Building on Energy

Oil prices have plunged nearly 30% since peaking in June, with Brent crude recently fetching just $78 a barrel, hitting a four-year low. While falling demand has played a substantial role in that — Europe is still struggling to break its recession even as the Chinese economy becomes less energy intensive — surging production here in the US has had more than a bit part as well. According to the International Energy Agency (EIA), American production has risen by 1 million barrels per day per year over the past year as shale oil production has taken off.

Unfortunately for companies even remotely related to the energy sector, investors haven’t taken much comfort from rising production. As energy prices have fallen, so too have energy stocks with the sector down by nearly 5% as the S&P 500 is up more than 12% so far this year. That decline has created a lot of opportunities.

For instance, shares of Chicago Bridge & Iron (NYSE: CBI) have nosedived this year, losing a third of their value so far in 2014. An engineering and construction company which plays a big role in building energy patch infrastructure, its being priced as if America’s energy revolution is coming to a screeching halt. While falling oil and natural gas prices will likely cause production to fall, it isn’t coming to an end.

Even as the EIA is forecasting that oil prices are likely to fall further from here, the agency still expects American production to rise by about 850,000 barrels per day (BPD) to about 9.4 million BPD over the next year or so. So much oil and gas is being produced that facilities are being built on the coasts to liquefy natural gas for export. There’s also such a glut of oil that BHP Billiton (NYSE: BHP) is actually testing America’s export ban by selling US oil without a permit from the government, which also requires unique infrastructure.

Chicago Bridge & Iron plays a major role in building those export terminals, as well as the pipelines which transport the oil and gas to the coasts. There are literally thousands of miles of new pipelines, both big and small, on the books for construction. It also has a growing presence in China, a country which has been working to exploit more of its own domestic energy resources. The company has secured three contracts over the past few months alone, bulling a power station in Pennsylvania to help power the fracking boom, a hydrogen plant in Kansas and a public works project in Arizona.

Amazingly, while the market is saying it isn’t optimistic about Chicago Bridge & Iron, Wall Street analysts are clearly bullish. Despite the problems in the energy market, the median forecast is for earnings grow of 22.9% this year, taking full-year earnings per share up to $5.20. They look for even more growth in 2015, forecasting EPS of $5.91. That’s roughly in line with the company’s average historical earnings growth of about 19.8% over the past decade.

Even if business were to slow down, the company has $3.3 billion of cash and assets on its balance sheet. At the same time, it has a debt to equity ratio of just 0.6, so the company isn’t facing any sort of existential crisis.

From a valuation perspective, Chicago Bridge & Iron has rarely been this cheap. It currently trades at just 9.9 times trailing one-year earnings, well below the industry average of 19.5 and its own five-year average of 15.4. It’s also trading just 9.2 times forward earnings, compared to 17.6 times for the S&P 500 as a whole.

If you need more proof that it is an incredibly attractive value, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has been steadily adding to its stake in the company, now owning more than 10% of Chicago Bridge & Iron.

So while oil and natural gas are fairly cheap today, that’s largely because there’s just so much of it. With more infrastructure to move that production from field to market, prices would likely improve. Chicago Bridge & Iron, with its engineering and construction expertise, will play a major role in that. And that construction is going to be moving forward regardless of energy prices, a fact that Wall Street and Warren Buffett clearly understands.

A great value with plenty of growth ahead, Chicago Bridge & Iron is a buy up to $65.