potential liquefaction capacity currently under construction or in development and sufficient space at the site for up to 10 liquefaction trains. NextDecade’s common stock is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol "NEXT." NextDecade is headquartered in Houston, Texas. For more information, please visit www.next-decade.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws. The words "anticipate," "contemplate," "estimate," "expect," "project," "plan," "intend," "believe," "may," "might," "will," "would," "could," "should," "can have," "likely," "continue," "design," "assume," "budget," "guidance," "forecast," and "target," and other words and terms of similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, and these statements may relate to the business of NextDecade and its subsidiaries. These statements have been based on assumptions and analysis made by NextDecade in light of current expectations, perceptions of historical trends, current conditions and projections about future events and trends and involve a number of known and unknown risks, which may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Although NextDecade believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations will prove to be correct. NextDecade’s actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in NextDecade’s periodic reports that are filed with and available from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additionally, any development of additional expansion trains at the Rio Grande LNG Facility remains contingent upon receipt of requisite governmental approvals, execution of definitive commercial and financing agreements, securing all financing commitments, achieving other customary conditions and making a final investment decision to proceed. The forward-looking statements in this press release speak as of the date of this release. NextDecade may from time to time voluntarily update its prior forward-looking statements, however, it disclaims any commitment to do so except as required by securities laws. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260730544785/en/ Contacts NextDecade Contacts Investors Megan [email protected] 832-981-6583 Media Susan [email protected] 832-413-6400

HOUSTON, July 10, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--NextDecade Corporation (NextDecade or the Company) (NASDAQ: NEXT) announced today that it will host a conference call and webcast on Thursday, July 30, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time (8:00 a.m. Central Time) to discuss developments from the second quarter of 2026. The Company expects to issue an accompanying press release and presentation that day before the market opens. The press release, presentation, and webcast may be accessed through the Company’s website at https://investors.next-decade.com. A replay will be available after the webcast concludes. About NextDecade Corporation NextDecade is committed to providing the world access to reliable, cleaner energy. We are focused on delivering secure and affordable energy through the safe and efficient development and operation of natural gas liquefaction capacity at Rio Grande LNG. Through our subsidiaries, we are constructing and developing the Rio Grande LNG natural gas liquefaction and export facility near Brownsville, Texas, with approximately 48 MTPA of potential liquefaction capacity currently under construction or in development, sufficient space at the site for up to 10 liquefaction trains, and a potential carbon capture and storage project. NextDecade’s common stock is listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the symbol "NEXT." NextDecade is headquartered in Houston, Texas. For more information, please visit www.next-decade.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws. The words "anticipate," "contemplate," "estimate," "expect," "project," "plan," "intend," "believe," "may," "might," "will," "would," "could," "should," "can have," "likely," "continue," "design," "assume," "budget," "guidance," "forecast," and "target," and other words and terms of similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, and these statements may relate to the business of NextDecade and its subsidiaries. These statements have been based on assumptions and analysis made by NextDecade in light of current expectations, perceptions of historical trends, current conditions and projections about future events and trends and involve a number of known and unknown risks, which may cause actual results to differ materially from expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Although NextDecade believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it can give no assurance that the expectations will prove to be correct. NextDecade’s actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in NextDecade’s periodic reports that are filed with and available from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Additionally, any development of additional expansion trains at the Rio Grande LNG Facility or CCS projects remains contingent upon receipt of requisite governmental approvals, execution of definitive commercial and financing agreements, securing all financing commitments and potential tax incentives, achieving other customary conditions and making a final investment decision to proceed. The forward-looking statements in this press release speak as of the date of this release. NextDecade may from time to time voluntarily update its prior forward-looking statements, however, it disclaims any commitment to do so except as required by securities laws. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260710479868/en/ Contacts NextDecade Contacts InvestorsMegan [email protected] 832-981-6583 Media Susan [email protected] 832-413-6400

Construction of Phase 1 (Trains 1-3) is tracking ahead of guaranteed substantial completion dates, providing a buffer for commissioning and startup activities. Management is prioritizing 'enterprise readiness' by rapidly scaling to over 400 employees and implementing digital integration platforms to support first LNG production. The company has successfully de-risked 33% of early Phase 1 production by selling 175 TBtu of early cargoes at fixed liquefaction fees, achieving margins over $3 per MMBtu. Strategic focus has shifted toward Train 6 development, with FEED studies underway and a formal FERC application expected by the end of Q2 2026. The Iran conflict has significantly tightened global LNG supply, removing approximately 14 million tons of capacity and increasing the attractiveness of long-term U.S. Henry Hub-indexed contracts. Management attributes the project's competitive advantage to the U.S. natural gas resource base and long-term contracts indexed to Henry Hub, which provide a price buffer against global market shocks and oil-linked contract volatility. Operational momentum is supported by a transition to 24/7 construction at the Rio Grande site, an option already baked into EPC contracts that does not increase total project costs. First gas into the facility is expected in the second half of 2026, with first LNG production from Train 1 targeted for the first half of 2027. Management targets a Final Investment Decision (FID) for Train 6 in the second half of 2027, which would position the unit to come online as early as 2032. The company anticipates receiving FERC permits for Train 6 by mid-2027, citing a more favorable and efficient regulatory environment under the current administration. Financial strategy for Train 6 involves maximizing project-level debt (up to 75% of costs) to minimize equity requirements and maximize distributable cash flow per share. Steady-state leverage targets are set at 3 to 3.5x debt-to-EBITDA, with plans to optimize the balance sheet through additional long-term SPAs if market margins fall to $3 per MMBtu. The Iran conflict has caused significant supply destruction, with damaged trains at Ras Laffan estimated to require 3 to 5 years for repair. Train 7 and 8 development requires specific infrastructure contingencies, including levee walls for flood control as they sit outside the main site levee. Management noted that while inflation is 'heating up,' current EPC cost projections for Train 6 remain in line with Train 5 levels when adjusted for inflation. The Bay Runner pipeline, the primary capacity source for Trains 1-3, is expected to reach in-service status in Q3 2026. Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Management clarified that the 24/7 schedule is a Bechtel-led initiative to maintain and potentially accelerate the timeline without incremental costs to NextDecade. The shift provides additional confidence in meeting or exceeding the current schedule, which is already ahead of the guaranteed completion dates. Train 6 economics are expected to track closely with Train 5, with demand primarily coming from Asia and the Middle East rather than Europe. Management noted that greenfield projects likely require higher contracting prices to be viable, whereas NextDecade's brownfield expansion remains competitive at current market rates. NextDecade is building a 'delivered-ex-ship' (DES) business for excess volumes to increase flexibility and value. The company currently has 5 vessels under charter, including 3 newbuilds from Dynagas, and expects to charter additional short-term capacity for Phase 1 volumes. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here.

NextDecade says Rio Grande LNG Phase 1 is progressing on budget and ahead of schedule, with Trains 1–2 ~67.8% complete, electric commissioning of Train 1 underway, first gas expected H2 2026 and first LNG from Train 1 in H1 2027, and FERC approval to shift to a 24/7 construction schedule without added project costs. The company has sold more than 175 TBTU of early FOB volumes with fixed liquefaction fees—reducing early production exposure by ~33%—and projects ~3,800 TBTU of early output, with cash flows (at assumed margins) expected to pay down project loans (approximately $2 billion distributable at $5/MMBtu or $1.2 billion at $3/MMBtu). NextDecade is advancing Trains 6–8 development (Bechtel FEED for Train 6) and plans to file a FERC application for Train 6 before the end of Q2, targeting a possible FID in late 2027 and online as early as 2032, while planning to finance up to ~75% of Train 6 with project-bank debt and targeting a steady-state leverage of 3–3.5x debt/EBITDA. Interested in NextDecade Corporation? Here are five stocks we like better. NextDecade Stock Could Be the Next Big Clean Energy Play NextDecade (NASDAQ:NEXT) executives used the company’s first-quarter 2026 investor update call to outline progress at its Rio Grande LNG project, highlight steps to prepare for commissioning and operations, and discuss how it is managing exposure to near-term LNG market margins while advancing expansion plans for additional liquefaction trains. Chairman and CEO Matt Schatzman said the company’s “first quarter was productive” and reiterated that one of NextDecade’s highest priorities remains progressing construction “safely, on budget, and ahead of schedule.” He reported a first-quarter total recordable incident rate (TRIR) of less than 0.1 and said the project remains within budget across all five trains under construction. → Corning Beats Q1 Estimates but Drops 9% on Guidance Miss Schatzman said early electric commissioning for Train 1 is underway and that Phase 1 is tracking ahead of guaranteed substantial completion dates under the EPC contracts. He added that progress is also being made on Trains 4 and 5. As of March 2026, NextDecade reported the following overall construction completion levels: Trains 1 and 2: 67.8% complete Train 3: 44.2% complete Train 4: 10.6% complete Train 5: 6.8% complete Within Phase 1, Schatzman said engineering and procurement for Trains 1 and 2 are “functionally complete,” with engineering just over 98% complete and procurement just over 94% complete. For Train 3, he said engineering is over 90% complete and procurement over 80% complete. → Meta Posted Its Best Sales Growth Since 2021—So Why Did Shares Fall? Operationally, he cited several on-site milestones, including installation of the main cryogenic heat exchanger for Train 1, ongoing work on civil works and equipment placement for Trains 2 and 3, progress on inner-tank welding for Tanks 1 and 2, and dredging that is “substantially complete” for the berth and turning basin. Schatzman also said channel deepening is nearing completion. On pipeline infrastructure, he said the Bay Runner pipeline—being built by Whistler LLC, a joint venture between WhiteWater Midstream, Enbridge, and MPLX—has been under construction since last fall and is expected to reach in-service in the third quarter of 2026. Bay Runner is expected to serve as NextDecade’s “primary pipeline capacity into the terminal for trains 1 through 3,” he said. → Is Oracle Undervalued as Cloud Growth Accelerates? NextDecade continues to expect first gas into the facility in the second half of 2026 and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027, Schatzman said. Schatzman said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved NextDecade’s request in early April to shift to a 24/7 construction schedule, calling it a change that “will not increase our EPC or total project costs.” During the Q&A, he described the 24/7 approach as “contemplated in the original EPC” and “already baked into the EPC,” with Bechtel having discretion over how it is used. Schatzman also emphasized organizational readiness for commissioning and operations. He said NextDecade has been advancing hiring, systems implementations, and process development ahead of first LNG and now has more than 400 employees, with most based in Brownsville. He added that core enterprise platforms are beginning to go live, and the company has built internal integration capabilities to support data exchange and end-to-end processes. Discussing the path to maintaining schedule momentum, Schatzman said the main driver is “execution,” adding that the company does not currently have concerns about equipment or supply chain. He also described commissioning as the next critical phase, with gas expected to be introduced later this year and the “cold side” work expected next year as compressors are tested and LNG production begins. Another 2026 priority is reducing near-term exposure to LNG market price fluctuations by selling projected early cargoes, Schatzman said. He noted that in February the company sold more than 175 TBTU of early volumes on an FOB basis with fixed liquefaction fees. The company expects those sales to achieve margins—calculated as the FOB sales price less expected costs of natural gas feedstock and fuel—of more than $3 per MMBtu. Schatzman said the sales reduced Phase 1 early LNG production exposed to market price fluctuations by 33%. Interim CFO Mike Mott reiterated those points and said the company continues to project total early LNG production of approximately 3,800 TBTU, beginning with startup of Train 1 in 2027 and extending through first commercial delivery to long-term SPA customers under Train 5. That total includes about 1,275 TBTU of production in excess of currently contracted long-term SPAs, he said. Mott said NextDecade expects cash flow from early volumes to be used primarily to pay down a portion of the FinCo and Super FinCo loans that support equity commitments for Trains 4 and 5. Under its early cash flow outlook, the company projects approximately $2 billion in NextDecade’s share of distributable cash flow at the Rio Grande LNG project level at an assumed $5 per MMBtu margin on volumes in excess of contracted SPAs, and approximately $1.2 billion at a $3 per MMBtu margin. Schatzman said the company expects to sell additional early volumes as it gains visibility on production timing and further assurance from Bechtel. He also said market margins increased after the Iran conflict began. Schatzman said NextDecade is advancing development and permitting for Trains 6 through 8 as part of its goal to increase Rio Grande LNG capacity up to 60 million tons per annum. He said Bechtel is performing a front-end engineering and design (FEED) study for Train 6 and a third berth, and the company expects to file a formal FERC application for Train 6 before the end of the second quarter. On permitting, Schatzman said the current administration’s emphasis on U.S. energy dominance and a determination related to expanding LNG capacity under the Defense Production Act could support U.S. LNG development. He also pointed to legal precedents—including a D.C. Circuit reversal in the company’s case in March 2025 and the Supreme Court’s Seven County case later last year—as factors that could limit permit challenges in court. Schatzman said NextDecade believes it is possible to receive a FERC permit for Train 6 as early as mid-2027, potentially enabling a final investment decision in the second half of 2027 and allowing Train 6 to come online as early as 2032. He added that early commercialization for Train 6 has begun and that the company is seeing strong demand from potential long-term customers. Schatzman also discussed LNG market dynamics following the Iran conflict, including the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March and April and associated LNG supply disruptions. He cited estimates that damaged trains at Ras Laffan totaling almost 13 million tons per annum could require three to five years to repair and said expansion capacity in Qatar could be delayed by up to one year based on estimates. Mott said NextDecade’s 2026 financial priorities include managing project-level debt and opportunistically refinancing bank credit facilities into debt securities. He said the company has over $9 billion of credit facility commitments for Phase One, about $3.8 billion for Train 4, and roughly $3.6 billion for Train 5. Since Phase One FID, NextDecade has refinanced more than $1.85 billion of Phase One bank debt, he said. For Train 6, Mott said the company is evaluating equity financing options because the targeted FID timing precedes meaningful operating cash flows that could fund equity needs. He said NextDecade expects to contract a high percentage of Train 6 capacity, potentially supporting project-level bank facilities covering up to approximately 75% of total project costs. He also said management believes the FinCo bank facility used to fund a portion of equity commitments for Trains 4 and 5 remains “a very attractive source of capital,” and that additional FinCo capacity could be available for Train 6. On leverage, Mott reaffirmed a steady-state target of 3 to 3.5 times NextDecade-level debt to Adjusted EBITDA. He said that in the $5 per MMBtu early-volume margin scenario, the company expects NextDecade-level debt to fall within that target range as it moves into steady-state operations. In a $3 per MMBtu scenario, Mott said the company would consider additional balance sheet optimization, including potentially contracting an incremental 2 million tons per annum under long-term SPAs across Trains 4 and 5 to increase contracting levels and maximize project-level debt. NextDecade reaffirmed both its early volume and cash flow guidance and its steady-state outlook. In its base case scenario, assuming $5 per MMBtu market margins for early volumes and during steady state, Mott said the company projects annual distributable cash flow of approximately $500 million following DFCD for Train 5 SPAs and prior to an economic interest flip for Trains 4 and 5 in the mid-2030s. After the flip, Mott said NextDecade projects annual distributable cash flow of approximately $800 million. In an additional pricing scenario—assuming $3 per MMBtu margins on early volumes, $5 per MMBtu margins on steady-state volumes, and an incremental 2 MTPA of long-term SPAs across Trains 4 and 5—Mott said the company projects approximately $400 million annually pre-flip and approximately $500 million annually post-flip. In Q&A, Schatzman said NextDecade has five LNG vessels under charter, including three long-term charters for its Guangdong DES deal and two sub-chartered vessels, and expects to charter more ships, particularly on a short-term basis for Phase 1 volumes above already sold firm volumes. He said the company “will likely run a DES-type business for our excess cargoes,” adding that delivered capability “provides additional flexibility and optionality and should increase the value.” NextDecade Corporation is a Houston‐based liquefied natural gas (LNG) and decarbonization company focused on the development, engineering, construction and operation of large‐scale LNG export facilities. The company's core mission is to deliver cleaner energy solutions to global customers while integrating carbon capture and sequestration technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. NextDecade's projects are designed to leverage abundant U.S. natural gas supplies to meet growing worldwide demand for low‐carbon fuel. NextDecade's flagship project, Rio Grande LNG, is located at the Port of Brownsville in southern Texas. The article "NextDecade Q1 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat.