Annual report pursuant to Section 13 and 15(d)

Leases

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Leases
 12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2020
Leases [Abstract]  
Leases LEASES
Our leased assets consist primarily of (1) LNG vessel time charters (“vessel charters”), (2) tug vessels, (3) office space and facilities and (4) land sites, all of which are classified as operating leases except for our tug vessels at the Corpus Christi LNG terminal, which are classified as finance leases.

Our policy is to recognize leases on our balance sheet by recording a lease liability representing the obligation to make future lease payments and a right-of-use asset representing the right to use the underlying asset for the lease term. As our leases generally do not provide an implicit rate, in order to calculate the lease liability, we discounted our expected future lease payments using our relevant subsidiary’s incremental borrowing rate at the later of January 1, 2019 or the commencement date of the lease. The incremental borrowing rate is an estimate of the rate of interest that a given subsidiary would have to pay to borrow on a collateralized basis over a similar term to that of the lease term.
Many of our leases contain renewal options exercisable at our sole discretion. Options to renew a lease are included in the lease term and recognized as part of the right-of-use asset and lease liability only to the extent they are reasonably certain to be exercised, such as when necessary to satisfy obligations that existed at the execution of the lease or when the non-renewal would otherwise result in a significant economic penalty.

We have elected the practical expedient to omit leases with an initial term of 12 months or less (“short-term lease”) from recognition on the balance sheet. We recognize short-term lease payments on a straight-line basis over the lease term and variable payments under short-term leases in the period in which the obligation is incurred.

Certain of our leases contain non-lease components which are not separated from the lease components when calculating the right-of-use asset and lease liability per our use of the practical expedient to combine both components of an arrangement for all classes of leased assets.

Certain of our leases also contain variable payments, such as inflation, that are not included when calculating the right-of-use asset and lease liability unless the payments are in-substance fixed.

We recognize lease expense for operating leases on a straight-line basis over the lease term. We recognize lease expense for finance leases as the sum of the amortization of the right-of-use assets on a straight-line basis and the interest on lease liabilities using the effective interest method over the lease term.

The following table shows the classification and location of our right-of-use assets and lease liabilities on our Consolidated Balance Sheets (in millions):
December 31,
Consolidated Balance Sheets Location 2020 2019
Right-of-use assets—Operating Operating lease assets, net $ 759  $ 439 
Right-of-use assets—Financing Property, plant and equipment, net 53  56 
Total right-of-use assets $ 812  $ 495 
Current operating lease liabilities Current operating lease liabilities $ 161  $ 236 
Current finance lease liabilities Other current liabilities 2  1 
Non-current operating lease liabilities Non-current operating lease liabilities 597  189 
Non-current finance lease liabilities Non-current finance lease liabilities 57  58 
Total lease liabilities $ 817  $ 484 

The following table shows the classification and location of our lease costs on our Consolidated Statements of Operations (in millions):
Consolidated Statements of Operations Location Year Ended December 31,
2020 2019
Operating lease cost (a) Operating costs and expenses (1) $ 432  $ 612 
Finance lease cost:
Amortization of right-of-use assets Depreciation and amortization expense 2  3 
Interest on lease liabilities Interest expense, net of capitalized interest 7  10 
Total lease cost $ 441  $ 625 
(a) Included in operating lease cost:
Short-term lease costs $ 93  $ 230 
Variable lease costs paid to the lessor 16  7 
(1)    Presented in cost of sales, operating and maintenance expense or selling, general and administrative expense consistent with the nature of the asset under lease.

During the year ended December 31, 2018, we recognized lease expense for all operating leases of $335 million.
Future annual minimum lease payments for operating and finance leases as of December 31, 2020 are as follows (in millions): 
Years Ending December 31, Operating Leases (1) Finance Leases
2021 $ 197  $ 10 
2022 156  10 
2023 121  10 
2024 119  10 
2025 96  10 
Thereafter 252  127 
Total lease payments 941  177 
Less: Interest (183) (118)
Present value of lease liabilities $ 758  $ 59 
(1)    Does not include $1.6 billion of legally binding minimum lease payments primarily for vessel charters which were executed as of December 31, 2020 but will commence in future period primarily in the next two years and have fixed minimum lease terms of up to seven years.

The following table shows the weighted-average remaining lease term and the weighted-average discount rate for our operating leases and finance leases:
December 31, 2020 December 31, 2019
Operating Leases Finance Leases Operating Leases Finance Leases
Weighted-average remaining lease term (in years) 8.2 17.7 8.4 18.7
Weighted-average discount rate (1) 5.4% 16.2% 5.2% 16.2%
(1)The finance leases commenced prior to the adoption of the current leasing standard under GAAP. In accordance with previous accounting guidance, the implied rate is based on the fair value of the underlying assets.

The following table includes other quantitative information for our operating and finance leases (in millions):
Year Ended December 31,
2020 2019
Cash paid for amounts included in the measurement of lease liabilities:
Operating cash flows from operating leases $ 309  $ 389 
Operating cash flows from finance leases 10  9 
Right-of-use assets obtained in exchange for new operating lease liabilities 615  235 

LNG Vessel Subcharters

From time to time, we sublease certain LNG vessels under charter to third parties while retaining our existing obligation to the original lessor. As of December 31, 2020 and 2019, we had zero and $9 million in future minimum sublease payments to be received from LNG vessel subcharters, respectively. The following table shows the sublease income recognized in other revenues on our Consolidated Statements of Operations (in millions):
Year Ended December 31,
2020 2019
Fixed Income $ 68  $ 122 
Variable Income 27  22 
Total sublease income $ 95  $ 144