With rising earnings estimates and a stock value that has risen almost ten percent a week for the last four weeks, energy infrastructure contractor Willbros Group (NYSE: WG) is selling off some of its Oklahoma-based downstream assets to pay down $25 million in term loan debt.
“By applying proceeds from this sale to reduce our debt levels, we will continue to decrease our interest expense, improve our liquidity and strengthen our balance sheet. The remaining downstream assets enable us to focus our resources on tank, terminal, heater, fabrication and related services where we have been successful and where the market provides us with significant growth opportunities,” President and Chief Executive Officer of Willbros, Randy Harl said in a statement on Tuesday.
The sale includes the Union refinery maintenance turnaround service line, and a fabrication facility both based outside of Tulsa. According to the company’s documentation, its two facilities in the area fabricate between 2,200 and 2, 600 tons of Fired Heater, HRSG Boiler and Process Skid components a year, and they employ 200 full time employees. Ownership will be transferred to an undisclosed private company.
A Dose of Reality for U.S. LNG Exports
The Asian market is the holy grail for Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) exporters, and United States exporters don’t have the luxury of free trade with most of Asia. In fact, out of the 31 applications to export LNG, only seven have been approved over the course of four years. This bottleneck means only certain companies will be able to cash in on growing global demand. We know who they are.
