I bought a nice position in Cheniere Energy Partners LP (AMEX: CQP). It is not clear to me if they are in a position to benefit earnings-wise from future expansions of the business. Is a future dividend increase in the cards?
- Harry M.
The broadening initiative to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the U.S. to Europe and Asia has put a few companies in the spotlight.
Cheniere is certainly one of them.
Actually, we are dealing here with two tradable securities - Cheniere Energy Inc. (AMEX: LNG) and Cheniere Energy Partners LP (AMEX: CQP).
With Cheniere, we have both the company pioneering the LNG exports (Cheniere Energy), and the partnership controlling the company's Sabine Pass terminal on the Gulf of Mexico at the border between Louisiana and Texas (Cheniere Partners).
As my Energy Advantage advisory service subscribers will tell you, we're always discussing the new age of natural gas. This includes the impact LNG trade will have on profitability, and the position of Cheniere in this process. And Cheniere Partners is just one of the high dividend/high return stocks I have identified for them.
Lucrative LNG
As you probably already know, LNG is a major remedy for the accelerating glut of American and Canadian unconventional natural gas production, which runs the risk of oversaturating the market and depressing prices.Exporting the gas, on the other hand, taps into widening international demand and carries the prospect of actually improving profitability for gas producers in North America, even while the domestic need for the energy does not keep pace with rising supply.
In so doing, U.S. and Canadian producers are simply paralleling developments already in place in Australia, New Guinea, Russia, and above all Qatar - the first dominant gas producer in the world to commit all of its exports to LNG shipping.
This worldwide trend has transformed the LNG trade from import to export.
As recently as five years ago, we were still talking about importing more LNG into the United States, as conventional production declined.
Now with shale gas (along with coal bed methane and tight gas), the unconventional sources provide more available gas than we ever imagined.
The issue now is how to export the surplus gas.
Enter Cheniere's Sabine Pass terminal.
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