Former Cheniere chief Souki made $54 million last year

Former CEO of Cheniere Energy, Charif Souki has seen a sevenfold increase in total compensation in his last year as the chief of the Houston-based LNG player.

Souki’s total compensation was just above $54 million in 2015, as compared to $7.7 million in the year before, Cheniere said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission last week.

According to the filing posted on April 21, Souki made $53.8 million in non-equity, incentive compensation, with the rest attributed to “other compensation”. His actual pay last year was just $1 dollar.

Souki, who served Cheniere for 19 years and was also the co-founder of the LNG company, was replaced in December last year by Neal Shear who currently serves as the company’s interim president.

Shear made $1.37 million in less than three weeks that he served as Cheniere’s interim president in 2015, the filing reveals.

Souki was ousted from Cheniere just months before the first LNG export cargo left the company’s Sabine Pass plant, the first of its kind to export abundant U.S. shale gas to overseas markets.

He recently formed a new mid-scale natural gas liquefaction and export company called the Tellurian Investments with former BG’s COO Martin Houston.

Sabine Pass ships seventh cargo

Cheniere’s Sabine Pass LNG export plant in Lousiana has shipped its seventh commissioning cargo on Monday, according to AIS data provided by the vessel tracking website, MarineTraffic.

The cargo is being carried by the 155,000 cbm GasLog Salem LNG carrier. It was previously reported that the BW GDF Suez Brussels is to take the seventh cargo.

GasLog Salem is believed to be heading to Portugal’s Sines LNG terminal, where Cheniere recently sent its sixth Sabine Pass commissioning cargo.

As reported by LNG World News, the sixth cargo is being carried onboard Teekay’s first MEGI-powered LNG carrier, Creole Spirit and is expected to dock at the Sines terminal on Tuesday.

Europe will be the third continent to receive LNG export volumes from Cheniere’s Sabine Pass plant after South America and Asia.