Is Niska Gas Storage Worth The Risk Of A 9
Niska Gas Storage Partners LP (NYSE:NKA) is the largest natural gas storage firm in North America. As it operates under a master limited partnership structure, investors are accustomed to receiving outsized distributions, but at a current yield of 9.0%, the following picture may accurately depict some investor s reaction to the current high yield:
Niska Gas Storage Partners LLC owns and operates natural gas storage assets in North America. It primarily operates the AECO Hub comprising the Countess and Suffield gas storage facilities in Alberta, Canada; the Wild Goose gas storage facility in California; and the Salt Plains gas storage facility in Oklahoma. The company owns or contracts approximately 250.5 billion cubic feet of total natural gas storage capacity. It serves financial institutions, marketers, pipelines, power generators, municipalities, utilities, and producers of natupatagonia argentina real estate for saleral gas. Niska Gas Storage Partners LLC was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.
Where there is extremely high yield, there most likely is fire. NKA is not without its problems that could cause share prices to burn closer to the ground. However, it is first important to understand the business of napatagonia better sweater sale womenstural gas storage.
CME Group offers a primer (pdf) in the economics of gas storage with the most basic description:
The storage industry continues to evolve both in capability and in its prominence within the delivery chain. What once was a seasonal crossover point is now an active warehouse with optionality as the predominant market premium. The use of storage is fundamental to the management of natural gas.
In addition, the CME primer explains in detail the nuances of natural gas futures hedging and the role storagepatagonia duffel review plays in the various configurations of this activity.
Niska also offers a storage fundamental primer (pdf):
Underground natural gas storage facilities are a vital and complementary component of the North American natural gas transmission and distribution system. While mainline gas transmission lines provide the crucial link between producing area and marketplace, underground gas storage facilities help maintain the North American natural gas transmission and distribution system s reliability and its capability to transport gas supplies efficiently and withoutpatagonia rock guide pants women's interruption. Natural gas storage facilities are essential to balance the dramatic divergence between the seasonal and daily variability of gas consumption and the inflexibility of gas production in North America.
The EIA offers its own primer and a bit outdated 2004 diagram of 400 active storage locations shown below.
(click to enlarge)
Naturpatagonia better sweater jacket on saleal gas storage has become as integral to the industry as pipelines and processing plants, but often times does not get the recognition it deserves. Pipeline and midstream firms or gas distribution utilities own the majority of storage facilities.
Prior to Dec 31, there were two publicly traded storage firms, PAA Natural Gas Storage (NYSE:PNG) and NKA. PNG was partially spun off from its parent Plains All American (NYSE:PAA) a few years ago, but was recently repurchased and merged back into PAA. The merger was completed as a stock transfer with a value of 0.455 shares of PAA for every share of PNG, or a total valuation of $1.48 billion.
This leaves just patagonia hiking boots highest0NKA as the sole inpatagonia hiking boots highest3dependent storage survivor.
As the only current example of a publicly traded storage company, how would NKA stand up to the valuations paid by PAA for PNG? Reviewing the most recent nine month 10 Q for both PAA and NKA, the comparison would be as follows:
PAA paid 4.95 times 9 month revenuesPAA paid 16.55 times 9 month EBITDAPAA paid 18.41 times 9 monthpatagonia hiking boots highest2 distributable cash flowFor the nine months ending Dec 2013 (NKA has a fiscal year ending March), NKA generated $119.8 million in revenues, $84 million in adjusted EBITDA and $35.7 million in distributable cash flow. This compares with $299 million, $89.4 million and $80.4 million, respectively, for PNG. The vast difference between the two is thepatagonia better sweater blue butterfly larger debt and depreciation levels NKA carries on its books over PNG. NKA has $656 million in long term debt. Based on multiples of revenues and EBITDA, a similar valuation for NKA would be between $17 and $19 a share.
Prior to announcing the merger, PAA was trading at $20 to $21, or about 12% below the eventual merger price. A similar pre merger valuation for NKA would put it trading at $15, or about where it currently sits.
However, NKA is having big issues with its business. Dup These market conditions affect the prices we are able to charge for contracted storage services as well as revenues realizable by us in our optimization activities. If these market conditions persist, our revenues could be adversely impacted to a material extent. However, the markets are typically most dynamic at this stage in thepatagonia discount code your beauty storage year, and we continue to evaluate each of our storage markets and related commercial strategies. In addition, our largest volumetric customer is party to a storage agreement with us, which contains an option to terminate (by either party) every five years with one year s notice. This option is exercisable as of the beginning of fiscal 2015 and it is unclear at this time whether the customer will exercise its option. If the contract is terminated, and a new contract is negotiated, we would expect that the terms of the new contract would be more favorable to the customer than current terms. If the customer were to exercise its option to terminate the contract, it would be subject to a substantial early termination fee. Because of the requirement of one year s notice, any adverse effects of the termination would not impact the results of our operations until fiscal 2016 .
Mr. Dup concluded, In response to these market conditions, we have recently secured approximately 25 billion cubic feet ( Bcf ) of contracts averaging almost five years in duration at prices that are significantly favorabpatagonia guide jacket for winterle to current rates for shorter term contracts. Longer term, we believe that a number of factors will reinforce the need for, and value of, natural gas storage. These factors include exports of North American liquefied natural gas, or LNG, construction of new gas fired power plants with sustained coal to gas switching, and overall increases inpatagonia guide jacket 18 economic activity, which drive base load industrial demand. While we can t predict timing or impact of these factors on natural gas storage market conditions, we are confident that they will reinforce the critical nature of Niska s storage services and enhance the value of our assets.
As in prior years, we expect to provide fiscal 2015 guidance in approximately three months, during our annual earnings update.
The most recent conference call transcript can be found here.
In recap, if market conditions do not improve, revenues, along with earnings, will be negatively affected. In addition, their largest customer can cancel or renegotiate at lower prices patagonia hiking boots highestwithin the next few months. Neither of these would seem to have favorable outcomes for investors. By giving notice, management is completing their fiduciary responsibilpatagonia hiking boots highest1ity of notifying investors of the strong potential of future bad news.
