Canaccord Upgrades Midstreams ; GlobeCanaccord’s John Bereznicki sees tailwinds gaining momentum for midstream companies in his coverage universe “as 2020 moves further into the rearview.” “The midstream sector enjoyed strengthening oil, liquids and natural gas pricing in Q1/21 as industry production volumes continued to normalize,” he said on Thursday. “Four of our coverage companies (ALA, IPL, KEY and GEI) beat consensus EBITDA while two (PPL and TWM) met Street expectations. In many cases, these companies benefited from strong spot fractionation economics and system volumes in excess of take-or-pay thresholds. While most commodity marketing segments faced lingering headwinds in Q1/21, we generally expect them to carry positive momentum into the second quarter. We nonetheless believe a strengthening C$ could remain a sector headwind as 2021 unfolds.”
Mr. Bereznicki said multiples in the sector have inflected, and he sees further upside potential moving forward.
“Sector EV/EBITDA multiples bottomed late last year and have been trending upward since,” he said. “We believe recovering fundamentals are improving growth prospects for the sector while reducing balance sheet and counterparty risk. We believe this is reflected by recent credit-positive rating agency announcements for PPL, ALA, IPL, and TWM. While cognizant that energy transition uncertainties will likely remain an overhang to sector valuation metrics, we nonetheless see further upside given the current commodity price backdrop and are increasing several of our target prices.”
The analysts target changes were:
- AltaGas Ltd. (
, “buy”) to $27 from $25. Average: $24.97. - Gibson Energy Inc. (
, “buy”) to $27 from $25. Average: $24.47. - Keyera Corp. (
, “buy”) to $34 from $30. Average: $31.29. - Pembina Pipeline Corp. (
, “buy”) to $44 from $42. Average: $39.40.