The stock of major American exporters of liquefied natural gas surged on the back of global supply disruptions in the wake of US-Israeli strikes on Iran, which saw a price spike in Europe that could cost consumers millions.

The Monday after US-Israeli strikes on Iran over the weekend threw the Middle East into chaos, EU gas prices opened 20% higher than the week before. When Iran-launched drones hit Qatar, one of the largest exporters of LNG. which shut down a key facility, the surge hit 50%.

Europe is now left hoping for winter to end as soon as possible. “The good news … is that we are less than a month away from the end of the heating season,” said a spokesperson for the European Commission.

The share price of US energy companies also soared.

America’s relatively young LNG industry, which just recently celebrated its ten-year anniversary, is dominated by large firms like Cheniere and Venture Global which control most of the existing gasification capacity and saw their share price rise 5% and 13% respectively.

Already, they are being celebrated as the stocks to watch in the coming weeks.

“This incursion is a bonanza for US LNG exporters and a catastrophe for everyone else,” said Seb Kennedy, an analyst at EnergyFlux, in a media briefing.

Cornering the market

American energy firms supply a third of Europe’s gas imports in the form of LNG shipments across the Atlantic. When European gas prices go up, so do their earnings because contracts are typically tied to local benchmark prices.

Venture Global stands to potentially sell hundreds of LNG cargoes under short-term contracts as its newest terminal, Plaquemines, comes online step-by-step, Kennedy explained.

“Those profits are all backstopped by consumers, whether it’s in China or Europe, [they] will end up paying those bills,” he added.

Jan Rosenow, a professor of energy and climate policy at Oxford University in the UK, said fossil fuel import dependency meant “European consumers not only pay high prices, but also secure profits and dividends for global energy companies”.

Should hostilities in the region persist and the Strait of Hormuz, gateway for a fifth of global oil and LNG out of the Persian Gulf, remain closed, Europe could be on the cusp of a US-inflicted energy shock.

Ugne Keliauskaite, an energy analyst at Brussels-based economics think tank Bruegel pointed to another consequence of the geopolitical turmoil: already, the “situation is beneficial to Russia, given the increase in oil prices”.

(rh)