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

Near the U.S.-Mexico border—just a few miles from Space X Starbase—little-known Next Decade 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 2010, NextDecade is finally bringing Rio Grande LNG online—slated to begin production early next year and continue expanding through 2036, adding roughly one new liquefaction unit, called a train, per year. The first phase of three trains—capable of powering more than 20 million households—is expected to be complete by early 2029. Ten trains are planned in total, half of which are now under construction, producing enough energy for 65 million households. “I wish we were producing LNG today, but it’s coming soon and we’re ahead of schedule,” Schatzman said. “God forbid, if this situation is still going on, we’ll be helpful adding more supply to the market and hopefully easing some of the pain that’s out there.” Schatzman is emphatic that Rio Grande LNG’s business case stands o