Institutions Bank on Oil Shale and Shipbuilding Boom

Shipbuilding is typically a boom-bust business. Thanks in large part to the surge in U.S. energy production, especially from shale, American shipbuilders are entering the positive side of the cycle — with investors riding the wave.

The trend hasn’t gone unnoticed by机构investors. The Alaska Permanent Fund, a state-level sovereign wealth fund that invests Alaska’s mineral lease royalties, recently took a position in Aker ASA, the Norwegian parent company of one of the two main U.S. builders of petroleum tankers, Aker Philadelphia Shipyard. There are 32 of these tankers presently in use by U.S. shippers; in the past 12 months, eight have been diverted from other uses to move crude oil within the Gulf of Mexico.

Aker及其同行，基于San Diego的一般动态Dynamics Nassco，根据美国石油船（APT），新的船东和承包商，纽约附属公司持有的新船东和承包商，均为2016年全面为2016年。基于黑石集团和Cerberus资本管理。APT和Kirby Corp.等公司拥有一支较小的内陆驳船的舰队，享受速度的速度，以便出售船只 - 从现货市场每天50,000美元到80,000美元。

“We’re getting to the point where pricing is going to take off,” saidKenneth Hoexter是美国银行Merrill Lynch的运输股权研究分析师。

With more ships needed and owning them increasingly profitable, fleet owners stand to benefit as well. Kirby operates barges and has seen institutional purchases in the third quarter frompension fundssuch as the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System of Michigan and the New York State Common Retirement Fund. Investors are also looking for other ways to get exposure to the domestic shipping industry, because there are few U.S. equities that provide it. One such example is General Dynamics Nassco’s parent, the publicly traded General Dynamics. But auxiliary and commercial ships account for a scant 2.4 percent of the Falls Church, Virginia–based aerospace and defense company’s revenue. This trend suggests that institutions are investing directly and providing credit. Aker Philadelphia Shipyard announced a secured term loan of $65 million in November from Santa Monica, California–based Tennenbaum Capital Partners, which has also invested in a smaller shipyard, TY Offshore. With regards to oil refining, Blackstone has also purchased a shuttered refinery in Delaware, and Washington, D.C.–based private equity firm Carlyle Group bought a majority stake in the Philadelphia Refinery, which had been under threat of closure. Refiners on the U.S. East Coast hope they can restore sustainable profit margins by using domestic crude rather than more expensive imports.

Shale extraction is driving the growth in shipbuilding. Producers expect a glut of oil to come from the U.S. interior in the coming years, and the existing U.S. pipeline network is insufficient to move crude from such oil plays as the Eagle Ford in Texas and theBakken deposits in North Dakota and Montanato downstream users. Although demand in the next two decades is subject to a range of projections that seems too wide for major investment decisions just yet, the trend is already a positive for the shipping industry across all modes of transportation.

“原油运输运营商是一种有趣而有吸引力的游戏方式，因为它们一般没有直接接触商品价格，”J.P. Morgan在纽约的J.P.摩根研究分析师Jeremy Tonet说。“如果价格下跌，他们会得到增加的生产量，而不是下行的益处。”

Shipping rates in 2013 corroborate Tonet’s observation. Global rates for very large crude carriers, defined as ships with a capacity of at least 200,000 deadweight tonnage, were slumping during the first half of 2013, whereas costs to use U.S.-built ships in the domestic market were reaching new highs. ExxonMobil paid a lofty rate of $100,000 per day for a carrier in June. U.S.-built tankers are about $120 million, generally triple the price of ships built elsewhere. The costs of complying with U.S. labor laws also drive domestic shipping costs higher.

铁路已成为交通投资的另一个机会，这可能会引起一群股票，许多投资者不明智地忽视。“铁路连续14年的标准普尔连续14年，这仍然让人惊喜，”Bofa Merrill Lynch的Hoexter说。“原油，仍然很小，是一个大的增长面积。”他的价格是购买铁路联盟太平洋和CSX，以及船屋克尔比。

Though shipping rates have fallen globally, institutional investors have been buying up shares of U.S.-based global shipping-and-logistics companies. According to data from Bloomberg, institutional ownership of suburban Minneapolis–headquartered C.H. Robinson Worldwide jumped 4.6 percent from mid-October to mid-November, to 37 percent of the company’s shares. Buyers include pension funds such as the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS), the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and Kentucky Retirement Systems.