The companies that move the world’s gas

A handful of companies control nearly all of America’s LNG export capacity, and Porter Stansberry’s “Boston Blackout” pitch is really a bet on them. The two names that anchor the space are Cheniere Energy (LNG) and Venture Global (VG). Cheniere was the first mover: its Sabine Pass and Corpus Christi terminals made it the largest American exporter, and it built that position on a mountain of long-term contracts. Venture Global is the challenger, a much younger company that went public in January 2025 and has been building faster than almost anyone in the industry.

The contract model: tolling vs. merchant

The single most important thing to understand about LNG companies is how they get paid. There are two basic models.

Under a tolling agreement, a customer pays a fixed fee to reserve liquefaction capacity, and the customer handles the gas supply and the cargo sale. The plant operator collects a steady, predictable fee no matter where gas prices go. This is how Cheniere built its business.

Under a merchant model, the company sources the gas itself, liquefies it, and sells the cargo on the open market. That exposes the company to the spread between cheap American gas and higher international prices. When that spread is wide, merchant profits soar; when it narrows, they shrink.

Cheniere’s 20-year contracts vs. Venture Global’s 5-year strategy

Cheniere’s signature move has been locking in 20-year tolling contracts with creditworthy buyers. Those contracts give investors something to underwrite: a long, visible stream of fees that does not depend on guessing the spot price. The tradeoff is that Cheniere grows more deliberately, one contracted train at a time.

Venture Global took the opposite path. It built first and sold later, financing construction in part with spot and pre-commercial cargo sales, then signing shorter 5-year contracts at what it hoped were better prices. That approach let it reach the market faster, but it also landed the company in a dispute with Shell and BP over how it handled early cargoes. We cover that episode in our deeper look at Venture Global’s stock.

The rest of the field

Beyond the big two, the roster includes NextDecade, which is developing the Rio Grande LNG project in Texas; Tellurian, which spent years trying to build its own terminal and repeatedly restructured its plans; and Sempra, the California utility holding company with LNG interests in Texas and Louisiana through its Sempra Infrastructure arm. Each sits at a different stage of the build-and-contract cycle, and each carries a different risk profile. The newcomers chasing first cargoes face a very different set of risks than Cheniere does running mature plants at full utilization.

Why Asia and Europe keep buying

The demand side of the story is what gives the whole sector its tailwind. Europe, cut off from Russian pipeline gas after 2022, rebuilt its energy supply around LNG imports, and much of that supply now comes from the United States. Asia, led by China, Japan, and South Korea, has been the largest LNG market for years and keeps adding import capacity as it shifts away from coal. American exporters sit in the middle of both markets, which is why the export capacity they build today tends to find a buyer eventually.

That demand picture is the constructive part of Porter Stansberry’s thesis, and it stands on its own without the blackout fear hook. The question for investors is not whether the world wants American gas, it is which company’s business model fits them. We weigh the investment case across the sector in our roundup of LNG stocks.

The numbers behind the story

The financial profiles of the two anchors could hardly be more different. Venture Global grew revenue roughly 59% year over year and posted EBITDA margins above 45% in its early public filings, though a meaningful slice of that margin came from pre-commercial and spot cargo sales rather than the steady contracted tolls that Cheniere relies on. Those peak margins will likely normalize as the company shifts toward longer contracts. Cheniere, by contrast, reports a steadier stream of contracted revenue and trades at a different multiple, a reflection of its maturity and its backlog of 20-year deals.

What to watch

Three things matter most when comparing these companies. First, contract duration: longer contracts mean steadier cash flow but slower growth. Second, execution risk: building a liquefaction plant is hard, and delays or cost overruns punish shareholders. Third, the merchant-versus-tolling mix, which decides whether earnings swing with the spot market or hold a steady line. Cheniere and Venture Global sit at opposite ends of nearly every one of those tradeoffs, which is exactly why they make a useful pair to study side by side.

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