Rooting for Team USA

It pays sometime to peek out from the our MLP bunkers and take in the bigger picture.

We sit in them collecting decent quarterly distributions and feel bad for others missing out on all the fun, when we’re not fretting that Energy Transfer Equity’s (NYSE: ETE) 22% rebound year-to-date has been too much too soon.

Meanwhile, in an oil patch overflowing with $45-a-barrel crude, Continental Resources (NYSE: CLR) is up 105% in 2016 and on track to roughly match last year’s record output. And in the gassy Marcellus Southwestern Energy (NYSE: SWN) will be running five drilling rigs by the end of the month in response to higher natural gas prices, up from zero six months earlier.

The point here isn’t that it’s time to abandon the relative security of pipeline yields to go chasing after leveraged producer stocks that have already run a lot.

It’s to point out that the market has rewarded their impressive recent productivity and cost improvements by giving them plenty of additional resources to go drill some more.

This rebound in activity after 18 months of steep capital cuts is only just beginning. And while it may eventually pressure energy prices, it’s clearly a boon to domestic energy output that has been in decline for the past year.

No one’s happier about this than the handful of large suppliers of contracted compression equipment, which is used to lift the oil and gas from the well but also to move them along gathering lines and long-haul pipelines.

This business is all about the production, regardless of the commodity price or the extent of drilling. While the number of drilling rigs in the U.S. over the past two years has collapsed, compression demand has faded only modestly, in line with output.

As  a result, compression stocks compressed to fractions of their former value last year have rebounded nicely, though they’re nowhere near back to their old highs.

Aggressive Portfolio recommendation Archrock (NYSE: AROC) has tripled from the February lows and doubled since slashing its dividend in half in early May. Its affiliated Archrock Partners (NASDAQ: APLP) MLP, a Growth pick, is up 147% from its wintertime nadir.

The rally is likely to continue so long as cheap money keeps getting invested into shale drilling, which is why we’re increasing our exposure to this niche by adding USA Compression Partners (NYSE: USAC) to the Aggressive Portfolio.

Its unit price has also more than doubled from February’s lows, but remains 36% below its 2014 high. And because this MLP hasn’t cut its payout, it still yields an annualized 11.6%, albeit with slim margin for error or renewed downturn.

Distribution coverage has drifted down to 1.03x for the most recent quarter, and 1.33x on a cash basis excluding equity issuance under a distribution reinvestment plan.

Debt is at 5x EBITDA, and while that’s below the current 5.95x limit under the partnership’s credit facility, that ceiling will drop to 5x by the end of next year.

In sum, USA Compression’s leverage and coverage are very similar to Archrock’s before that rival opted to reduce the payouts. So the 12% yield is certainly no lock to stick around.

But USAC’s focus on large-horsepower compressors for midstream applications and lower reliance than Archrock on gas lift and other wellhead applications has paid off so far in a bit of extra stability and confidence, since large compressors are trickier to replace and their deployments therefore tend to prove stickier.

USA Compression is smaller and younger than Archrock, only going public in early 2013, and its faster growth during the latter stages of the shale boom has left it better positioned in the shale basins that continue to set the production pace: Appalachia, West Texas and Mid-Continent.

160915MLPPusac

Source: USA Compression Partners

Second-quarter revenue and adjusted EBITDA were down 4% year-over-year, while the horsepower utilization rate slipped to 86% from 89% in the first quarter.

“On the large horsepower infrastructure portion of our business, which constitutes roughly 85% of our fleet, we are cautiously optimistic that we have seen the worst and are bouncing along the bottom in terms of a trough in utilization. And we are hopeful to turn the corner as we continue through 2016 and into 2017,” the CEO said on the Aug. 7 conference call.

“…In fact, we have multiple strong indications from upstream and midstream customers for large project installations, mostly in the Marcellus Shale and the Permian Delaware Basins, that we believe will move forward later this year and into 2017, including some already contracted projects. The types of projects you’re seeing are our bread-and-butter: multiple large horsepower unit installations under long-term contracts with blue chip customers.”

With leverage relatively high and the partnership spending very little recently on new machinery as its idled inventory grew, it’s a good bet that the next uptick in demand or additional increases in the unit price will prompt an equity offering. USAC hasn’t been shy about these.

160915MLPPusac2

Source: USA Compression Partners

But neither that likelihood nor the moderate risk of a distribution cut are enough to dissuade us from making this pick, on reasonable expectations of further capital gains as compressor demand begins to recover.

Aggressive recommendation USAC is a Buy below $22. 

 

Stock Talk

Jimmy R Kimsey

Jimmy R Kimsey

Why don’t you cover Rice Midstream Partners (RMP) at least in your How They Rate data?

Igor Greenwald

Igor Greenwald

I will have much more than that on RMP in this week’s monthly issue

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