MW How this under-the-radar U.S. natural-gas exporter could capitalize on a potential shortage in Europe

By Claudia Assis

Venture Global's stock rises more than 25% in two sessions as Qatar halts LNG production due to Iranian attacks

A liquefied natural-gas terminal in the Netherlands. Markets are not paying enough attention to potential LNG disruptions, a fund manager says.

The U.S. is the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, and one relatively obscure U.S. company seems ready to reap the benefits of a surge in global natural-gas prices following the U.S. and Israel's attacks on Iran and the widening conflict in the Middle East.

That's Venture Global $(VG)$, a $27 billion company whose business is shipping plentiful U.S. liquified natural gas to Europe and other places. The Arlington, Va.-based company went public in January 2025.

The company's stock rallied more than 17% on Monday, its highest close since Oct. 9, when it closed at $12.58, and its largest one-day percentage increase since June 3, when it rose 21%. It jumped another 7% on Tuesday.

Another LNG exporter better known to investors, Cheniere Energy (LNG), saw more modest gains on Monday. That's because Cheniere has contracted the majority of its LNG shipments, thus selling them at fixed prices previously agreed upon, said Rob Thummel, a portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital.

U.S.-traded natural-gas futures rose more than 3% on Monday and more than 5% on Tuesday; in Europe, prices shot up as much as 50% on Monday. Australia and Qatar are the next-largest LNG exporters - and Qatar said earlier Monday that it has halted LNG production due to Iran's attacks to its infrastructure.

Markets are not paying enough attention to natural gas and LNG, said Simon Lack, a portfolio manager of Catalyst Funds. It's much harder to find alternative supplies of gas than alternatives to oil, because gas is harder to transport, he said.

And Europe's natural-gas storage levels are "well below" their five-year average, said Kenny Zhu, an analyst at Global X ETFs.

The U.S. supplies around 60% of Europe's LNG imports, and markets had been anticipating that a significant amount of U.S. exports were destined for Europe to replenish natural-gas supplies during the spring, Zhu said.

Qatari LNG exports historically supply Asian countries. With the halt, however, Europe is potentially in competition with major Asian buyers such as South Korea and China for U.S. LNG, he said.

Europe has cut down on its dependency on Russian natural gas since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in 2022, with the U.S. emerging as a growing source.

Liquified natural gas, as its name implies, is natural gas that has been cooled to a liquid state for easier shipping and storage. The volume of natural gas in a liquid form is about 600 times smaller than its volume in a gaseous state in natural-gas pipelines, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

The U.S. has exported LNG in earnest for a decade - the first LNG cargo leaving a Louisiana terminal sailed in February 2016; efforts in previous decades were stymied by the small volumes of LNG available for export. Becoming the No. 1 LNG exporter in the world is thanks in large part to U.S. shale producers and the shale boom, Tortoise's Thummel said.

Venture Global earlier Monday reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings, and executives spoke about the geopolitical moment.

On a call with analysts following the results, they said that Venture Global "stands ready to help keep the markets stabilized and supplied." The company is also able to move LNG cargo with its own ships, and it expects to take delivery of two more ships in the coming months.

Myra P. Saefong contributed.

-Claudia Assis

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March 03, 2026 11:02 ET (16:02 GMT)

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