US banker-lawyer team nets billions from bold natural gas gamble

Bloomberg carries an article about an ex-banker and a lawyer who were driving across Texas to raise money for something that no global energy major, Caliber.Az reprints the article.

The US Gulf Coast is likely the only place in the world where two men with almost no experience in the energy sector could disrupt a massive industry and become billionaires in the process.

Just over a decade ago, former banker Mike Sabel and lawyer Bob Pender were driving across Texas in a rented Chevy, trying to raise funds for an ambitious project that no major global energy company, let alone their little-known startup, had ever accomplished: constructing a multibillion-dollar plant to liquefy and export US shale gas.

In an industry ruled by supermajors and petrostates, these two outsiders made their vision a reality. Today, they own Venture Global LNG and are on track to become one of the nation’s largest suppliers of the fuel. Their rise mirrors the growth of the US LNG industry, which has, in about eight years, surpassed Australia and Qatar to become the world’s largest exporter of the fuel.

The question now is whether their company can sustain its rapid growth despite political pressures and tense relationships with customers and competitors.

"We just grind through it," Sabel stated in an interview at their massive $21 billion LNG plant in Louisiana, which is nearing completion and is their second facility of this scale. "We look up and are often surprised by our progress.

What’s new, however, is their approach. Sabel, 57, and Pender, 71, have redefined almost everything, from the design of their facilities to how they manage customer relationships, including long-term clients who haven't received any contracted shipments in the first two years of production. "They came out of nowhere, total dark horses," said Susan Sakmar, a visiting law professor at the University of Houston who has written a book on LNG. "It remains to be seen if they are the disruptors they claim to be until they deliver cargoes to their buyers."