HOUSTON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Kamala

Harris understands natural gas prices will rise if fracking is

banned, industry executives said on Tuesday, explaining their

confidence that the Democratic candidate will not ban the

production method if she becomes president.

Fracking, a major industry in battleground state

Pennsylvania, has become a big issue in the presidential

campaign. Harris opposed fracking as a U.S. senator from

California, but now she says she would not ban it on federal

lands as president.

"I think she is changing her views," Baker Hughes ( BKR ) oil field

services Chief Executive Officer Lorenzo Simonelli said on the

sidelines of the GasTech conference in Houston, when asked about

Harris.

A spokesperson for Harris said she would not ban fracking,

and referred to her comments in a recent debate where she said:

"I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act,

which opened new leases for fracking. My position is that we

have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our

reliance on foreign oil."

Harris's Republican rival, former President Donald Trump,

supports fracking and says he believes Harris would seek to ban

it.

The head of the largest U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG)

exporter, in a separate conversation at GasTech, said Harris had

to pivot to being more open to fracking, because natural gas

prices would be much higher without it.

Cheniere Energy CEO Jack Fusco, whose Sabine Pass

facility in Louisiana is the largest U.S. LNG export plant, said

he trusts Harris's support of fracking unless proven otherwise

and wants cooler heads to prevail on the energy transition

debate.

Woodside CEO Meg O'Neill, whose Australian energy

company is buying U.S. LNG plant developer Tellurian,

voiced the same rationale.

"If you stop fracking in the U.S., it will be devastating

for the economy," O'Neill said. "I suspect the statements she

made earlier were made without full understanding of the benefit

and potential consequences."

Harris is locked in a tight race with Trump, and both are

campaigning hard in Pennsylvania, one of the nation's largest

producers of natural gas.

Several executives at the conference also called on the

Biden administration to make it easier for U.S. companies to

export LNG. The White House in January paused new LNG permits to

consider the environmental impact.

"You gotta stop this crazy LNG pause from going forward,"

said ConocoPhillips ( COP ) CEO Ryan Lance. A debate over

whether one is pro or against fracking "is not the right

question", he added.