Baker Hughes Co. (BKR) management on Wednesday offered a bullish assessment of natural gas growth opportunities but conveyed a more measured outlook for the oil market.

“Overall, we remain very positive on the outlook for natural gas,” Baker Hughes’ CEO Lorenzo Simonelli told analysts during the oilfield services (OFS) giant’s 2Q2022 earnings call. “We also believe that a significant increase in natural gas and LNG infrastructure investment is required over the next five to 10 years in order to make natural gas a more affordable and reliable baseload fuel source that can be paired with intermittent renewable power sources.”

Simonelli said Baker Hughes maintains its view that “we are at the beginning of another constructive” liquefied natural gas cycle,...