Jan 21 (Reuters) - Kinder Morgan beat Wall Street expectations for fourth-quarter profit on Wednesday, helped by higher volumes of natural gas transported through its pipelines.
Shares of the pipeline operator
rose 1.4% to $28.99 in extended trade.
U.S. midstream companies such as Kinder Morgan are benefiting from a surge in oil and gas production in the Permian Basin, as well as rising demand for natural gas driven by record liquefied natural gas exports and soaring power generation tied to artificial intelligence operations, cryptocurrency mining and data centers.
The company said it transported about 48,353 billion British thermal units of natural gas per day in the quarter, compared with 44,507 billion Btu per day a year ago.
Kinder Morgan, which moves roughly 40% of the country's total natural gas output, said its total project backlog increased to $10 billion from $9.3 billion in the preceding quarter.
The U.S. in 2025 became the first country to export more than 100 million metric tons (mmt) of LNG in a single year, powered by production from new plants, preliminary data from LSEG showed earlier this month.
U.S. natural gas futures rose over 11% sequentially in the fourth quarter, breaking a falling streak that started in the second quarter.
Adjusted core profit from Kinder Morgan's natural gas pipeline segment rose 30.2% to $1.38 billion in the quarter.
However, its total delivery volumes, which also include refined products such as jet fuel and diesel fuel, fell to 2,035 thousand barrels per day during the quarter ended December 31, from 2,105 thousand bpd a year ago.
The Houston, Texas-based firm posted an adjusted profit of 39 cents per share for the three months ended December 31, compared with analysts' estimate of 37 cents per share, according to data compiled by LSEG.
(Reporting by Katha Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)
