New ‘well to water’ gas company Caturus aims to integrate fracking with LNG exports
Amid his whirlwind tariff talks, President Donald Trump in recent months has extracted promises from international leaders that their countries will recycle greenbacks into buying hundreds of billions worth of American energy. The European Union last month pledged to buy $700 B of American energy products. In April, the United Arab Emirates offered to invest $1.4 T into the U.S., up from about $70 B today (learn more). Already on the hunt, Mubadala Energy (part of the UAE’s $330-B sovereign wealth fund) has acquired a 24% stake in a venture (learn more) being launched by the $6-B assets private equity group Kimmeridge.
The new company, called Caturus, is a tie up of two Kimmeridge investments — a Louisiana liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project called Commonwealth LNG, plus the fast-growing natural gas driller Kimmeridge Texas Gas. The idea, says Kimmeridge co-founder Ben Dell, is to forge a gas business integrated “from well to water.”
The upstream side is run by Dave Lawler, former head of bp’s onshore U.S. business, whose team has had success drilling and fracking ultradeep, high-pressure gas wells in an area between Encinal and the border town of Laredo, Texas. They now produce 600 MMft3d (the energy equivalent of 100,000 bbl of oil) from about 200,000 acres here that they spent two years acquiring. With more than 1,000 drilling locations, Lawler expects to double volumes by 2029.
That would give Caturus enough gas to supply its eventual downstream needs — at Commonwealth LNG in Cameron, Louisiana. The LNG project was first proposed a decade ago and wended its way through lengthy permitting before Kimmeridge first invested in 2023 and acquired it entirely in 2024. In February, Commonwealth received its export license from the U.S. Deptartment of Energy, followed by final authorizations from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in June. Caturus already has 20-yr contracts with the likes of Glencore, Jera and EQT to take 6 MMtpy of the planned 9 MMtpy capacity.
Rendering of the Commonwealth LNG project in Cameron, Louisiana.
Building Commonwealth will require some $9 B in project finance debt plus $2 B or so in equity. Much of that will come from the UAE. Mubadala has invested an undisclosed amount so far for its 24% stake. To keep Mubadala Energy CEO Mansoor Mohamed al Hamed up to date, Kimmeridge this year opened an Abu Dhabi office to complement ones in New York and Denver.
Dell would love to see the LNG plant built in the United States, but that’s unlikely. Labor constraints on the Gulf Coast make “stick building” cost ineffective, so Caturus is leaning toward modular building approach. Dell says they are evaluating construction yards in China, Korea and Singapore; “We want to support building in U.S. yards but some of these things can’t be built in the U.S. in the next three to four years because the capacity doesn’t exist.”
It will be easier for Caturus to boost its gas production capacity. Lawler explains that their 14,000-ft deep wells will intersect multiple layers of gas-laden rock. The biggest player in the neighborhood is EOG Resources, which expects this corner of south Texas to produce 21 Tft3 of gas.
Kimmeridge formed Caturus out of assets from its fifth and sixth investment funds. According to Prequin data, Kimmeridge funds have delivered an average annualized 27% since 2012.
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