Shares of LNG export company Venture Global (VG 21.12%) rallied 18.7% on Tuesday, as of 12:56 p.m. ET.

Venture Global went public earlier this year, with high ambitions to build out multiple LNG export facilities on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Today, with recent federal export permits in hand, the company announced full mobilization of site work for its third LNG export facility, Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2).

Venture Global has aggressive growth ambitions

On May 23, Venture Global received a final permit to begin construction of CP2. Last year, the Biden administration had halted permits for new LNG export terminals, pending environmental reviews, as well as reviews as to how more exports could affect domestic prices for natural gas. However, the Trump administration soon "un-paused" permits for new terminals after coming into office, and Venture Global received the permit for its third LNG export facility, CP2, last month.

Today, Venture Global announced it had already commenced site work to begin construction of the new CP2 export facility. CEO Mike Sabel noted:

With all federal approvals now in hand we are excited to announce that we have launched on-site work for this Project, which is expected to deliver reliable low-cost LNG to the world starting in 2027. I am proud of our team and their relentless commitment to execution which has enabled our company's historic achievements and rapid growth from a start-up to breaking ground on our third LNG export facility since 2019.

Image source: Getty Images.

Signs of strong AI energy demand may also be contributing

This was the only company-specific news of the day, so it's a bit curious that the stock is up this much on the announcement, given that the project was likely to commence once the permit had been received last month.

But today's upside might also be partly attributed to an announcement from Meta Platforms (META -0.54%), which signed a 20-year nuclear power agreement with Constellation Energy (CEG -0.13%).

While that agreement is for nuclear power and Venture Global produces LNG, the Meta announcement was still an indicator of strong future energy demand needed to power AI data centers. To that end, both nuclear and natural gas will be needed to fill that demand, along with renewables.