Sabel: Venture Global fleet a big advantage in disrupted LNG market
Venture Global Inc. chief executive officer Mike Sabel said Mar. 2 that the company’s fleet of owned and leased ships gives it an edge in an LNG market rattled by the latest US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Sabel spoke after Venture Global reported fourth-quarter net earnings of nearly $1.2 billion on more than $4.4 billion in revenues but the focus of a substantial part of his conversation with analysts was on the weekend’s conflict in the Middle East.
On Monday morning, QatarEnergy officials said they had halted LNG production after Iranian drones had attacked two of its facilities. QatarEnergy is the world’s largest LNG producer but Sabel said Venture Global teams now “probably have the largest number of available cargos in the market.”
“We’re uniquely able to move cargos with our own vessels,” Sabel told analysts on a conference call, referencing the Virginia-based company’s fleet of nine ships that will grow to 11 this year. “Shipping is going to play a very critical role in […] support of the market.”
The price of natural gas was up about 3% in midday trading as investors chewed on the risk that the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of all LNG passes, might be closed or constrained for a longer period. If that happens, demand for US LNG is likely to grow and investors appeared to bet Venture Global will be a big beneficiary. The company’s shares (Ticker: VG), which went public about a year ago, popped on the earnings release and the Qatar report. In early-afternoon trading, they were changing hands around $11.07, up 14% on the day but down from the $11.91 at which they peaked earlier in the session.
Venture Global’s earnings report came on the heels of two sales and purchase agreements with South Korea’s Hanwha Aerospace Co. (1.5 million tonnes/year (tpy) for 20 years) and commodities holding company Trafigura (0.5 million tpy for 5 years). With those contracts, the company now has 69% of its 2026 production capacity contracted and Sabel told analysts that number “should rise quickly” as his team signs more deals.
In fourth-quarter 2025, Venture Global exported 128 cargos, a jump from 33 in late 2024, as its Plaquemines and Calcasieu Pass plants continued to ramp up operations. For 2026, executives are forecasting they’ll export 486-527 cargos (versus 380 for all of 2025), with Calcasieu Pass expected to export about 150 and Plaquemines about 355.
That increase, they said, should produce adjusted EBITDA for the year of $5.2-5.8 billion versus 2025’s nearly $6.3 billion. The impact of Winter Storm Fern and margin compression are the main factors in that decrease.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of business journalism experience and writes about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal and T&D World. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati and later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector as well as many of its publicly traded companies.