Comparing Venture Global (NYSE:VG) & California Resources (NYSE:CRC)

California Resources (NYSE:CRC) and Venture Global (NYSE:VG) are both energy companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, earnings, valuation, risk, analyst recommendations, profitability and institutional ownership.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings and price targets for California Resources and Venture Global, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
California Resources	0	3	10	1	2.86
Venture Global	0	7	8	1	2.62

California Resources currently has a consensus target price of $74.10, indicating a potential upside of 41.15%. Venture Global has a consensus target price of $16.13, indicating a potential upside of 23.21%. Given California Resources’ stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe California Resources is more favorable than Venture Global.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares California Resources and Venture Global”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
California Resources	$3.67 billion	1.27	$363.00 million	($1.36)	-38.60
Venture Global	$13.77 billion	2.38	$2.73 billion	$1.27	10.31

Venture Global has higher revenue and earnings than California Resources. California Resources is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Venture Global, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

California Resources has a beta of 1.02, indicating that its share price is 2% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Venture Global has a beta of 0.35, indicating that its share price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares California Resources and Venture Global’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
California Resources	-3.79%	9.82%	4.65%
Venture Global	21.24%	34.08%	6.51%

Insider & Institutional Ownership

97.8% of California Resources shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of California Resources shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 84.2% of Venture Global shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Dividends

California Resources pays an annual dividend of $1.62 per share and has a dividend yield of 3.1%. Venture Global pays an annual dividend of $0.16 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.2%. California Resources pays out -119.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Venture Global pays out 12.6% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. California Resources has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. California Resources is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Summary

Venture Global beats California Resources on 9 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.

About California Resources

California Resources Corporation operates as an independent oil and natural gas exploration and production, and carbon management company in the United States. The company explores, produces, and markets crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids for marketers, California refineries, and other purchasers that have access to transportation and storage facilities. It also engages in the generation and sale of electricity to the wholesale power market and utility sector; and developing various carbon capture and storage projects in California. The company was incorporated in 2014 and is based in Long Beach, California.

About Venture Global

Venture Global has fundamentally reshaped the development and construction of liquefied natural gas production, establishing us as a rapidly growing company delivering critical LNG to the world. Our innovative and disruptive approach, which is both scalable and repeatable, allows us to bring LNG to a global market years faster and at a lower cost. We believe supplying this clean, affordable fuel promotes global energy security and is essential to meeting growing global demand. Natural gas is one of the most important resources worldwide and is required to generate reliable electricity that underpins economic development and drives industry. Once natural gas is supercooled to -260°F, it converts to liquid form and reduces to 1/600th of its original volume, enabling large quantities of natural gas to be loaded and shipped by LNG tankers. The resulting LNG can be transported to international markets that lack domestic supply, displacing more carbon intensive sources of energy such as coal, diesel, and heavy fuel oil, and serving as an integral part of a cleaner energy future. We believe our business model has demonstrated that in a competitive commodity market, lower cost and overall faster delivery wins market share. Our approach capitalizes on both of these advantages, supporting significant additional growth opportunities. Our Projects We are commissioning, constructing, and developing five natural gas liquefaction and export projects near the Gulf of Mexico in Louisiana, utilizing our unique “design one, build many” approach. Each project is designed or is being developed to include an LNG facility and associated pipeline systems that interconnect with several interstate and intrastate pipelines to enable the delivery of natural gas into the LNG facility. Our five current projects are being designed to deliver a total expected peak production capacity of 143.8 mtpa, which consists of an aggregate of 104.4 mtpa expected nameplate capacity and an aggregate of 39.4 mtpa of expected excess capacity. These amounts do not account for any potential bolt-on expansion liquefaction capacity. The expected nameplate capacity of our facilities measures the minimum operating performance thresholds guaranteed by the equipment providers, and the expected excess capacity represents the additional LNG that we aim to produce above such guaranteed amounts. Although COD has not yet occurred under the post-COD SPAs for any of our projects, we have been generating proceeds from the sale of commissioning cargos at the Calcasieu Project since the first quarter of 2022, and expect to do so at each of our other projects during commissioning prior to achieving COD for the relevant project or phase of a project. Our direct subsidiary, VGLNG, which owns all of our subsidiaries, was originally established in 2013 by our founders. As part of certain corporate reorganization transactions, or Reorganization Transactions, Venture Global, Inc. was formed in 2023 and became the 100% owner of VGLNG. We are a holding company and have no direct operations. All of our business operations are conducted through our subsidiaries, including VGLNG. Our principal asset is the equity interest in VGLNG, which, together with its subsidiaries, owns substantially all of our operating assets. As a result, we are dependent on the ability of our subsidiaries to generate revenues and to make loans, pay dividends and make other payments to generate the funds necessary to meet our financial obligations and to pay dividends to stockholders, if any. Our principal executive offices are located at 1001 19th Street North, Suite 1500, Arlington, VA.