Expected winners in the new Trump administration

HOUSTON – The Houston Chronicle reports that the presidential changeover was clear on Wall Street. Natural gas stocks, like EQT, soared in the five trading days after Donald Trump won the presidential election. Meanwhile, clean energy stocks, such as Houston-based solar company Sunnova, fell 34% in the same period. Investors are bracing for a federal government likely to roll back aid for clean energy projects and to ease regulatory pressures on oil and gas companies, said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer for Pickering Energy Partners. “There’s clearly pluses and minuses, and most of the pluses stack up on oil and gas, and most of the minuses are stacking up on clean energy,” Pickering said. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to undo a freeze on export permits for multibillion-dollar natural gas facilities implemented by the Biden administration earlier this year. The freeze was put in place to allow time for a review of climate impacts from the facilities.

Lifting it could help more natural gas export projects proceed — a boost for the companies trying to build these liquefied natural gas projects. The LNG industry became a key target for climate advocates in recent years as the industry boomed because of overseas gas shortages ignited by the war in Ukraine. While the Biden era pause had no impact on fully permitted projects already under construction, it threw a wrench in a long, costly process for others that were already years into the development of multibillion-dollar gas export projects. Commonwealth LNG: Houston-based Commonwealth LNG’s marquee project in Louisiana had been nearing the regulatory finish line when the pause took effect in February. Commonwealth had already been waiting more than a year for the Department of Energy to approve its export permit after the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission greenlit the project in November 2022. Port Arthur LNG: a “phase 2” expansion of Port Arthur LNG under development by Sempra Infrastructure, California-based Sempra’s Houston subsidiary, and Aramco, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company, was near the regulatory finish line before the permitting pause. Sempra CEO Jeffrey Martin said Wednesday, during an earnings call following the election, “we have growing confidence” that the project would receive federal permits early next year, according to a transcript provided by Capital IQ. Lake Charles LNG: Energy Transfer’s Lake Charles LNG had an export permit under review with the DOE when the pause took effect, throwing the project into limbo. Energy Transfer’s Co-CEO Marshall McCrea said during an earnings call last week that Trump’s win offered the “rational, reasonable” leadership necessary to advance the Louisiana project, according to a transcript provided by Capital IQ. NextDecade, the Houston LNG company whose construction permit was struck down by a federal court in August, also appears to be getting a boost from Trump’s win as it tries to build its marquee project in Brownsville. Its shares jumped 7% in the five days since Trump won. NextDecade CEO Matt Schatzman said last week in a statement the company is “committed to taking any and all available legal and regulatory actions” to keep the project on budget and on time.