HOUSTON (AP) -- HOUSTON (AP) -- Cheniere Energy Inc. (LNG) on Thursday reported fourth-quarter net income of $977 million.

The Houston-based company said it had profit of $4.33 per share.

The results exceeded Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $2.69 per share.

The natural gas company posted revenue of $4.44 billion in the period, also beating Street forecasts. Three analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $4.41 billion.

For the year, the company reported profit of $3.25 billion, or $14.20 per share. Revenue was reported as $15.7 billion.

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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on LNG at https://www.zacks.com/ap/LNG