Topic: How To Invest

What’s your view on AltaGas?

Article Excerpt

AltaGas Income Trust, $15.30, symbol ALA.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 76.3 million; Market cap: $1.2 billion), extracts, processes and distributes natural gas. It also processes natural-gas liquids. AltaGas has five segments: 1) The field-gathering and processing division operates 6,500 kilometres of pipelines that move natural gas from producing wells to more than 70 field-gathering and processing facilities in Alberta. 2) The extraction and transmission division has interests in six of the 10 extraction plants in Canada. These straddle high-volume natural-gas pipelines, and they reprocess the gas as it passes through. AltaGas’s plants recover residual ethane and natural gas liquids (NGLs) during this process. 3) The energy-services division has two main components: an energy-management business that provides consulting and supply-management services, and a gas-services business that buys and sells natural gas and electricity. This operation also transports and stores natural gas. 4) Through its power-generation division, AltaGas owns 378 megawatts of electricity-generating capacity in the form of a 50% interest in the coal-fired Sundance…