Seeking Alpha: The Market Seems To Think Chart Industries Is Back To Square One

That shiny new natural gas economy that was a rock star in the markets a few years ago and supposed to lead us into the next decade has wound up where sadly all too many rock stars of the past have - floating face down in a pool. In this case, it was a pool of cheap oil, as the sharp drop in oil prices has led many would-be users of LNG to table those plans for the time being, leading to much slower progress on LNG export terminals, and filling stations.

This hard stop in the natural gas industry, combined with much tougher conditions in China, has hammered the shares of Chart Industries (NASDAQ:GTLS), with the stock down over 40% in the past 12 months and nearly 60% since my last piece on the company.

While I had thought expectations were still a little elevated back in May, little did I suspect that activity across LNG would shrink so far so fast. At this point, it would seem that Chart Industries is being valued only on the basis of its industrial gas business, a good business where the company has long enjoyed #1 or #2 share in most of its primary markets, and arguably even undervalued just on that basis. While the timelines for large-scale U.S. LNG exports and wider usage of LNG as a transportation fuel have certainly stretched out, to give the shares no value for them at all seems unduly harsh to me.

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The Market Seems To Think Chart Industries Is Back To Square One