Remember: Oil>Gas>Uranium

So the UAE left OPEC today.

Like Trump, the Emiratis want to pump more oil.

And turns out, ASX gas developers are now seeing renewed interest (and better share prices) as a result of the Iran war’s flow-on effects.

Context on what happened

The UAE has been quietly drifting away from the Saudi orbit for years.

Backing different factions in Yemen, normalising with Israel, and deepening its energy and tech ties with Beijing.

With the Strait of Hormuz still throttled by the US-Israel-Iran conflict and Brent above $111, Abu Dhabi has chosen this moment to assert sovereign control over its output.

Saudi Arabia’s authority is diminished, and spare capacity is now scattered across actors with divergent interests.

These people aren’t friends, even if Trump played a good game in getting them to all hate Iran.

For Australia, these massive geopolitical ructions are not abstract.

It means Australia needs to up its gas output sooner, rather than later.

The ACCC has already flagged that southern states will rely on Queensland surplus and storage to scrape through Q2 2026, with the supply-demand balance ranging from a 15 PJ surplus to an 8 PJ shortfall.

That’s a knife-edge.

All while we are sitting on world-class gas resources in the Beetaloo, Surat, Cooper, and Perth basins, while debating whether we are allowed to develop them.

The market has stopped waiting for the policy debate to resolve.

Look at the last six months of this selection of ASX gas developers:

Source: TradingView

[Click to open in a new window]

Elixir Energy (ASX:EXR): up 241%.

Omega Oil and Gas (ASX:OMA): up 125%.

Comet Ridge (ASX:COI): up 39%.

Beetaloo Energy (ASX:BTL): up 1%. (But way better off the last few months)

While each company has seen varied operational success and share price performance, the direction of movement is unambiguous.

After years of being treated as a stranded asset class, ASX gas developers are finally starting to move.

Domestic shortfalls combined with Qatari gas going offline are, remarkably, starting to stir the market.

Now, a final note.

Gas is the story right now, but I’m convinced the energy narrative in the market has many gears left to work through.

As gas builds momentum and the market relearns that energy security is not a luxury, I expect the baton will eventually pass.

I’m convinced that uranium is the next leg.

There are only a handful of projects around the world that can sell uncontracted pounds into a spot market that is threatening to push back to US$100/lb.

See the uranium spot price over the last 12 months below: