Banker-Lawyer Duo Make Billions From Audacious Natural Gas Bet (1)

The US Gulf Coast is probably the only place in the world where two men with virtually no experience running an energy business could upend a vast industry while becoming billionaires in the process.

Little more than a decade ago, ex-banker Mike Sabel and lawyer Bob Pender were driving across Texas in a rented Chevy to raise money for something that no global energy major, let alone a little-known startup like theirs, had ever pulled off: building a multibillion-dollar plant to liquify and export US shale gas.

In an industry dominated by supermajors and petrostates, the two outsiders realized their ...