5 High Dividend Shipping Stocks Going Ex-Dividend Soon

 | Apr 26, 2016 01:34AM ET

Looking for more income from your portfolio? Income investors have been hopping aboard shipping dividend stocks in 2016, enticed by their high dividend yields.

This sub-industry has certain companies which are becoming more well-known for their stable business models, which are based upon long term contracts, with solid counter parties. After all, who doesn’t want to have a glimpse into the future? These stocks will typically have around a 5-year or longer remaining length of time on their contracts, not including options to extend.

They’ve all IPO’d within the past approx. 5 years, and their cash flow and earnings growth is based upon a “dropdown” model, in which their parent companies, usually known as sponsors and/or general partners will sell them assets, which already have signed contracts on them.

2 of these stocks, Dynagas LNG Partners LP (NYSE:DLNG) and Golar LNG Partners LP (NASDAQ:GMLP), are in the LNG, (liquefied natural gas), shipping business – which is heading toward major production growth in the US and Australia, as long term projects start producing and shipping.

DLNG is in a unique niche – it has the only cold weather fleet capable of shipping LNG over the harsh northern arctic sea routes. KNOT Offshore Partners LP (NYSE:KNOP) is also a niche player – it owns a fleet of shuttle tankers. Crude producers can’t make any money on their oil unless they get it into port, and guess what? It’s a whole lot cheaper to hire a tanker, vs. building an underwater pipeline. The shuttle tanker business is tiny compared to other shipping segments, so there’s not a lot of competition or speculation in it.

Navios Maritime Midstream Partners LP (NYSE:NAP) owns VLCC’s – (very large crude container vessels), which are in strong demand due to the oil glut. All of these stocks’ vessels are contracted out into the future, vs. playing the spot market.

Their Price to Distributable Cash Flow ratios are all attractive – NAP uses a Cash Available For Distribution metric, which we’ve used in this table. NAP is selling below Book Value, but maybe not for long – it reports on 4/27/16.