Antero’s announcements this summer address its core problem: excess FT from its Sherwood/Smithburg gas processing complex. The company guided both to a $105 million reduction in gas FT expenses between 2025 and year-end 2028 and to a reduction in its Gulf Coast LNG FT from two-thirds to half of its gas sales.
Antero’s Columbia Gas/Gulf path features its lowest rates to LNG-connected markets but also the earliest expiration dates. The fate of Antero’s Columbia Gas/Gulf contracts expiring in October 2027 and June 2028 will reveal both whether the company is optimizing for near-term savings or long-term cost structure and how willing Antero’s midstream counterparties are to negotiate.
Antero’s three paths to the Gulf Coast
On its earnings call, Antero CFO Brendan Krueger said that over the next five years, the company would move from selling two-thirds of its gas in the “LNG fairway” to about half. These disclosures on volume changes and dollar savings, coupled with the latest index of customers data and FERC filings on negotiated rates, narrow down which specific contracts Antero intends not to renew.
Currently, the company holds ~1.9 Bcfd of capacity to the “LNG fairway” via three stacked routes. Most of the capacity — all but the TGP 100 leg deliveries — terminates in premium coastal markets, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 | Antero’s LNG-connected capacity