John Kim

1. Key Themes

The 2028 Natural Gas Supply Crisis Is Already Baked In

John Kim's central thesis is that the U.S. is heading toward a historic natural gas deficit starting in 2028, driven by the collision of pre-committed LNG export expansion and AI data center demand. The crisis was set in motion years before AI arrived.

"We are headed into a place where we see an historic deficit in natural gas supply available in the United States... Our work suggests that 2627 natural gas is appropriately supplied. But as we get into 28 and you plug in this compute and you assign gas to very specific assets as they're plugged in as well, and you continue to export LNG as we're planning to do with known projects, we start to eat into our working gas storage." 00:03:51

LNG Export Commitments Are the Hidden, Underappreciated Demand Driver

The U.S. has gone from near-zero LNG exports to 15 BCF/day of nameplate capacity, with contracts and project financing already in place to reach 35 BCF/day by end of 2030. This is a structural commitment that predates and rivals AI as a demand driver.

"As of today, we're scheduled to export up to 35 BCF a day by the end of 2030. And in that case, the dye has been mostly cast. To build an LNG project, you need various approvals. They're project financed. You cite and permit many years in advance." 00:06:06

The U.S. Can Only Add ~20 BCF/Day of New Production — Exactly What LNG Alone Needs

After modeling every well, pipeline, and processing asset, Kim concludes that maximum incremental U.S. gas production capacity is ~20 BCF/day. This is precisely what the LNG export expansion requires — leaving nothing for AI data centers.

"After evaluating every producing gas well and the entire pipeline and processing and gathering system, we have the capacity to add about 20 BCF a day of gas production. Even without AI compute, we had sources and uses matched between our ability to deliver new natural gas from Appalachia, Haynesville, Permian, and that which is supposed to leave the door through LNG." 00:07:04

Working Gas Storage Is the Canary — and It Will Be Exhausted by 2030

Kim frames U.S. working gas storage (~4 TCF total) as the critical system buffer. His model shows it breaking below all historical lows by 2029 and approaching exhaustion by 2030, a scenario with no precedent.

"When you get to the middle of 2028, we start to break very materially below in a historical way where gas available in storage has ever been before. And by 2029, we drop below all known historical storage evidence. And by 2030, we get pretty close to where we think Ceteris Paribus gas storage looks very, very low." 00:24:37

Gas Price Upside Is "Unbounded and Convex" — and Will Hit Consumers Through Electricity Bills

Natural gas sets the marginal price for 40%+ of U.S. power generation. If gas doubles or triples structurally, electricity prices follow — and the U.S. consumer bears the cost.

"The upside risk of compressed natural gas is both unbounded and convex... Where you will feel it the most securely will be electricity prices in 28, 29, 2030 based on our work." 00:04:19

"If you plug in all of this compute and it's gas powered, and we think gas could double or triple structurally, even without weather, it could end up being 20 or 30% of the cost of compute by 2029." 00:38:05

Market Complacency Is Self-Reinforcing — and That's the Setup

The forward gas curve is flat through the 2030s because 15 years of abundance has conditioned everyone to believe gas is plentiful. This complacency is preventing the investment that would solve the problem — and Kim sees that as the setup for the crisis.

"Gas has lulled everybody to sleep. But what happens is these structural things start to fall in place in 27, 28... The rig count, the things that we can see real time to figure out if the market is onto this tightness in 2020 or 2030, it's not apparent today. And so it's perpetuating this view that most Americans have, which is there's plenty of natural gas." 00:23:43

Pipeline Infrastructure Is the Least Appreciated Bottleneck

The U.S. has built essentially one major interstate gas pipeline in the last decade (Mountain Valley Pipeline). Environmental permitting regimes have made it nearly impossible to build new ones. Without new pipeline capacity, even abundant in-ground resources can't reach demand centers.

"In the last 10 or 12 years, we've really built one interstate gas pipeline. That was Mountain Valley Pipeline connecting Appalachia to Mid-Atlantic. The various environmental permitting, the regime changes, been made very difficult to build interstate gas pipelines." 00:21:01

Large-Scale Nuclear (AP1000) Is the Only Real Long-Term Solution

SMRs are largely still science experiments that can't scale to the tens of gigawatts needed. Kim points to Westinghouse AP1000 units — informed by lessons from Vogtle 3 and 4 and China's current 39-reactor build program — as the only viable path to structural resolution by the mid-2030s.

"Large scale to us where it can be commercialized on a known timeline and where the costs are probably better than where we don't even know if we can scale the businesses yet in terms of SMRs. Large scale versus small probably wins in our mind." 00:33:11

The "BYOG" Policy Trap Is Accelerating the Problem

Government policy is currently directing hyperscalers to bring their own generation (BYOG) to data center sites. Every press release from a distributed power provider means more gas consumption — reinforcing the very shortage that policy is supposed to avoid.

"Most of the solutions being proposed by the government are to consume more gas. Because everybody believes it's plentiful. Bring your own generator or generation. BYOG is a thing today... Every time you read a press release from Bloom or from... Think more gas. Think more gas." 00:34:35

Residential Solar Becomes Economically Irresistible Without Subsidies

Kim argues that rising electricity prices will make residential solar economic on its own merits — without tax incentives — for the first time. The daytime generation window (10am–6pm) is precisely when gas-marginal power prices will spike most severely.

"Residential solar assets are really one of the only ways to protect yourself from what's going to happen during the time of 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. once gas gets really tight in the electricity markets, what you pay for electricity at your house. So we think residential solar grows exponentially from here, even without tax incentives." 00:28:58

2. Contrarian Perspectives

The Permian Cannot Save Us — Higher Oil Prices Would Only Make the Consumer Crisis Worse

The common Wall Street pushback is that Permian associated gas will solve any shortfall. Kim's counter is that (a) all known Permian pipeline builds are already in his base case, and (b) to get meaningfully more Permian gas, you need meaningfully higher oil prices — which only deepens the consumer pain.

"In order to make more Permian natural gas, you also have to be incentivized to make more Permian oil. And those incentives didn't exist until the Iran conflict. In order to produce a lot more Permian gas than even these seven plus BCF a day of pipelines being built that we're already modeling, you'd need much, much higher oil for longer, which only exacerbates this consumer crisis that we are concerned about." 00:41:13

Distributed Gas Generation Manufacturers Are Overvalued and Will Face a Demand Cliff

Companies like Caterpillar (Solar Turbines) and Bloom Energy are the biggest equity winners of the AI buildout so far. Kim argues they are positioned exactly like gas turbine manufacturers in the early 2000s — overbuilding capacity just as a structural gas shortage makes their product undeployable.

"Caterpillar... I think they're doubling their solar turbine capacity between now and the end of 29, which I would judge is just at the exact wrong time when people may be questioning whether they even want to deploy those assets. Because the gas is much more expensive than they planned." 00:35:57

"We could see orders slow very meaningfully for natural gas generating assets, even at large scale, as 26 progresses." 00:37:15

Fuel Cells Cannot Work as Baseload — They'll Compete for Gas That Won't Exist

Bloom Energy's latest fuel cell consumes 150 million cubic feet per day per gigawatt. The market is pricing in 2–5 gigawatts of annual deployment. Kim's view: there is no gas available at that scale in competition with everything else being built, so fuel cells will de facto function only as backup generation.

"We are very cynical whether you can deploy fuel cells at scale because there isn't the gas in the system to power those 24-7, 365. And so therefore we treat them in our base case... as backup gen. To the extent you were to deploy fuel cells as baseload gen, that's only pulls forward and is additive to the convexity that I described." 00:53:27

The Forward Gas Curve Is Structurally Wrong — Not Just a Pricing Opportunity

The flat gas forward curve through the 2030s isn't a mispricing waiting to be corrected — it reflects a genuine collective failure to model the physical system. The 2028 physical market is illiquid and unhedged, meaning the knife fight for supply hasn't started yet but will be sudden and violent.

"As soon as utilities turn the page and start to really hedge or buy gas in 28, and we start to see all these natural gas generating companies start to think about securing supply, you're going to start to see a knife fight to secure natural gas physical in 28 like we really haven't seen before. And it's been surprising we haven't really seen any of this yet." 00:50:59

Shutting Off LNG Exports Is Not a Viable Emergency Valve

The intuitive "just stop exporting" solution is both legally constrained and geopolitically dangerous. The U.S. is becoming ~a third of global gas supply; curtailing contracted cargos would damage key allies at a moment when they are strategically critical.

"We potentially hurt important allies at a time where we really want them to be allies if we can't send them the gas they need. And so it is pretty important that we don't curtail LNG, although that will certainly be one of the levers as we go out to the late decade that we will be forced to think about." 00:48:37

3. Companies Identified

Expand Energy (formerly Chesapeake Energy / Haynesville-focused entity)

Upstream natural gas producer controlling ~70% of remaining core Haynesville wells. Kim identifies it as the single biggest winner in a high-gas-price scenario. Currently CEO-less, stock down materially, trading at 4x forward EBITDA on a depressed gas curve — creating a significant valuation disconnect from asset quality.

"Expand Energy is probably at the top of that list. They probably control 70% of remaining core Haynesville wells... The stock has plummeted over the last six months as a part of that search. And it's trading at four times EBITDA on a forward curve where no one believes what I'm telling you to be the case." 00:26:42

Range Resources

Upstream Appalachian natural gas producer with high-quality rock and significant room to grow production and returns. Named alongside Expand as a top upstream winner.

"Highest quality upstream company in Appalachia is probably Range. Range has significant room to grow production and materially grow returns to investors." 00:27:08

EQT Corporation

Largest U.S. natural gas producer (Appalachia). Cited for its mature, low-decline portfolio and the notable fact that it is currently shutting in production, betting on higher future prices — validating Kim's thesis from the inside.

"EQT is shutting in natural gas right now because they think it'll be more valuable later." 00:22:49

XPLR Infrastructure (ticker: XIFR, formerly NextEra Energy Partners / Yield Co)

Utility-scale solar and wind asset owner. Kim identifies it as a windfall beneficiary: as gas-set electricity prices rise, their PPAs get marked to market at much higher values with zero incremental capex.

"XPLR, ticker XIFR, formerly NextEra Yield Co., which is an interesting set of assets. They have a windfall coming in the latter part of the decade because they mark their PPAs to market at much higher values without any capex." 00:28:30

Clearway Energy

Utility-scale renewable energy company in similar position to XPLR — sells power under contracts that will reset to market at rising electricity prices without additional capital costs.

"Clearway Energy would be another one, similar circumstance." 00:28:30

Cameco

Uranium miner that owns 49% of Westinghouse. Kim argues Westinghouse is deeply undervalued within Cameco today, and that when Westinghouse goes public, the embedded value will be unlocked as large-scale nuclear becomes the consensus long-term solution.

"The two companies most levied to that would be Cameco, which owns 49%, Brookfield 51%... When the Westinghouse comes public and it's deeply undervalued within Cameco today. So that's an interesting one." 00:33:11

Westinghouse Electric Company (owned by Cameco/Brookfield)

Designer of the AP1000 nuclear reactor — the unit Kim identifies as the only commercially proven, scalable solution to the structural gas shortage. Currently private within Cameco's ownership structure.

"To us, large scale nukes are the only solution that makes sense, which point us primarily to the AP1000 Westinghouse units." 00:30:24

BWXT (BWX Technologies)

Primary supplier of nuclear components to the U.S. Navy. Kim highlights it as a significant beneficiary of the coming large-scale nuclear build cycle, with substantial dollar content in AP1000 units.

"BWXT, which is a super interesting company, they're the primary supplier of nuclear for the U.S. Navy. They significantly benefit from the coming nuclear cycle as well and lots of dollar content in the AP1000s." 00:33:36

Bloom Energy

Fuel cell manufacturer. Kim views it as a loser: the rare earth risks in manufacturing aside, there simply will not be enough gas in the system to power Bloom's cells at the scale the market is pricing in. Treated in his model as backup generation only.

"We don't think that Bloom Energy's assets at two gigawatts or more will be able to get natural gas in competition with all of the other assets that are being deployed that will consume gas given the scarcity that we see." 00:36:26

Caterpillar (Solar Turbines division)

Industrial manufacturer doubling Solar Turbines distributed generation capacity through end of 2029 — precisely when Kim believes gas scarcity will make those assets uneconomic to operate.

"Caterpillar... I think they're doubling their solar turbine capacity between now and the end of 29, which I would judge is just at the exact wrong time when people may be questioning whether they even want to deploy those assets." 00:35:57

Cheniere Energy

First U.S. LNG exporter, the pioneer that opened the floodgates to the current export regime. Cited as the origin point of the structural demand shift that set today's crisis in motion.

"We started to export it, starting with Cheniere. We've gone from that early Cheniere exporting to today we're exporting about 15 BCF a day of nameplate, U.S. export capacity." 00:05:07

Semi-Analysis

Research firm cited as a leading authority on AI compute and power analysis — but specifically identified as stopping short of modeling where the gas will actually come from, representing a critical gap in the market's understanding.

"Semi-analysis, for instance, leader in many respects. They've done excellent work on everything up to the power source... They do everything up to the point where they don't assess where the gas will come from." 00:22:21

GE Vernova

Manufacturer of large-scale combined cycle gas turbines — the most efficient gas-powered generation assets, at the top of the dispatch stack for AI compute power.

"It sort of goes from the large-scale, most efficient assets, which are GE Vernova, combined cycle, all the way down through the distributed generation assets." 00:07:30

Wärtsilä (Wartsilla)

Finnish manufacturer of distributed power generation engines; cited as one of the behind-the-meter, local field-level gas-consuming assets that Kim's team had to probability-weight in their model.

"The distributed generation assets, which we'll call fuel cells. We will add Wartzilla Oys or Caterpillar, solar turbines. There are various local field level behind the meter assets." 00:07:30

Brookfield Asset Management

Owns 51% of Westinghouse. Cited as co-owner of the key large-scale nuclear solution asset.

"The two companies most levied to that would be Cameco, which owns 49%, Brookfield 51%." 00:33:11

4. People Identified

Founder and CIO of Chronometer Partners. 20-year energy markets veteran who has spent 16+ months modeling virtually every U.S. natural gas well, pipeline, and processing asset at the atomic level to reach a conclusion that most of the market does not share: a structural gas deficit begins in 2028 with convex, potentially unbounded price upside.

"We have had to assign with an outside partner probabilities to... all of this stuff. And so what we've gone about doing is we will start with our base case, which is we'll call it P50. Everything with a probability of 50% or more." 00:08:00

5. Operating Insights

Lock In Physical Gas Supply Contracts Now — Before the 2028 Knife Fight

Any operator whose business depends on natural gas (hyperscalers, data center developers, E&C firms building gas plants, utilities) should be contracting physical supply for 2028 delivery immediately. The 2028 forward market is currently illiquid precisely because no one believes the shortage is coming — making it the window to act before counterparty risk explodes.

"Make sure when your assets are deployed that you understand exactly what the source of your natural gas will be. Make sure you have physical supply locked up and that you understand your counterparties and what will likely be very meaningful counterparty risk in two or three years." 00:52:46

E&C Firms Should Use the Current Boom to Diversify Away from Gas Generation

Engineering and construction companies currently trading at historically high multiples (~25x cash flow) on the back of gas plant construction orders should use their elevated equity currency to acquire businesses outside natural gas generation — before orders slow materially in 2026–2029.

"If you've worked CEOs and partners on projects, whether you are the E&C company trading at 25 times cash flow... and your main business is building natural gas plants, and we may not be able to build or deploy more gas plants at a certain point in 2029, 2030... The focus for you should be on how do you do creative M&A to backfill your and diversify your business." 00:53:57

Demand Performance-Per-Watt as a Core Procurement Metric for AI Infrastructure

As energy becomes 20–40% of compute costs versus today's 10%, the metric that will separate winning hyperscalers from losing ones is compute output per watt consumed — a direct lever on both cost and gas consumption exposure.

"Performance per watt is probably a compute metric that we're going to care more and more about." 00:55:02

Ask Upstream Producers for Exact Engineered Well Locations — Not Just Inventory Claims

When evaluating natural gas producers, demand a map of specific permitted, infrastructure-backed drilling locations rather than accepting high-level inventory claims. Many companies overstate their productive inventory relative to what can actually be justified with engineering and surface-level facts.

"When folks meet with companies, they should ask to understand exact engineered locations on a map. Where do they have not just the ability to produce, but plans to have infrastructure on the surface to allow it to flow." 00:16:11

6. Overlooked Insights

Canada's Stranded Gas Resource Is an Underappreciated Strategic Valve — But Requires Pipeline Investment Now

Kim briefly mentions that Canada has "by far the deepest and richest resource of economic gas in the ground" — but it is "trapped behind pipe." He proposes a 1–2 BCF/day pipeline into the U.S. Midwest (MISO) that could then wheel into PJM, SPP, and ERCOT. This was mentioned almost in passing, but represents a potentially enormous and faster-to-execute solution than nuclear — and a major investment opportunity in Canadian midstream and cross-border pipeline infrastructure that is almost entirely absent from the current public dialogue on the AI energy crisis.

"Canada by far has the deepest and richest resource of economic gas in the ground. But it's been trapped behind pipe. I would build a one to two BCF a day at least pipe into the U.S. Midwest, the MISO power market, and then wheel it around MISO, PJM, SPP, ERCOT, and try to satisfy this demand." 00:46:58

The Haynesville Swing Basin Is Disproportionately Critical — and One CEO-Less Company Controls Most of It

Kim's thesis identifies the Haynesville as "a key swing basin" — and Expand Energy controls approximately 70% of the remaining core Haynesville locations. This concentration of the most critical marginal supply in a single stock that is currently leaderless and trading at 4x EBITDA on a flat forward curve is an extraordinary asymmetry. The market is pricing in gas abundance and management uncertainty; Kim's model prices in structural scarcity. The Haynesville's role as the swing basin means Expand is not just a gas producer but effectively the marginal price-setter for the entire U.S. gas market in the critical 2028–2030 window — a fact that received only a few sentences in the conversation but has enormous investment implications.

"Expand Energy is probably at the top of that list. They probably control 70% of remaining core Haynesville wells. The very closely known parameters of rock, where we know it to be very productive. And so Expand, we think is far and away the biggest winner. Uniquely Expand is CEO-less right now... The stock has plummeted over the last six months... It's trading at four times EBITDA on a forward curve where no one believes what I'm telling you to be the case." 00:26:42