Banks backing LNG
Why do banks matter in LNG expansion?
Banks are the enablers of the global LNG boom. Building new LNG terminals and associated infrastructure costs billions of dollars — far more than LNG companies can afford on their own. That’s where banks come in.
By financing LNG companies (corporate finance) or funding specific LNG projects (project finance), banks provide the money that makes the current LNG boom possible.
While project finance often gets the spotlight, it is corporate finance that fuels most of the LNG expansion. Through corporate loans and bond structuring, banks give companies a blank check to expand their fossil gas operations.
Without the backing of banks, many new LNG projects would never get off the ground. That’s why holding banks accountable is essential in the fight to stop LNG expansion.
Global banks funnel billions into LNG expansion
Just 10 banks provided nearly half of this funding — a staggering US$84 billion — between 2021 and 2024.
Even more alarmingly, 25 banks increased their LNG financing between 2021 and 2024.
A similar trend is seen among companies: of the 150 companies assessed, 73 received financing from banks. Of these 73 companies, 32 received more funding in 2024 compared to 2021. This increase can be attributed to the massive expansion of LNG in the US, made possible by Donald Trump’s deregulation agenda and continued support for LNG development.
The biggest beneficiaries of LNG financing and the banks behind them
US-based specialized companies are among the top recipients of funding from the 65 largest banks. In fact, the top three recipients of all LNG expansion financing between 2021 and 2024 — Venture Global LNG, Cheniere Energy and NextDecade — are all based in the US and rank among the world’s largest LNG players. Together, these companies received US$68.5 billion — 39% of the total financing provided by the largest banks in the period. This overwhelming presence of US-based specialized firms reflects the ongoing LNG terminal boom in the US.
Venture Global LNG — the world’s largest LNG developer — received the most support. Alone, the company absorbed US$35.9 billion in bank financing between 2021 and 2024 — one-fifth of all funding from the 65 largest banks during the period (see the company fact sheet for more details). ING Group is the largest funder of Venture Global LNG, providing US$3.2 billion between 2021 and 2024 — more than any other bank.
Some financing is directly aimed at supporting a specific LNG terminal. In June 2025, Venture Global LNG’s CP2 LNG terminal and its associated pipeline in Louisiana were granted a US$15.1 billion loan. The deal involved some of the largest global banks. In addition to SMBC, which allocated US$704 million, European banks such as Santander, Standard Chartered, and ING Group, each provided US$579 million to the project, while Groupe BPCE and Intesa Sanpaolo contributed US$413 million each. Venture Global LNG has already begun construction on CP2 LNG, set to become the largest LNG terminal in the US. However, the project’s early construction phase caused a massive dredging disaster affecting fish, oyster, and shrimp habitats that local fishers depend on for their livelihoods.
European banks widely supported US-based LNG specialized companies:
- Société Générale (France) is the top European backer of Cheniere Energy and the third-largest global LNG financier, having allocated over US$1 billion to the US LNG company.
- Santander (Spain) and Intesa Sanpaolo (Italy) are the second-largest funders of NextDecade, after Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial. Each provided a total of US$1.5 billion to the company between 2023 and 2024. NextDecade is behind the controversial Rio Grande LNG project.
Oil and gas majors also feature prominently in the rankings.
- BP ranks seventh, with US$6.1 billion in financing received.
- TotalEnergies ranks ninth (US$4.8 billion).
- ExxonMobil comes in at 12th.
- Eni, the Italian oil giant, ranks 21st.
The ten midstream and downstream companies that received the most funding secured a total US$27.1 billion from the 65 largest banks. At the top of the ranking is the US-based company New Fortress Energy, which received US$10.5 billion for its LNG expansion plans between 2021 and 2024.
Next in line are the midstream company Snam (US$4.7 billion) and the utility Enel (US$2.4 billion), both based in Italy. These two companies are primarily involved in the development of LNG import terminals in Europe (see Snam’s company fact sheet). Their financial backing has been provided mainly by European banks:
- BNP Paribas is the largest supporter of Snam (US$718 million), and the third-largest supporter of Enel (US$156 million).
- UniCredit is the second-largest backer of Snam (US$587 million).
- Intesa Sanpaolo follows, allocating funds to Snam (US$475 million) and to Enel (US$164 million — making it Enel’s second-largest backer).
Assessment of the policies of the 65 largest banks
The assessment is based on a four-degree color code:
- Red meaning « no commitment ».
- Orange meaning « weak commitment ».
- Yellow meaning « incomplete commitment ».
- Green meaning « robust commitment ».
Two categories of commitment are considered:
- Project-related commitments (direct/project financing from a bank).
- Corporate-level commitments (general purpose financing from a bank).
Only a handful of bank policies address LNG export financing — and poorly
The adoption by banks of incomplete policies regarding LNG export terminals has been a trend of recent years. Having completed project-level exclusions on upstream oil and gas, banks headquartered in Europe and Australia began to progressively extend these commitments to midstream oil and gas.
The most common type of wording used by banks in these LNG-related policies covers the exclusion of direct support to “new oil and gas upstream projects/fields and directly linked midstream infrastructure.” Examples include policies at Société Générale, Crédit Agricole, HSBC, Westpac, ANZ, and NAB. But this wording is incomplete, and leaves numerous cases out: for instance, those where a new terminal is not linked to a precise gas field (as is generally the case in North America, where terminals are linked to the gas network), or those involving the expansion of existing assets (or “brownfield” projects). Altogether, these two missing categories of projects are estimated to cover more than a quarter of total planned LNG capacity.
Of the 65 largest banks funding LNG expansion, 13 have some kind of commitment regarding LNG export terminal projects, and only four go beyond the loophole described above by excluding all LNG terminals, with few or no exceptions.
Some institutions like Barclays have made commitments that are not precise enough to mention – the policy only refers to “midstream infrastructure” without the bank specifying either publicly or privately whether LNG is effectively covered or not.
When it comes to corporate financing, banks have an even longer way to go. Only one bank explicitly excludes companies responsible for LNG export expansion (La Banque Postale). In the table, banks that appear in orange have excluded some or all financial services to companies developing oil and gas fields, and by doing so exclude some diversified firms heavily involved in LNG expansion, like TotalEnergies, Shell, or QatarEnergy. Even though these exclusions are not specific to LNG – leaving untouched the 18 LNG specialized companies active in export terminal expansion, despite representing more than 30% of global expansion – these commitments target close to half of the current planned export capacity worldwide.
LNG import terminals are still a blind spot for banks
So far, very few banks have made commitments regarding LNG import terminals, even at the project level. Import terminal projects are considered by financial institutions to be much less risky and controversial than export terminals. Again, La Banque Postale stands out with a complete exclusion of all import terminals, while Rabobank has an exclusion against most, unless deemed necessary according to European Union standards.
When it comes to providing corporate finance to import terminal developers, financial institutions are mostly at square one. La Banque Postale is the only bank to exclude all kinds of midstream developers, but it still leaves the door open to new financing for some utility companies, including Engie, which is involved in LNG import and pipeline expansion. Overall, in relation to this part of the value chain, the exclusion of some financial services to integrated companies is less effective than exclusions for export terminals, as these companies are only responsible for 11% of the global planned import capacity.