The U.S. Gas Startup at the Center of an Epic Feud With Global Energy Giants

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PLAQUEMINES PARISH, La.— Michael Sabel and his partner, both industry novices, have made a fortune virtually overnight by building from scratch one of the world’s largest gas exporters. They have also made some powerful enemies. Here at this sprawling facility spanning about 630 acres in the wetlands outside New Orleans, Sabel said his company, Venture Global LNG, is on pace to leapfrog competitors and rival Qatar as one of the world’s top exporters of liquefied natural gas by 2030.

But he must navigate a nasty feud with some of the industry’s biggest names. Venture Global’s earliest customers, including the oil giants BP and Shell, say the upstart company is ripping them off. In the process, they argue, Venture Global risks undermining the U.S.

LNG industry’s reputation as a reliable contributor to the world’s energy supply. “The incumbents, if they can’t compete, say, ‘We have to stop them,’" said Sabel, the 56- year-old chief executive officer of Venture Global, adding that he isn’t losing sleep over the criticism. “We are so busy executing, and winning, and being successful." The quarrel has become the industry’s ugliest in years and centers on a core question: Who has rights to Venture Global’s supercooled liquid gas? That prize is worth billions of dollars in sales, much of that to Europe, which depends largely on U.S.

gas to fill the void left after Russian exports halted following the invasion of Ukraine. BP and Shell argue that under the long-term contracts they signed over the past decade with Venture Global, they should have begun receiving LNG cargoes months ago, which they could sell through their vast trading arms. Instead, when the Ukraine war broke out, and LNG prices soared, Venture Global sold its gas