It took over a decade, but NextDecade’s longshot bet to lead LNG in Texas is finally paying off

Near the U.S.-Mexico border—just a few miles from SpaceX Starbase—little-known NextDecade is on the verge of becoming the top exporter of natural gas out of Texas. Its massive complex, sprawling 1,000 acres along the Brownsville Ship Channel, took more than a decade to reach this point: surviving industry doubters, the sudden death of its founder, and contentious legal fights with environmental groups.

The war in Iran and the disruption of flows from Qatar have placed renewed global focus on liquefied natural gas (LNG), which must be chilled into liquid form for overseas tanker transport. The U.S. has emerged as the world’s top LNG exporter in recent years, supplying energy-hungry markets across Europe and Asia.

Most U.S. LNG capacity is concentrated along a corridor stretching from Corpus Christi, Texas to south of New Orleans. NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG is an outlier—located another 160 miles south of Corpus Christi to the southern tip of Texas.

“The geopolitical volatility that we’re now seeing has made people aware of the fragility of our global energy system, and it’s more vulnerable than people thought,” NextDecade CEO Matt Schatzman told Fortune.

Founded in 2...