NextDecade (NEXT) — Stock Analysis 2026 [3.5]

Analysis as of 29 July 2026. Market data as of the 24 July 2026 close (US$7.01; 264.99m shares outstanding). Price deck: contracted liquefaction fee ~US$2.43/MMBtu (derived from disclosed fixed fees); uncontracted portfolio margin US$1.00 / US$2.00 / US$4.00 per MMBtu (bear / base / bull); Henry Hub passed through to customers under the variable fee. Discount rate 11% (sensitised 9–15%). Rating: ★★★½ Solid quality / Fairly valued. Update cadence: on each annual report, and on a material event (Train 6 FID, a holdco refinancing, or first LNG).

This NextDecade stock analysis covers a company that is not yet a company in the usual sense: it is a 264-million-share claim on a construction site. NextDecade Corporation (NASDAQ: NEXT) is building the five-train, ~30 MTPA Rio Grande LNG facility on the Brownsville Ship Channel — a US$31.4 billion project that is fully financed, 84% contracted and, on the company’s own reporting, running ahead of its guaranteed schedule. The thesis in one line: the plant is close to done and de-risked, but shareholders own a minority, heavily leveraged slice of it, and the share price now depends less on first LNG than on Train 6 and on refinancing the 13% holding-company debt. It is worth a look now because first gas is expected in the second half of 2026 and the FERC application for Train 6 lands in the same window — two events that resolve the two halves of the story. To screen the wider natural-gas complex on the same fields used below, go to Metal Pilot.

1. Snapshot & thesis

Figure 1. NextDecade in numbers, as of 24 July 2026

Figure data: NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K (filed 27 February 2026); market data from StockAnalysis — NEXT , 24 July 2026 close. Blended economic interest and enterprise value are derived — see Table 1. Rating per Section 9.

NextDecade Corporation is a Houston-based, pre-revenue LNG developer (NASDAQ: NEXT), incorporated in Delaware in 2014 and built around NextDecade LLC, founded in 2010. It has one asset: approximately 1,000 leased acres with 15,000 feet of frontage on the Brownsville Ship Channel in south Texas, on which Bechtel Energy Inc. is building five liquefaction trains under fully wrapped, lump-sum turnkey EPC contracts using Honeywell AP-C3MR technology. Trains 1 through 5 total approximately 30 MTPA (million tonnes per annum) of expected capacity, with four 180,000-cubic-metre storage tanks and two jetty berths; Trains 6 through 8 add approximately 18 MTPA in permitting and development, and the site has room for up to 10 trains. Headcount was 360 at 31 December 2025.

Table 1. NextDecade in numbers

Source: NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K ; StockAnalysis — NEXT , 24 July 2026. Derived rows are marked and are this analysis’s estimates, not company disclosure. Margin is not shown because the company is pre-revenue; the contracted fixed-fee economics that will produce the margin are set out in §2.2.

Thesis in brief. The bull case: a fully funded, fully permitted, 84%-contracted, 30 MTPA platform is months from first gas, and NextDecade keeps a larger share of each successive train — 20.8% of Phase 1, 40–60% of Train 4, 50–70% of Train 5, 100% of Trains 6 through 8. The bear case: the equity is a thin, expensively financed stub, bought with roughly US$2.9 billion of holding-company debt at 8.0% to 13.5%, with Phase 1 distributions ranking behind the partners’ return threshold. What tips it is whether Train 6 reaches FID with project-level debt and whether the 13% paper is refinanced out of first cash flow. §9 carries the full rating.

How to read this analysis: here for the verdict? The statcards above and the rating in Section 9 are the whole story. Want the evidence? Read Section 2 (the asset) through Section 7 (the valuation).

2. Assets & operations

Rio Grande LNG is being built into the tail end of the second great US LNG build-out, in a market where Gulf Coast liquefaction has become the swing supply for Europe and Asia and where geopolitical disruption — the 2026 Middle East episode that pushed LNG shipping toward long-term charters — has strengthened the case for long-dated, take-or-pay contracted capacity. For how gas is priced, who produces it and how LNG trade reshaped the market, see the Natural Gas — A Complete Market Guide ; the crude side that still indexes much of global LNG contracting is covered in the Oil guide . This section spends its words on the company.

2.1 Portfolio overview & site

NextDecade has one asset and one site, which is both the thesis and the concentration risk. Rio Grande sits on the north shore of the Brownsville Ship Channel on roughly 1,000 leased acres with 15,000 feet of channel frontage, under a Brownsville Navigation District lease running to 12 July 2053 with two ten-year renewal options. The company argues the site is advantaged by proximity to Permian Basin and Eagle Ford gas, an uncongested waterway, a region historically subject to fewer and less severe weather events than the rest of the US Gulf Coast, a large skilled local labour force, and strong geotechnical conditions requiring less piling.

Table 2. Rio Grande LNG — trains, capacity, cost and status

Source: NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K , Item 1 and Item 7. Listing: NextDecade Corporation is Public (NASDAQ: NEXT); Phase 1 LLC, Train 4 LLC and Train 5 LLC are privately held joint ventures consolidated by NextDecade as variable interest entities. Phase 1 capacity is derived as the ~30 MTPA five-train total less the ~6 MTPA guided for each of Trains 4 and 5.

Concentration is total: 100% of NextDecade’s value sits on one site, in one jurisdiction, with one EPC contractor and one liquefaction technology — unusual even by developer standards, and the single fact that most shapes the risk register in §6.

2.2 Contracted volumes & economic interest

For a resource company the first question is what earns the money and how concentrated it is. NextDecade has no revenue split to show — it is pre-revenue, and every future dollar comes from one product sold under one contract structure. What matters instead is the two splits below: how much of the plant is contracted and to whom, and how much of the plant NextDecade actually owns.

NextDecade has signed long-term LNG Sale and Purchase Agreements (SPAs) with 14 creditworthy counterparties for approximately 25.3 MTPA from Trains 1 through 5 — about 84% of nameplate — with a weighted-average term of 19.5 years. Each SPA pays a fixed fee per MMBtu plus a variable fee structured to cover the cost of feed gas, fuel and other sourcing costs; customers who cancel or suspend cargoes still pay the fixed fee. A portion of the fixed fee escalates annually with inflation. Approximately 23.75 MTPA of those volumes are linked to Henry Hub and carry average fixed fees, unadjusted for inflation, totalling approximately US$3.0 billion expected to be paid annually. At the standard conversion of ~52 MMBtu per tonne of LNG, that implies a weighted-average fixed fee of roughly US$2.43/MMBtu — the number the whole valuation in §7 rests on, and a derived figure rather than a disclosed one.

Table 3. Long-term SPAs signed in 2025 for Trains 4 and 5

Source: NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K , Item 1 and Item 7 “Overview of Significant Events”. The 10-K names these five 2025 counterparties individually; the remaining nine of the 14 counterparties are not separately identified in the filing, so the balance is shown as a derived residual.

Figure 2. Contracted LNG volume by counterparty, MTPA

Source: data in Table 3.

The second split is the one that decides what a NextDecade share is worth. The company does not own Rio Grande LNG; it owns economic interests in three joint ventures that do, and those interests differ sharply by train.

Table 4. NextDecade’s net economic capacity by train

Source: economic interests from the NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K , Item 1 “NextDecade Economic Interest in Trains 1 Through 5”, reconfirmed in the Q1 2026 business update (1 May 2026). Net capacity is derived by this analysis as gross capacity × the stated cash interest and is an economic proxy, not a legal ownership percentage. Step-ups occur only once the equity partners achieve stated returns; Phase 1 distributions to NextDecade are subordinated to the financial equity partners’ distribution threshold, with shortfalls accruing as arrearages.

Figure 3. NextDecade’s net economic capacity by train, MTPA

Source: data in Table 4.

Read together, the two figures give the shape of the equity: NextDecade has contracted 84% of a 30 MTPA plant on 19.5-year terms — an exceptionally durable revenue base — but keeps only about 30.5% of the cash that plant will distribute, rising to roughly 38.5% once the partners clear their hurdles. The 18 MTPA it wholly owns is the part it has not financed.

2.3 Capital cost & funding

Trains 1 through 5 will cost approximately US$31.4 billion, funded with roughly US$11.6 billion of project equity and US$19.7 billion of non-recourse project debt. Every one is, on the company’s own statement, fully funded — the 10-K’s phrase for Phase 1 and Train 4 is that the entity “expects to utilize these capital resources to fully fund the total cost.” Trains 6 through 8 are not funded at all: no FID, no financing, no SPAs.

Table 5. Rio Grande LNG — capital cost and funding by train

Source: NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K , Item 7 “Liquidity and Capital Resources” and Note 6 — Debt. Capital intensity and debt-share rows are derived by this analysis. Phase 1 capacity is derived (see Table 2), so Phase 1 capital intensity is an approximation.

Figure 4. Capital cost and funding sources by train, US$ billion

Source: data in Table 5.

Two things stand out. First, capital intensity is competitive: at roughly US$1,047 per tonne per annum, Rio Grande sits close to Sempra Infrastructure’s Port Arthur LNG Phase 2, which took FID in September 2025 at approximately US$12 billion of incremental capex plus roughly US$2 billion for shared common facilities for ~13 MTPA, or about US$1,077/tpa. Phase 1 looks cheaper per tonne than Trains 4 and 5 precisely because it carries the whole common-facilities bill — the tanks, the berths, the dredging, the levees — which Trains 4 and 5 then pay Phase 1 to use.

Second, and less comfortably, look at how NextDecade funded its own equity. Against approximately US$2.42 billion of commitments to Trains 4 and 5, it used the Super FinCo term-loan proceeds and cash on hand at the two FIDs, and will fund the remainder from the FinCo facility. NextDecade bought its Train 4 and Train 5 economics almost entirely with holding-company debt — 13.0% on the Super FinCo loan, SOFR plus 3.50% on FinCo. That is the central financial fact about the equity, and §3 and §7 develop it.

2.4 Phase 1 — Trains 1 to 3

Phase 1 is the flagship and the reason the site exists. Construction commenced in July 2023 after a positive FID and the closing of project financing, with final notice to proceed issued to Bechtel on 12 July 2023. It comprises Trains 1 through 3 — approximately 18 MTPA — plus the common facilities: four 180,000-cubic-metre full-containment storage tanks, two jetty berthing structures designed for LNG carriers up to 216,000 cubic metres, feed-gas pretreatment, utilities, ground flares, roads, levees and buildings. The US$18.0 billion cost covers EPC, owner’s costs, contingencies, the Brazos Island Harbor channel dredging, the 4,000-acre habitat conservation, and interest during construction.

Funding is closed and non-recourse (Table 5). What has changed since the 10-K is the debt’s shape: Phase 1 LLC had already refinanced more than US$1.85 billion of the original US$11.1 billion term loans, and in June 2026 priced a further US$3.50 billion of senior secured notes across four tranches — US$1.0 billion at 5.250% due 2031, US$500 million at 5.500% due 2034, US$1.25 billion at 5.750% due 2036 and US$750 million at 6.150% due 2041 — to repay bank borrowings, closing on 2 July 2026. That refinancing swaps floating construction debt for fixed, long-dated capital in the 5.25–6.15% band, and it is the clearest external validation of the project’s credit that exists.

NextDecade’s return on Phase 1 is the weakest of the three financed trains: up to approximately 20.8% of available cash, and even that is subordinated — a majority of the distributions it would otherwise receive are paid only after the financial equity partners receive an agreed distribution threshold, with shortfalls accruing as arrearages payable later. The key asset-level risk is the pending D.C. Circuit petition in §6: Phase 1’s FERC authorisation has already survived one remand.

2.5 Train 4

Train 4 reached a positive FID on 9 September 2025, with full notice to proceed issued to Bechtel the same day under a lump-sum turnkey EPC contract whose pricing was refreshed in June 2025. Capacity is approximately 6 MTPA and total project cost approximately US$6.7 billion, including a payment at commencement of operations to the trains already running for Train 4’s proportionate share of the common facilities it will access. Guaranteed substantial completion is in the third quarter of 2030.

Financing closed alongside the FID: approximately US$1.69 billion of equity commitments from Global Infrastructure Partners (a part of BlackRock), GIC, Mubadala Investment Company and TotalEnergies; US$1.13 billion from NextDecade itself; and a US$3.85 billion senior secured, non-recourse bank facility with a seven-year maturity at SOFR plus 2.00%, with rating-based step-downs to SOFR plus 1.75% at Baa1/BBB+. NextDecade receives 40% of Train 4’s available cash, rising to 60% once the partners achieve a stated return. Train 4 LLC also paid NextDecade LLC US$98 million at FID — a US$48 million development fee plus a US$50 million services fee — with a further US$50 million due in September 2026. Contracted volumes include the TotalEnergies 1.5 MTPA option exercise and the Saudi Aramco 1.2 MTPA SPA. The asset-level risk is schedule: at 10.6% complete in March 2026, Train 4 has four and a half years of execution ahead of it.

2.6 Train 5

Train 5 reached a positive FID on 16 October 2025 on the same template, with its EPC contract executed with Bechtel in June 2025. Capacity is approximately 6 MTPA, total project cost approximately US$6.7 billion, and guaranteed substantial completion is in the second quarter of 2031. Financing comprised approximately US$1.29 billion of equity from GIP, GIC and Mubadala; a matching US$1.29 billion from NextDecade; a US$3.59 billion senior secured non-recourse bank facility with a seven-year maturity; and a US$500 million private placement of 6.56% notes funded in tranches from December 2025 through October 2026, amortising over 20 years from September 2031 to September 2050. The first US$150 million tranche was issued in December 2025.

Train 5 carries NextDecade’s best economics of the three financed trains: 50% of available cash, rising to 70% after the partners’ hurdle. It is also the least advanced — 6.8% complete in March 2026 — with the JERA 2.0 MTPA, EQT 1.5 MTPA and ConocoPhillips 1.0 MTPA SPAs attached. To fund its US$1.29 billion commitment, NextDecade contributed US$233 million of cash and increased the FinCo loan by US$729 million (to approximately US$1.46 billion) and the SuperFinCo loan by US$600 million (to US$1.2 billion). The asset-level risk mirrors Train 4’s, compounded by the fact that NextDecade’s largest share is also its most expensively financed.

2.7 Trains 6 to 8 and the CCS option

Trains 6 through 8 are wholly owned and cumulatively expected to add approximately 18 MTPA. Train 6, at approximately 6 MTPA, is being developed inside the existing levee adjacent to Trains 1 through 5 — a real cost advantage, since it reuses site works, levees and much of the utility infrastructure already paid for. NextDecade initiated FERC pre-filing for an expansion including Train 6 and an additional marine berth in November 2025 and expected to file the full application before the end of Q2 2026; Bechtel is engaged on front-end engineering and design, and the Q1 2026 update reported commercial discussions with potential Train 6 buyers. Trains 7 and 8, approximately 12 MTPA combined, are at the siting stage, with development expected to advance through 2026. A carbon capture and storage project remains under evaluation and is not costed in any public disclosure.

All of it is optionality, not base case: no FID, no financing, no SPA, no disclosed capital cost. What makes it matter is that NextDecade would own 100% of it against roughly 30.5% of the trains already built — which is why §7 carries Trains 6 through 8 as a separately labelled value line rather than folding it into the NAV.

2.8 Construction progress & schedule

Progress is the one area where the story has been consistently better than plan. As of March 2026, Trains 1 and 2 plus the common facilities were 67.8% complete overall (engineering 98.4%, procurement 94.3%, construction 49.4%); Train 3 was 44.2% complete; Train 4 was 10.6%; and Train 5 was 6.8%. The company reported Phase 1 as ahead of the guaranteed completion schedule under the EPC contracts, with the main cryogenic heat exchanger installed in Train 1, Train 2 compressor packages being placed, inner-tank welding progressing on Tanks 1 and 2 with concrete roofs complete, dredging for the berths and turning basin substantially complete and channel deepening nearing completion. Early electrical commissioning of Train 1 was underway. Management expects first gas into the facility in the second half of 2026 and first LNG production from Train 1 in the first half of 2027.

Figure 5. Rio Grande LNG project completion by train, March 2026

Source: NextDecade Q1 2026 business update , 1 May 2026.

In parallel, the company began marketing early cargoes for 2027 and 2028 ahead of the long-term SPAs, and in February 2026 sold over 175 TBtu on an FOB basis at fixed liquefaction fees expected to deliver a cargo margin — FOB sales price less expected feed gas and fuel cost — of over US$3.00 per MMBtu. That is 33% of expected open volumes from 2027 through early 2029, and the first hard evidence of what uncontracted volume is worth.

2.9 Peer positioning

The peer set for this analysis is the three other US-listed companies that own and are building large-scale US Gulf Coast LNG liquefaction platforms, all three of which NextDecade itself names in its 10-K peer group: Cheniere Energy (NYSE: LNG), Venture Global (NYSE: VG) and Sempra (NYSE: SRE). Every “versus peers” claim in this analysis, including each scorecard star in §9 and the relative valuation in §7, uses this set.

Table 6. Peer positioning on quality metrics

Source: NextDecade from the FY2025 Form 10-K ; Cheniere capacity and contracted position from its FY2025 Form 10-K ; Sempra Port Arthur Phase 2 from the Sempra Form 8-K, 22 September 2025 and Sempra Infrastructure ; Venture Global capacity from its June 2026 Form 8-K bond materials . Metrics are not fully comparable across issuers — each company reports capacity and contracting on its own basis, which is stated in each cell rather than normalised.

NextDecade’s position in that set is specific. On contract quality it is the strongest: 19.5 years of weighted-average term on brand-new agreements, against Cheniere’s ~15 years of remaining life on a seasoned book. On scale it is the smallest — 30 MTPA building against Cheniere’s ~52 MTPA already running. On ownership it is the weakest by a wide margin: Cheniere and Venture Global own their platforms outright, and even Sempra — diluting to a 25% stake in Sempra Infrastructure — is diluting a portfolio, not a single asset. And on stage it is the only one with no operating cash flow at all. To rank the wider gas-infrastructure universe on the same fields, screen the sector on Metal Pilot.

3. Financials & balance sheet

NextDecade has never recorded revenue. Its income statement is a construction-overhead statement, and the only trends in it that matter are how fast corporate cost is scaling toward operations and how fast interest is arriving.

Table 7. Five-year financial summary, FY2021–FY2025 (US$ thousands unless stated)

Source: FY2023–FY2025 from the NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K (consolidated statements of operations, balance sheets and MD&A). FY2021 and FY2022 net loss from the FY2021 and FY2022 Forms 10-K; FY2021–FY2022 G&A and operating cash flow from SEC XBRL company facts . Cells marked “—” are not available on a basis consistent with the current filing: NextDecade’s present structure — the consolidated Phase 1, Train 4 and Train 5 joint ventures — dates from the July 2023 Phase 1 FID, so pre-2023 balance-sheet and investing lines are not comparable. Revenue YoY % is not meaningful because the company is pre-revenue; the operating cash-outflow YoY row is shown in its place as the rate-of-change measure.

Three readings matter. The burn is accelerating. Operating cash outflow rose 77% to US$169.4 million in FY2025 and reached US$110.8 million in the first quarter of 2026 alone; G&A rose 35% to US$202.3 million on hiring and share-based compensation recognised at the Train 4 and Train 5 FIDs. The FY2024 profit was an accounting artefact. Net income of US$277.4 million came from a US$586.5 million derivative gain on the interest-rate swap book, which reversed to an US$11.0 million loss in FY2025 as forward SOFR fell; the loss attributable to common stockholders was negative in both years. Interest is now the largest line below the operating loss. Interest expense nearly doubled to US$170.0 million despite a US$151.5 million increase in capitalised interest — the gross interest burden rose about US$215.4 million.

Table 8. Consolidated debt by borrower, 31 December 2025 (US$ thousands)

Source: NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K , Note 6 — Debt. Recourse classification is this analysis’s labelling of the borrower groups the filing defines; the Rio Grande Project Entities’ obligations are stated in the filing to be without recourse to NextDecade.

The table’s shape is the argument. Of US$8.83 billion of consolidated debt, US$7.31 billion is non-recourse project debt at 5.25–7.11%; US$1.52 billion sits at the NextDecade Group and costs 8.0% to 13.5%. Undrawn commitments widen the gap: the FinCo facility — approximately US$1.5 billion at SOFR plus 3.50%, of which US$1.2 billion was issued as letters of credit at year-end — will be drawn to complete NextDecade’s Train 4 and Train 5 equity contributions. On a fully drawn basis the group’s own debt approaches US$3 billion, against US$143.8 million of unrestricted corporate cash and no revenue.

Hedging. There is no commodity hedge book because there is no commodity exposure yet: the SPAs’ variable fee covers the expected cost of natural gas plus fuel and other sourcing costs, leaving residual exposure only to the basis between the feed-gas price actually paid and the Henry Hub price used in the calculation. The interest-rate book is large and real. Each Project Credit Facility requires at least 75% of projected senior secured principal to be hedged or fixed, and the FinCo facility 90%; the swaps run to maximum notionals of US$7.92 billion (Phase 1, 3.4% weighted-average fixed, to 2048), US$3.23 billion (Train 4, 4.3%, to 2050), US$3.05 billion (Train 5, 4.2%, to 2051) and US$1.39 billion (FinCo, 4.0%, to 2035), each with earlier mandatory termination dates. A hypothetical 100 basis point rate increase would have moved FY2025 consolidated net loss by less than US$1 million.

Capital returns. There are none, and the company says there will be none: it intends to retain earnings to finance growth and does not anticipate dividends in the foreseeable future. The only fourth-quarter 2025 repurchases were 221,743 shares surrendered by employees to settle tax on vesting awards.

4. Management, strategy & corporate structure

4.1 Management & governance

Matthew K. Schatzman is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, holding both roles — a governance weakness that a board with an independent lead director can mitigate but not remove. John Zuklic became Chief Financial Officer effective 6 July 2026, bringing more than 30 years in the energy industry including senior finance roles; he replaced Michael R. Mott, who had served as interim CFO while also Senior Vice President, Enterprise Transformation, and who returns to that role. Luke Boylston is Chief Accounting Officer. Two CFO changes inside a year, at a company about to transition from construction to operations, is a real if manageable governance and continuity concern.

The board carries eleven non-executive directors alongside Schatzman: Giovanni Oddo, Brian Belke, Frank Chapman, Avinash Kripalani, Arnaud Lenail-Chouteau, Edward Andrew Scoggins, Jr., William Vrattos, Spencer Wells, Pamela Beall, Diana Sands and In Kyu Park. Three of them are affiliated with the company’s largest stockholders, which the 10-K discloses as a concentration risk: affiliates of HGC NEXT INV LLC, TotalEnergies SE and Nineteenth Investment Company together beneficially owned approximately 47% of the combined voting power of NextDecade’s outstanding common stock as of 20 February 2026, giving them the ability to influence director elections and any corporate action requiring stockholder approval, including a merger or sale.

One insider-alignment data point is worth recording: director Pamela Beall bought 71,500 shares of common stock on 23 March 2026 for approximately US$505,500 — a purchase, not a grant, at roughly US$7.07 per share.

4.2 Strategy & capital allocation

The stated strategy is narrow and, so far, executed: construct and operate Rio Grande LNG “safely, efficiently, on schedule, and on budget,” and expand it. Three named forward targets anchor it: first gas in H2 2026 and first LNG from Train 1 in H1 2027; guaranteed substantial completion of Train 4 in Q3 2030 and Train 5 in Q2 2031; and a full FERC application for the Train 6 expansion and an additional marine berth before the end of Q2 2026, with Trains 7 and 8 advanced through 2026.

The capital-allocation methodology is the interesting part, because it has visibly improved train by train. Phase 1 was financed by selling roughly 79% of its cash economics to financial partners — the price of getting a first-of-its-kind project built by a company with no balance sheet. Train 4 retained 40% rising to 60%; Train 5 retained 50% rising to 70%; Trains 6 through 8 are wholly owned. NextDecade has also monetised its role as developer and manager: Train 4 LLC paid NextDecade LLC US$98 million at FID (US$48 million development fee plus US$50 million services fee), with a further US$50 million due in September 2026, and Train 5 LLC paid US$117 million (US$17 million development plus US$100 million services). That is US$215 million of cash into the corporate entity from two FIDs, plus US$50 million to come — an underappreciated funding channel.

The cost of that improving equity share is the holding-company leverage in §3. Retaining more of Train 5 than of Phase 1 is only accretive if the retained economics out-earn 13% money, which is what §7 puts numbers to.

4.3 Ownership & corporate structure

The structure is layered so that project risk stops before it reaches the parent. NextDecade Corporation sits above the NextDecade Group — the corporate entities, including the ND Finance Subsidiaries (Rio Grande LNG Super Holdings, FinCo and SuperFinCo) — and above three Joint Ventures: Phase 1 Holdings, Train 4 Holdings and Train 5 Holdings, each owning the corresponding project entity (Phase 1 LLC, Train 4 LLC, Train 5 LLC). NextDecade consolidates all three as variable interest entities because, through agreements with NextDecade LLC, it holds decision-making rights over construction and key operations that can only be terminated for cause. Those VIEs held US$12.13 billion of the group’s US$12.43 billion of total assets at 31 December 2025, with no recourse to NextDecade for their liabilities; non-controlling interest was US$2.21 billion against total stockholders’ equity of just US$95.3 million.

Governance of each joint venture is shared: up to four Class A managers appointed by NextDecade — including, for Phase 1 Holdings, one designated by Global LNG North America Corp., a subsidiary of TotalEnergies SE — plus Class B managers appointed by the Class B holders, with approval requiring a majority of both classes and specified “qualified,” “supermajority” and “unanimous” matters reserved to the members. The named financial partners are Global Infrastructure Partners, a part of BlackRock, GIC, Mubadala Investment Company and TotalEnergies, which committed approximately US$1.69 billion to Train 4; GIP, GIC and Mubadala committed approximately US$1.29 billion to Train 5. At the parent, the disclosed Large Stockholders are affiliates of HGC NEXT INV LLC, TotalEnergies SE and Nineteenth Investment Company, holding approximately 47% of voting power as of 20 February 2026.

Two dilution instruments sit outside the share count. Warrants: 9.2 million in total — 3.6 million exercisable at US$7.15 and 5.6 million at US$9.30 — issued to the Corporate Credit Agreement lenders in December 2024 and May 2025, then modified in November 2025 to extend expiry to 2031 and 2032 and add pricing-adjustment features, which reclassified them from equity to derivative liabilities. The Series A exchangeable loan: US$100 million of principal plus any PIK interest, exchangeable into common stock at US$9.50 from the 180th day after 17 November 2025 through maturity — roughly 10.5 million shares at par. Shares outstanding were 264.9 million at 20 February 2026, against 194.6 million weighted-average shares in FY2023 — roughly 36% more stock in two years.

5. ESG & sustainability

NextDecade’s sustainability disclosure inside its annual report is thin relative to peers, and this analysis scores what is disclosed rather than what is asserted elsewhere. The concrete, quantified commitments are environmental and site-specific. Phase 1’s US$18.0 billion cost line explicitly includes conservation of more than 4,000 acres of wetland and wildlife habitat area and dredging for the Brazos Island Harbor Channel Improvement Project — costed mitigation rather than a policy statement. The company is exploring a potential carbon capture and storage project at the site, still an evaluation with no announced capacity, capital cost or timeline, and no value is ascribed to it in §7. Socially, the company reports 360 full-time employees with no collective bargaining agreements, and a code of conduct and ethics whose amendments and waivers it commits to publish.

The material ESG fact is the licence-to-operate contest, which has been litigated rather than negotiated. The D.C. Circuit remanded without vacatur the FERC order for the first five trains in a March 2025 revision of its August 2024 decision; FERC issued a draft supplemental environmental impact statement in March 2025, a final SEIS in July 2025, and a final order on remand in August 2025 reaffirming the authorisation. A rehearing request was deemed denied by operation of law on 30 October 2025, and in December 2025 the same intervenors petitioned the D.C. Circuit to review the remand order — a petition that remains pending.

Presented even-handedly: the project holds every major permit it needs, including FERC approval and DOE FTA and non-FTA export authorisations, and has now twice defended a federal environmental review reopened under judicial pressure — while continuing to face organised opposition that has twice reached a federal appeals court. Both facts are true, and the second is what caps the Dimension 9 score in §9.

6. Risks

The risk profile is unusual for a developer: the classic developer risks — funding gap, permitting, offtake — are largely closed, and what remains is concentrated, structural and financial.

Table 9. Risk register

Source: risk categories and disclosures from the NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K , Item 1A and Item 7; completion percentages from the Q1 2026 business update . Likelihood and impact ratings are this analysis’s assessment, not company disclosure.

Figure 6. Risk heat-map — likelihood against impact

Source: data in Table 9.

The two risks that would break the thesis are the first two in the table: holding-company leverage, which is certain to bite because the interest accrues whether or not the plant works, and single-site concentration, which would be terminal if it did.

7. Valuation

Valuation as of 24 July 2026. Share price US$7.01; 264.99m shares outstanding; ~290m on this analysis’s fully-diluted basis. Price deck: contracted liquefaction fee ~US$2.43/MMBtu (derived from the disclosed ~US$3.0bn of annual fixed fees on ~23.75 MTPA); uncontracted portfolio margin US$1.00 / US$2.00 / US$4.00 per MMBtu in the bear / base / bull cases; Henry Hub passed through to customers under the variable fee. Discount rate 11%, sensitised 9–15%.

NextDecade is a developer / pre-production company in the LNG-liquefaction sector, so the archetype map points to a risked P/NAV on the project economics as the primary intrinsic method and a capacity multiple — the LNG analogue of EV per reserve tonne — as the primary relative one. The conclusion: a sum-of-the-parts NAV of NextDecade’s economic interests, net of holding-company debt, gives a base-case equity value of roughly US$2.80 per share, while the market’s implied valuation of its net capacity sits close to replacement cost and supports nearer US$7–9. Triangulating gives US$4.50–9.00 against US$7.01 — Fairly valued, with the widest confidence band this series would apply to any name.

7.1 Method selection

Table 10. Valuation method selection

Source: method selection per the Metal Pilot valuation module’s archetype map, applied to the developer archetype; weights are this analysis’s judgement. Company data throughout from the NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K .

Two methods the archetype does not support are deliberately omitted. There is no P/E, EV/EBITDA or FCF yield, because there are no earnings, no EBITDA and no free cash flow. There are no transaction comparables, because no disclosed transaction prices a minority, subordinated economic interest in a partially-built US LNG platform on terms this analysis can source.

7.2 Net asset value

The build below is this analysis’s own model: NextDecade publishes no project-level EBITDA, distribution forecast or NAV, so every line is a labelled estimate built from disclosed contract economics, capital costs and financing terms.

Table 11. NAV build-up (author model; US$ million unless stated)

Source: contract economics, capital costs, financing terms, share count and corporate cash from the NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K ; early-cargo margin from the Q1 2026 business update . All EBITDA, cost, debt-service, discount-rate and Trains 6–8 lines are estimates by this analysis and are not company guidance.

Figure 7. NAV build-up to equity value, US$ million

Source: data in Table 11.

The bridge is brutal and it is the point of the whole analysis. NextDecade’s share of a fully contracted, fully funded, 30 MTPA plant is worth roughly US$2.8 billion on these assumptions — and about US$2.9 billion of holding-company debt was raised to buy the Train 4 and Train 5 half of it. The equity is what is left over, and what is left over is small and highly geared to the assumptions.

7.3 Relative valuation

The cleaner relative read is capacity against replacement cost, computed proportionately rather than on a consolidated basis — consolidating 100% of three projects NextDecade owns roughly a third of would badly overstate its enterprise value.

On a fully-funded basis, NextDecade’s proportionate enterprise value is approximately US$11.7 billion: diluted equity of US$2.03 billion (290m × US$7.01), plus about US$2.9 billion of holding-company debt, plus its ~34% share of the US$19.7 billion of project debt, or about US$6.7 billion. Against ~10.2 MTPA of net economic capacity that is approximately US$1,143 per tonne per annum, versus a disclosed build cost of US$1,047/tpa — a premium of roughly 9% for a platform that is 68% built on its most advanced trains, permitted, 84% contracted for 19.5 years, and carries 18 MTPA of wholly-owned expansion at no ascribed cost.

Read alone, that multiple says NextDecade is close to fairly priced and arguably cheap for the expansion optionality. What it misses is the 13% cost of the holding-company money inside that enterprise value: a dollar of NextDecade EV is a more expensive dollar than a dollar of Cheniere’s. The spread between the two methods, roughly US$2.80 against roughly US$7–9, is exactly that — the NAV charges the equity for its capital structure and its subordination; the capacity multiple does not.

7.4 Scenario analysis

Table 12. NAV/share sensitivity — project EBITDA against discount rate (US$/share)

Source: this analysis’s model (Table 11), holding all other assumptions constant and floored at zero. A US$0.2 billion swing in project EBITDA — about 6% — moves NAV per share by roughly 45–50%, because the operating leverage sits in the fixed debt service, not in the revenue.

Figure 8. NAV per share across project EBITDA and discount rate

Source: data in Table 12.

Table 13. Scenario valuation

Source: this analysis. Scenarios are illustrative, not forecasts, and each reflects the named risks in §6 — the bear case prices the holding-company leverage and regulatory risks explicitly, the bull case prices Train 6 reaching FID.

7.5 Valuation conclusion

Blending the methods at their stated weights gives a value range of US$4.50 to US$9.00 per share, midpoint near US$6.75, against US$7.01 on 24 July 2026 — an implied return of roughly −4%, and a value read of Fairly valued. The anchor is the NAV, the only method that charges the equity for its capital structure; the capacity multiple sits well above it because it does not, and the gap between them is the most useful number in this section. For context, the published sell-side range spans Goldman Sachs at US$8.50 (Neutral, initiated July 2026) to Citi at US$11.00 (Buy, initiated May 2026), with a six-analyst consensus target of US$9.25 — above this analysis’s range, and consistent with a lower assumed cost of equity capital once the plant is running.

Two triggers would move the range materially rather than marginally. Refinancing the 13.0% Super FinCo loan and the 13.5% Series B at project-adjacent rates — the June 2026 Phase 1 notes priced at 5.25–6.15%, a spread of roughly 700 basis points — would add several dollars a share on its own. A Train 6 FID financed at the ~75% project-debt ratio the company uses elsewhere would convert risked optionality into a valued asset. Neither is in the base case. To rank NextDecade against every gas-infrastructure peer on the same capacity, contract-life and leverage fields, screen the sector on Metal Pilot.

Assumptions box. Valuation date 24 July 2026. Share price US$7.01; 264.99m shares outstanding; 290m fully diluted (this analysis’s estimate: 9.2m warrants at US$7.15–9.30, ~10.5m shares from the US$100m Series A exchangeable at US$9.50, ~5m unvested awards). Price deck: contracted fixed fee ~US$2.43/MMBtu derived from ~US$3.0bn of annual fixed fees on ~23.75 MTPA at 52 MMBtu/tonne; uncontracted portfolio margin US$1.00 / US$2.00 / US$4.00 per MMBtu (bear / base / bull); feed gas passed through under the variable fee. Discount rate 11% (range 9–15%). Project EBITDA US$3.1bn base (range US$2.6–3.6bn). Project debt US$19.7bn at ~6.0% blended over 25-year level amortisation. Holding-company debt US$2.9bn fully drawn, before PIK accretion. Currency USD throughout; no FX assumption required. Model source: this analysis, built from the FY2025 10-K — there is no company-published project NPV or financial guidance to anchor it to, which is why the confidence band is wide.

8. Near-term catalysts (1–3 years)

Table 14. Near-term catalysts, 2026–2029

Source: timing from the NextDecade FY2025 Form 10-K and the Q1 2026 business update ; the Train 6 FID target and the July 2026 call date from company commentary reported by LNG Prime and Business Wire . All timing is company guidance or reported commentary, not a guarantee.

The swing factor across every line is execution and timing at Bechtel and at the company. Phase 1 has run ahead of its guaranteed schedule for two consecutive quarterly updates — that record, not the LNG price, is what has to hold.

9. Rating & verdict

Table 15. The Metal Pilot company scorecard — NextDecade

0.15×4 + 0.08×3 + 0.15×4 + 0.08×5 + 0.15×2 + 0.08×3 + 0.15×4 + 0.08×4 + 0.08×3 = 0.60 + 0.24 + 0.60 + 0.40 + 0.30 + 0.24 + 0.60 + 0.32 + 0.24 = 3.54/5 → ★★★½

Source: this analysis. Weights follow the energy-infrastructure developer archetype: asset quality, contracted life, balance sheet and management dominate at 15% each (60%); cost, growth, capital allocation, jurisdiction and ESG split the remaining 40% evenly at 8% each — and all scores are relative to the peer set declared in §2.9 (Cheniere, Venture Global, Sempra). Dimension 3 is scored on contracted cash-flow life and expansion runway, the LNG-liquefaction analogue of reserves and reserve life.

The verdict: Solid (★★★½) quality, Fairly valued as of 24 July 2026 → priced about right. The market already sees most of what is good here; the edge is in the catalysts rather than in the price.

The bull case is strong on the operating side. Very few companies get to say that a US$31.4 billion greenfield project is fully funded, fully permitted, 84% contracted on 19.5-year terms, running ahead of its guaranteed schedule and months from first gas — and that they own 100% of the next 18 MTPA. Growth and optionality score ★★★★★ for good reason, and the improving economics train by train show a team that has learned to negotiate from a stronger position each time.

The bear case is entirely financial and structural. NextDecade owns roughly 30.5% of the cash the plant will distribute, its Phase 1 share is subordinated to its partners’ returns, and it bought its Train 4 and Train 5 economics with approximately US$2.9 billion of holding-company debt costing 8.0% to 13.5% — against project debt priced at 5.25–6.15%. That 700-basis-point spread is a permanent leak in the equity’s value until it is refinanced, and it is why the NAV in §7 lands at US$2.78 while the capacity multiple lands near the market price.

What tips the verdict is specific and testable. If Train 6 reaches FID with roughly 75% project-level debt, and the 13% holdco paper is refinanced out of first distributions, the bull case becomes the base case. If either fails — the expansion needing equity issued at a depressed price, or the holdco debt PIKing its way through construction — the model in §7 says the equity is worth materially less than it trades for. The catalysts in §8 are the checkpoints on that path. To rank NextDecade against every peer on these same nine dimensions, screen the sector on Metal Pilot.

10. Sources, methodology & disclaimer

10.1 Sources, methodology & data vintage

Company filings

• NextDecade Corporation, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 December 2025 , filed 27 February 2026 — the spine of this analysis.
• NextDecade Provides First Quarter 2026 Business Update , 1 May 2026 — construction percentages, guidance and JV economics as of March 2026.
• NextDecade Corporation Announces Pricing of $3.50 Billion Rio Grande LNG, LLC Senior Secured Notes , 25 June 2026.
• NextDecade Corporation Announces Appointment of John Zuklic as New Chief Financial Officer , 3 June 2026.
• NextDecade Announces Timing of Second Quarter 2026 Investor Call , 10 July 2026.
• SEC XBRL company facts — NextDecade (CIK 0001612720) , for FY2021–FY2022 comparatives.

Peer and sector filings

• Cheniere Energy, Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 December 2025 .
• Sempra, Form 8-K, 22 September 2025 and Sempra Infrastructure — Port Arthur LNG .
• Venture Global, Form 8-K, June 2026 bond materials .

Market data

• StockAnalysis — NextDecade (NEXT) , share price, share count, market capitalisation and analyst consensus, 24 July 2026 close.

Methodology. NextDecade is classified as a developer / pre-production company in the LNG-liquefaction sector, and the nine scorecard dimensions are weighted accordingly: asset quality, contracted life, balance sheet and management dominate at 15% each (60%); cost position, growth, capital allocation, jurisdiction and ESG split the remaining 40% evenly at 8% each. Dimension 3, normally reserves and reserve life, is scored on contracted cash-flow life and expansion runway — the LNG analogue, an adaptation recorded in the company-analysis playbook. Capacity is reported in MTPA, LNG converted at the standard ~52 MMBtu per tonne, currency USD throughout.

The valuation is a sum-of-the-parts NAV of NextDecade’s interests in Phase 1, Train 4 and Train 5, net of holding-company debt, with Trains 6 through 8 carried as separately labelled risked optionality, cross-checked against proportionate enterprise value per tonne of net economic capacity against disclosed build cost. NextDecade publishes no project-level EBITDA, distribution forecast, NPV or financial guidance, so every operating and financing assumption in Table 11 is this analysis’s estimate from disclosed contract economics, capital costs and financing terms. Where the 10-K and later updates differ, the later is used and dated. Derived figures — Phase 1 capacity, blended economic interest, capital intensity, the implied fixed fee, the diluted share count — are labelled as derived wherever they appear.

Data as of. Company and project data as of 31 December 2025 (Form 10-K), updated for events through 24 July 2026; construction percentages as of March 2026; market data as of the 24 July 2026 close. Update cadence: on each annual report and on a material event — a Train 6 FID, a holding-company refinancing, or first LNG.

Known limitations. The financial summary is populated only where the filings support a consistent basis (see the note beneath Table 7), and nine of the 14 SPA counterparties are not separately identified in the FY2025 10-K, so Table 3 shows the balance as a derived residual. Sibling reading: the Natural Gas and Oil market guides for the macro backdrop.

Provenance: NextDecade Corporation — Annual Report on Form 10-K — 2025.

10.2 Disclaimer & disclosure

This analysis is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice, an offer, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. It is a point-in-time snapshot as of 24 July 2026: share prices, market capitalisations, valuation multiples and the value read all move, and the valuation model in §7 is built on estimates that are explicitly not company guidance. Figures are estimates and may be revised. Readers should do their own research and consult a licensed financial adviser before acting.

This report was produced with AI assistance. Figures were sourced from primary filings and reviewed, but readers should verify anything they intend to rely on against the original documents linked in §10.1. The author holds no position in NextDecade Corporation or in any company named in this analysis.