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ONEOK's (OKE) Expansion Efforts & Fee-Based Earnings Bode Well

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ONEOK, Inc. (OKE - Free Report) is well-poised to benefit from the ONEOK Partners buyout, increased fee-based earnings and midstream assets located in higher productive regions.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s 2021 earnings is pegged at $2.88 per share, reflecting a year over year growth of 106.8%, while that for revenues stands at $11.6 billion indicating an annual improvement of 32.8%. The long-term (three to five years) earnings growth rate of ONEOK is 4.6%.

What’s Aiding the Stock?

ONEOK is well-placed to gain from long-term fee-based commitments to its Natural Gas Gathering and Processing, and Natural Gas Liquids segments. The company anticipates 90% of its 2020 earnings to be fee-based.

It continues to invest in organic growth projects for expansion in the existing operating regions and also provides a broad range of services to crude oil and natural gas producers as well as the end-use markets. Amid this unprecedented economic crisis due to the pandemic, the company took initiatives to preserve liquidity.

Moreover, ONEOK Partners is the primary growth vehicle of ONEOK and the completion of this buyout is likely to be accretive to its distributable cash flow from 2017 through 2021. Further, the company’s strong cash flow generation capacity is helping it strengthen its balance sheet and add shareholder value too.

Woes

However, stringent government regulations and intensifying competition in the pipeline business are potential growth deterrents. Also, the company’s persistently rising long-term debt remains a concern.

Zacks Rank & Price Performance

The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

In the past six months, shares of the company have rallied 45.6%, outperforming the industry’s 7% rise.

Other Stocks to Consider

A few other top-ranked utilities are National Fuel Gas Company (NFG - Free Report) , Pinnacle West Capital Corporation (PNW - Free Report) and DTE Energy Company (DTE - Free Report) , all carrying the same Zacks Rank as ONEOK.

National Fuel Gas Company’s average earnings surprise in the last four quarters is 10.68%.The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2021 earnings has been revised 2% upward in the past 60 days.

Pinnacle West Capital has a long-term (three to five years) earnings growth rate of 3.6%. It pulled off an earnings surprise of 27.15%, on average, in the previous four quarters.

DTE Energy delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 10.35%, on average. The company has a long-term earnings growth rate of 5.7%.

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