Venture Global, Inc. (VG) stock intrinsic value fair value estimate & owner earnings analysis

Venture Global builds and operates liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants on the Louisiana Gulf Coast. It has three projects: Calcasieu Pass (10 million tonnes a year of nameplate capacity, in commercial operation since April 2025), Plaquemines (20 mtpa; first phase targeted for Q4 2026, second phase mid-2027) and CP2 (first phase 14.4 mtpa, targeted for late 2029). Customers pay a fixed liquefaction fee per unit whether or not they take cargoes, plus a gas-linked fee that mostly passes through the cost of feed gas. About 47 mtpa is sold under mainly 20-year contracts, and the filing shows about $299.5 billion of contracted revenue still to be recognized over a weighted 19.6 years. What the shares are worth depends far more on the balance sheet than on the plants' quality. At mid-2026 the company had about $41.8 billion of debt against $3.1 billion of cash, plus about $5.2 billion of preferred and minority claims that rank ahead of common shareholders (including $3 billion of 9% perpetual preferred at its VGLNG subsidiary, and a 23% outside stake in the Calcasieu Pass owner). Its debt carries a weighted cost of roughly 6.5%-7%, with the Plaquemines term loan at 8.7%, so we add $2.3 billion to the debt figure in the base case for paying more than 6%. We also deduct the roughly $9.5 billion still to be spent to finish Plaquemines and the first phase of CP2 (the filing puts total CP2 cost at $32.5-33.5 billion, with $9.9 billion paid by the end of 2025). How we measured earnings. Owner earnings for 2023, 2024 and 2025 were $2.24, $0.79 and $2.39 per share, up about 203% in the latest year. We treated essentially all capital spending as growth (construction of new plants), because the company does not disclose sustaining capex and routine maintenance is expensed under long-term service agreements. We did not use those historical earnings as the steady-state level: 2023 and 2025 were inflated by selling test-phase (commissioning) cargoes at spot-market fees (2025 Plaquemines averaged $6.62 per MMBtu, against roughly $2.5 for contracted volumes). Once each plant reaches commercial operation those volumes move to contract fees. We instead built the normal level from the contracts. A check on the contract fee: the $299.5 billion of contracted revenue implies about $2.5 per MMBtu of fixed fee at roughly $3.7 gas, and Calcasieu Pass's post-commercial-operation volumes in 2025 implied a similar fee. Because each project's debt is paid from the same cash flow, we valued the plants before debt and then subtracted what is owed. For 2026 we credited about $3.0 billion in the second half (against about $3.5 billion earned in the first half of 2026 before debt costs) and $3.2 billion in 2027, both below 2025's $7.3 billion, since the test-phase sales end as each phase starts operating. Bear case: $-11.67 per share. Fees of $2.40, operating costs of $0.65 per MMBtu, and only 8% output above nameplate. BP wins damages at the low end of its claim (about $3.7 billion) and the other three Calcasieu customers collect about $0.6 billion in total. CP2 costs run about 20% over. Louisiana property tax exemptions expire after ten years and add cost. The business is worth about $17.2 billion; it owes about $47.9 billion, so the shares are worth about $30.7 billion less than nothing, meaning the company appears to owe far more than the plants are worth in this outcome. Base case: $-5.03 per share. Contract fees of $2.50, output 12% above nameplate as Calcasieu Pass has already demonstrated (10 mtpa nameplate against roughly 11.2 mtpa produced), operating costs of $0.55 per MMBtu (2025 was $0.69 while ramping), all three plants operating by 2030 with about $4.0 billion a year of cash before lenders, and contracts running 20 years (Calcasieu Pass to 2045, Plaquemines to about 2046-47, CP2 to about 2049), after which nothing is assumed because no renewal is signed. Arbitration payments total $2.4 billion. The business is worth about $33.0 billion; it owes about $46.2 billion; the difference is about $13.2 billion below zero. Bull case: $2.61 per share. Output 20% above nameplate (Plaquemines is licensed for up to 27.2 mtpa against 20 mtpa nameplate), excess volumes selling at about $3.50, the arbitrations largely resolved in the company's favor (about $0.6 billion; it has already won three of these), on-budget construction, and a recontracting tail at half fees for ten years after 2045. The business is worth about $52.3 billion; it owes about $45.4 billion; the difference is about $6.9 billion, or $2.61 per share. Growth credited and left out. We credited only plants under construction with signed contracts and financing in place (Plaquemines phases 1 and 2 and CP2 phase 1, which reached financial close in July 2025 with $15.1 billion of project debt). Left out because they are not yet secured or evidenced: CP2 phase 2 (not yet financed), the Plaquemines Expansion (31 mtpa applied for in November 2025) and CP3, spot-price upside on uncontracted capacity beyond what Calcasieu Pass has shown, and any recovery in LNG spreads. Testing the case. The most damaging fact is the BP arbitration: the tribunal found in October 2025 that Calcasieu Pass breached its obligation to declare commercial operation on time, and it did not limit damages to the contractual cap; the damages hearing is expected in 2026 or 2027. The three other customers claim $3.4-4.1 billion, against liability limits of $595 million that they dispute. The company disclosed that adverse results could restrict distributions or accelerate related project debt. We tested the fee assumption against the contracted-revenue disclosure and the Calcasieu Pass 2025 results and found it consistent. The first-year assumption (2026 second-half cash of $3.0 billion) is below the trailing 2025 level, so no unexplained acceleration is assumed. What would make this wrong: sustained excess-capacity sales at well above contract fees (2025's $6.62 shows this is possible while spreads are wide), arbitration outcomes near zero, lower financing costs, or valuable contract renewals beyond 2045. Each $0.25 per MMBtu on fees is worth roughly $1.9 per share. Two things could not be reconciled from the filings: how much of the $1.7 billion redeemable subsidiary stock and $3.5 billion of outside interests will actually be paid ahead of common holders, and the exact split of remaining construction spend between phases. We used book values and the total cost range respectively. Margin-of-safety price. Even our bull case is only $2.61 and the base and bear cases are below zero, so no positive price offers a margin of safety today. If the arbitration exposure is settled at about $1 billion or less and the plants show contract-level or better margins on excess volumes once Plaquemines is operating, the value moves toward the bull case, and the margin-of-safety price would then be about $1.00 per share, a wide margin for a heavily indebted, single-region project developer.