On August 13, Golar LNG (NASDAQ:GLNG) used its second-quarter earnings call to announce a fourth floating LNG unit, an order signed just hours before the call began. The Mark II vessel will be built at CIMC Raffles Shipyard in China and delivered within 2029, making it the earliest available liquefaction capacity anywhere in the world. Combined with an EBITDA backlog of $17 billion already locked in through Hilli, Gimi, and the FLNG Esperanza, the announcement reframes Golar as a company still adding capacity rather than one just running out its existing fleet.
Bull Case: A Growth Machine With Scarce Capacity
The new order lifts Golar’s controlled liquefaction capacity by 41%, from 8.6 million tonnes to more than 12 million tonnes once fully delivered. Management said that if the unit is chartered on terms similar to last year’s Esperanza deal, annual earnings capacity could rise 50%, pushing run-rate EBITDA past $1.2 billion by 2030. That confidence rests on a shipyard bottleneck.
Samsung, the industry’s biggest builder, isn’t expected to have open capacity until 2031, and Wison in China is on track to book its next two large units, leaving it committed well into the next decade. Seatrium and CIMC, the only two yards actively converting FLNG units right now, have built exclusively for Golar. The operating record backs up the growth pitch. Hilli finished its eight-year Cameroon contract with 100% economic uptime and 156 cargoes delivered, Gimi produced 15% above its contracted volume in the quarter, and the Esperanza conversion is 74% complete and still on budget. Commodity-linked income is already showing up in the numbers: Hilli’s contribution jumped to $37 million in the quarter from $10 million in the first quarter, helping push EBITDA up 20% sequentially to $127 million.
Bear Case: Bigger Bets Mean Bigger Bills
Growth at this pace isn’t free. The CapEx budget for the fourth FLNG unit came in around $2.45 billion, roughly 10% above the $2.2 billion spent on Esperanza, a jump management tied to inflation in long-lead equipment like turbines and dual-fuel engines, parts now being bid up by AI data center and aircraft manufacturers too. That new unit also has no charter yet, so the 50% earnings boost management is pointing to is a target, not a locked-in number.
Meanwhile, Golar is still equity funding Esperanza, having put in $1.3 billion of its $2.2 billion budget, while carrying net interest-bearing debt of about $1.8 billion. Executives are counting on refinancing Hilli and locking in long-term financing for Esperanza to free up roughly $2.3 billion in liquidity, transactions that are still in progress rather than done. The commodity exposure that flatters earnings when LNG prices are high works the same way in reverse. Management’s own sensitivity table shows EBITDA falling back toward $1.2 billion if prices settle near $8 per million BTU, well below the $1.9 billion implied by today’s $15 forward price. And the disruption at Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility, which knocked out an estimated 17 million tonnes of capacity for three to five years, is a reminder of how exposed single-location LNG projects can be.
Wall Street Warms To Golar
Hedge fund ownership climbed from 57 funds to 61 last quarter, pointing to building institutional interest. Short interest stands at 7.82% of float, enough to show real skepticism without looking like a crowded bearish bet. Shares trade at a forward P/E of 42.02, as of August 21, a multiple that already bakes in a substantial jump in earnings from today’s contracted base.
The Bet On Floating Gas
Golar’s fourth FLNG order gives it a foothold in a market where shipyard slots and critical equipment are both running scarce, and its own numbers back up the pitch: a $17 billion backlog, a fleet pushing past 12 million tonnes, and commodity exposure that could carry EBITDA toward $1.9 billion at current LNG prices. None of that is locked in without a charter for the new unit and financing still being arranged around Esperanza. For the growth case to hold, Golar needs both of those to close roughly on the terms management is describing.
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