US LNG Exporters Clock Record Revenues as Woodside Advances Trion Toward 2028 First Oil
Venture Global's 48 percent revenue jump and Woodside's Trion progress signal accelerating LNG supply additions as NYMEX Henry Hub front-month trades near $2.75.
NYMEX Henry Hub front-month gas held at $2.75 per million British thermal units on Tuesday (2026-08-25), while JKM Asian LNG was at $23.51 per MMBtu in the same session. The spread between US domestic gas and Asian delivered prices continues to anchor the commercial rationale for new liquefaction capacity, and a run of corporate results and project milestones through August suggests that rationale is translating into accelerating output.1,4,2
Venture Global reported $4.58 billion in second-quarter revenue on Monday (2026-08-10), up 48 percent year-on-year, with LNG export volumes climbing 45 percent against the same quarter in 2025.4 Woodside Energy Group had already published a $4.19 billion quarterly result on Sunday (2026-08-02), a 28 percent sequential gain, with average realized price rising 35 percent to $85 per barrel of oil equivalent.3 Together, the two results frame the pace at which US and Australian LNG output has scaled.
Woodside's Trion deepwater project in the Gulf of Mexico stood 64 percent complete as of its quarterly report filed on Wednesday (2026-07-29), on budget, with first oil targeted for 2028.2 A 24-well drilling programme commenced in March 2026, ahead of schedule. Three production wells were drilled during the second quarter, with 18 required for the initial phase.
Fabrication and testing of the turret mooring buoy for the floating storage and offloading unit is complete, and Woodside has finished topsides and living quarters lifts on the floating production unit and commenced integration and pre-commissioning.2 FSO integration is the phase of offshore megaproject construction where schedule slippage most often materialises, making the current completions more meaningful than a headline percentage suggests.
On the Australian gas side, Woodside executed 47.5 petajoules of incremental pipeline gas sales to be delivered to the Western Australian market from 2027 to 2030, including 31.1 PJ sold to Alcoa, and contracted a further 38.9 PJ for the East Coast market.2 Sales of that duration, executed well ahead of delivery, point to buyers anticipating domestic supply constraints rather than betting on spot availability.
US production is growing into the export build. EIA data showed marketed natural gas output in the Lower 48 averaged 117.2 billion cubic feet per day in the first quarter of 2026, 4 percent above the same period in 2025.1 The agency forecasts full-year 2026 production will rise 3 percent against 2025, weighted toward the second half of the year. Permian output is projected at 29.2 Bcf/d in 2026, 6 percent above the year before, and expected to expand a further 10 percent in 2027.1
The Haynesville shale, which feeds Gulf Coast LNG export terminals with short pipeline runs, is forecast to grow 6 percent this year and 8 percent in 2027.1 Steady growth in a gas-dominant basin close to US liquefaction infrastructure is the feedgas story behind Venture Global's volume numbers.
Golar LNG secured a $600 million revolving credit facility on Wednesday (2026-08-12), backed by FLNG Esperanza, with an 18-month tenor from October 2026 priced at three-month SOFR plus 300 basis points. Longer-term senior secured financing for the vessel remains under negotiation.6 A consortium including Pan American Energy and Golar is also advancing an FLNG project off Argentina's Río Negro coast targeting first delivery in 2027, drawing on Vaca Muerta gas reserves, with a larger 12-to-30-million-tonne-per-annum export buildout planned beyond that initial stage.5
The volume of projects competing for the same 2027-to-2030 delivery windows is substantial. Woodside's pipeline contracts and Venture Global's rising throughput suggest buyers and sellers are finding commercial terms. But Trion's FSO integration phase, now underway, is the clearest near-term test of whether Woodside's 2028 first-oil target survives the final construction stretch intact.2