Houston, May 23, 2026, 12:03 CDT
- Fervo dropped 9.76% to close at $38.35 on Friday. Even with the slide, shares remain far above the $27 IPO price.
- U.S. markets are closed for the weekend and will stay shut on Monday for Memorial Day.
- The next test for the stock is what happens at Cape Station, the geothermal site in Utah.
Fervo Energy (FRVO.O) ended its first week as a public company with shares down 9.76% Friday at $38.35. Even after the slide, the geothermal stock is trading roughly 42% above its $27 IPO price going into the U.S. holiday weekend. Reuters market data.
Fervo has quickly become a clean-power bellwether in the rush to build AI data centers, making the move notable. Nasdaq is closed this weekend and will be shut Monday for Memorial Day. Trading picks up again Tuesday, May 26.
Fervo’s stock premium hangs on its ability to turn oilfield drilling methods into steady, 24-hour power, and how long investors will wait to see it. The company uses enhanced geothermal systems, which create underground heat reservoirs where standard geothermal won’t work.
Fervo raised $1.89 billion by selling 70 million Class A shares at $27 each in its enlarged IPO on May 12. Shares are set to begin trading on Nasdaq under the ticker FRVO the following day. J.P. Morgan, BofA Securities, RBC Capital Markets and Barclays ran the offering.
Fervo’s shares started trading at $36 and jumped 33% in their Nasdaq debut, putting the company at a $10.21 billion valuation, according to Reuters. The IPO raised $1.89 billion.
Geothermal shares rose after The Wall Street Journal ran a weekend story. The Journal said Fervo is now valued at about $12.4 billion. It also said Cape Station’s first Utah unit could be in service for customers by Oct. 1, with two more units set for Jan. 1.
Fervo CEO Tim Latimer is leaning hard into the power demand theme in the company’s IPO filing, saying, “There is no AI revolution without power for data centers.” Latimer’s pitch frames the company as a way to play growth in power needs. SEC
Latimer told Reuters that policymakers in DC are paying more attention to geothermal. He said Fervo’s technology can “generate a lot of electricity on a small amount of land,” calling that an environmental edge. Reuters
Fervo has 658 megawatts in binding power-purchase deals, the company said. The long-term contracts are for electricity sales to buyers like Southern California Edison, Shell, and Alphabet’s Google. Fervo said its potential revenue backlog from these agreements is about $7.2 billion.
Competition is close. Ormat Technologies remains the main listed geothermal stock, and investors after pure-play clean power still see Ormat as the cleaner name. New nuclear firms like Oklo and X-Energy are getting put in the same “firm power” camp as geothermal because they don’t depend on the weather for electricity. The Wall Street Journal said Fervo’s valuation is in line with those nuclear players, but most nuclear start-ups are planning commercial delivery after Fervo’s Cape Station timeline. The Wall Street Journal
Friday’s drop shows the risk. Fervo is newly public and doesn’t have much trading behind it yet. Investors are figuring out what to pay before Cape Station runs at full scale. Early project costs run close to $7,000 per kilowatt. The company’s goal is $3,000 per kilowatt down the line, the Journal reported.
Deeper risks remain below ground. Dani Merino-Garcia, vice president of research at Project InnerSpace, told the Journal that Fervo may have to refracture wells or drill new ones to hold heat production steady. Delays, higher capital costs, or weaker reservoir results could turn a hot IPO into just another infrastructure stock.
Markets in the U.S. are closed Monday, with a thin calendar for the rest of the week. Trading resumes Tuesday. Focus shifts to Fervo, where questions will turn from its debut pop to how well it maintains its valuation as it works on Utah’s commercial power project.
