Warren Buffett is tripling down on his bet on liquefied natural gas (LNG).
LNG is natural gas that has been cooled to roughly -260° F and condensed into a liquid.
This reduces the volume of natural gas by about 600 times. And it makes it easier to store and transport.
And last week, the 92-year-old billionaire investor agreed to buy a 50% stake in the Cove Point LNG terminal for $3.3 billion in cash.
In 2020, Buffett bought a 25% stake in Cove Point and was already responsible for running the Maryland-based facility. This latest deal triples his stake to 75%.
Source: LNG Global
Buffett has also been snapping up shares of Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and other oil and gas companies. And this latest purchase adds to his portfolio of energy infrastructure assets.
The man known as the greatest investor in history clearly believes these energy resources are going to be in demand for a while and grow more valuable over time.
Here at the Intelligent Income Daily, we’re focused on finding the safest income investments on the market. When legendary investors are betting big on a trend, we pay attention… and look for ways to profit.
Today, I’ll show you why Cove Point will be a great investment for Buffett. I’ll also show you one way to profit from the coming wave of demand for LNG.
Cove Point’s Complete 180
Cove Point was built in the 1970s as an LNG import facility.
Ships bringing LNG from Algeria in north Africa would dock at the terminal to unload their cargo. The natural gas was fed into pipelines that supplied the mid-Atlantic States.
But as LNG prices increased in the 1980s and 1990s, it no longer made sense to import LNG. And Cove Point turned into a natural gas storage facility.
Then the shale revolution turned everything around. Thanks to fracking, which releases oil and gas from cracks in rocks, it allowed drillers to unlock new stores of energy.
Suddenly, there was more natural gas than was needed.
That’s when the owners of Cove Point decided to upgrade it to become an LNG export terminal.
Cove Point shipped out its first cargo of LNG in 2018. Today, it’s one of only a handful of operational LNG export terminals.
And it’s the only one on the East Coast near one of the country’s largest sources of natural gas – the Marcellus and Utica shale formations in Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
And business is booming…
Capture the Best Gains from LNG Demand
Demand for LNG is rising around the world.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Europe lost its largest source of natural gas. So countries there started importing more LNG to make up the difference. Last year, Europe imported 65% more LNG than it did in 2021.
China has been snapping up long-term LNG contracts. It signed more than 24% of its LNG deals over the past two years.
India is also looking to power its growing economy with natural gas. It expects demand for the fuel to nearly quadruple by 2030. And much of that will come from importing LNG.
According to the Energy Information Administration, America’s LNG exports are projected to increase by 150% over the next decade.
Cove Point and other LNG terminals act like tollbooths. They collect a fee for every billion cubic feet (bcf), or 7.48 billion gallons, of LNG they load onto a ship.
So Buffett’s company Berkshire Hathaway will get a steady income from its purchase for many years to come.
Export terminals are not the only way to play the coming wave of demand for LNG, though.
Before natural gas makes it onto a ship, it first has to be transported from the oilfield to the terminal.
That’s where pipeline companies come in. They also act like tollbooths and get a reliable profit… no matter what the price of natural gas is.
One easy way to add pipeline companies to your portfolio is through the Alerian MLP ETF (AMLP). This ETF holds a basket of midstream master limited partnerships and currently yields 8.6%.
But there’s an even better way to invest in LNG.
It’s a company that owns more than 90,000 miles of pipeline infrastructure. And more than 80% of it is used to transport gas for LNG.
It also owns 15% of the LNG export facilities in the Gulf Coast and plans to double its capacity by 2030.
Best of all, it is a reliable dividend grower. It’s increased its dividend payout every year for 25+ years and yields 7.2%. And over the past five years, its returns were double that of the Alerian MLP ETF.
You can learn all about what I’m calling my “No. 1 Energy Play for 2023 and Beyond” here.
Happy SWAN (sleep well at night) investing,
Brad Thomas
Editor, Intelligent Income Daily