By Vallari Srivastava, Curtis Williams and David French
HOUSTON, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Alternative asset managers deploying cash from their insurance arms are reshaping how America's energy infrastructure is financed, emerging as major backers of LNG export projects and the pipelines moving crude and natural gas around the country.
The influx of cash is dominated by a trio of the finance world's biggest names: Apollo Global Management, Blackstone and KKR. For the industry, the investments are well timed,
as liquefied natural gas developers and pipeline operators face some of their largest capital requirements in years to meet heightened demand for energy exports and power generation to power new artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The addition of insurance cash to the funding mix has helped greenlight a raft of new US LNG export facilities that traditionally have to have financing in place before making final investment decisions. Despite worries about possible oversupply just last year, geopolitical instability involving Russia and the Middle East has helped fuel a boom in US LNG as customers in Asia and Europe seek reliable supplies.
Already in 2026, alternative investors have been involved in transactions worth $20.35 billion in the LNG and midstream sector, according to data provider Infralogic, more than double the value of deals struck in all of 2024.
"This is a marriage of assets that have proven over time to be generally lower risk, with capital that wants to invest for the long term in lower-risk assets with steady returns," said Rick Campbell, senior managing director at Blackstone Credit and Insurance.
Among the deals struck in the last year are a $7 billion investment for the second phase of Sempra Infrastructure’s Port Arthur LNG facility, $5.34 billion to support power projects being developed by pipeline operator Williams, and $9 billion to back ONEOK, including in its acquisition of Brazos Midstream's Midland basin assets.
Traditionally, project finance loans and equity have backed LNG export project development. But since 2025, nearly every major LNG project approved has seen some combination of infrastructure funds, sovereign wealth investors, private capital or other institutional partners alongside traditional lenders.
This includes the fourth train at NextDecade's Rio Grande LNG project, which included roughly $1.7 billion in equity commitments from BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners, Singapore's GIC, Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Investment Company and TotalEnergies. At Woodside Energy's Louisiana LNG project, Stonepeak acquired a 40% stake and committed $5.7 billion toward development costs.
"There is ample capital out there, so for project developers, it's about having diversification of sources," said Daniel Vogel, partner at Apollo.
The shift in the availability of capital reflects how LNG terminals are increasingly seen as long-lived infrastructure assets, instead of primarily commodity businesses. LNG sales agreements can lock in revenues for up to 20 years, while lump-sum engineering and construction contracts reduce development risk.
PIPELINES FOLLOW A SIMILAR PATH
Insurance capital has also flowed to companies that own and develop pipelines and associated midstream assets.
EQT raising $3.5 billion in late 2024 from selling 49% of a joint venture holding midstream assets to Blackstone Credit & Insurance was an early example, which helped pay down debt in the wake of its acquisition of Equitrans Midstream.
More recently, ONEOK and Williams tapped hybrid financing to fund acquisitions and projects without giving up operational control, adding debt or diluting shareholders.
Williams, which announced a $5.34 billion Blackstone-led investment in July to help fund development of five power projects, said through a company spokesperson that the "process has created a framework that would allow us to move efficiently should we pursue similar opportunities in the future."
Meanwhile, ONEOK's $9 billion deal with Apollo, announced in August, broke new ground. For the first time, instead of insurance cash funding a ring-fenced project or joint venture, it created a structure within the company itself through which the asset manager made a minority investment in ONEOK’s equity.
"This has the potential to become an additional funding option for public companies, as you can raise equity at scale without having to go to the public markets," said Jeffrey Mensch, head of M&A structuring at Barclays, which advised ONEOK on the transaction.
(Reporting by Curtis Williams in Houston, Vallari Srivastava in Bengaluru and David French in New York; Editing by Nathan Crooks and David Gregorio)
