Oil sands transport company Inter Pipeline Ltd. is reporting record second-quarter net income of $260-million or 63 cents a share, nearly double the $136-million or 35 cents it declared in the same period of 2018.
The increase comes despite only a slight rise in revenue to $642-million from $631-million and a decrease in its core pipeline volumes to 1.34-million barrels a day (b/d) from 1.38-million b/d a year earlier.
Analysts had expected net income of $114-million on revenue of $594-million, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.
The company says it increased its processing of natural gas liquids to 134,000 b/d in the three months ended June 30 from 113,000 b/d in the same period last year, while revenue from bulk storage increased to $26.9-million from $17.4-million owing to an acquisition of a company with operations in Britain and the Netherlands.
Separately, it announced it is considering the sale of its bulk liquid storage businesses in Europe with operations in Britain, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and Ireland and 37 million barrels of storage capacity to reduce debt and help finance its Heartland Petrochemical Complex near Edmonton.
Inter Pipeline reported spending $287-million on Heartland in the quarter to take total capital incurred to $1.6-billion.
It said 1,200 construction workers were on site at the end of June building the $3.5-billion project, which is designed to convert plentiful propane into 525,000 tonnes a year of the plastic polypropylene.
Inter’s results statement released after the Toronto Stock Exchange closed make no mention of its 9-per-cent stock price surge to $23.64 on Thursday.
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