Baker Hughes Enters Supply Agreement with Venture Global

Oilfield services provider Baker Hughes (BKR.O) said on Thursday it has signed an agreement with Venture Global (VG.N) to support its liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects in the United States with technology and equipment.

The company has also signed a services frame agreement to support phase 1 and 2 of the Venture Global's Plaquemines LNG project in Louisiana.

"As power demand surges, LNG has a critical role to play in providing a reliable, flexible fuel source that can be quickly scaled to meet rising demand," said Baker Hughes CEO Lorenzo Simonelli.

As Big Tech pours billions of dollars into AI technology, the demand for electricity to feed power-hungry data centers has grown, and so has demand for LNG.

Arlington, Virginia-based Venture Global is the second-largest U.S. liquefied natural gas exporter and has been quickly increasing production from its second LNG plant, Plaquemines.

It recently became the most valuable U.S.-based pure LNG company when it raised $1.75 billion in the first big initial public offering of the year.

However, it is currently involved in arbitration cases brought by some of the world's top energy majors, including BP (BP.L), Shell (SHEL.L), and Edison (EDNn.MI), who have alleged that gas promised to them from Venture Global's Calcasieu Pass plant under long-term contracts was not delivered.

(Reporting by Vallari Srivastava and Seher Dareen; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)