MTRX Matrix Service Weekly Chart; Matrix Crashes -36%

Goodnight Irene, Irene Goodnight. Matrix Service is in the engineering, construction and maintenance business of power plants, chemical plants and other facilities. Matrix has an expertise in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry and disappointed on earnings. MTRX crashes -36% last week. There goes one-third of those workers' pension money. Zachariah jumps up from the folding chair in the back of the packed lunch room exclaiming, "But I bot stock through the company share plan!" Management exits stage right.

The coronavirus is another bugaboo in the side of the liquefied gas industry. China is declaring force majeure on LNG shipments. LNG carriers cannot unload cargoes due to the pandemic that has shut down major cities. Natural gas, natty, is shipped via ocean tankers. It is a waste of time to transport actual gas since it takes up too great a volume. Thus, natty is liquefied by lowering it to extremely cold temperatures. This process reduces the volume by 600 times. Liquefied natural gas occupies 1/600th of the volume that natty gas, in its gas state, occupies.

This creates the need for special cryogenic process engineers that can design tanks and equipment properly to handle boil-off gases (vaporization is constantly occurring off the super-cooled liquid) which is a specialty of MTRX. So it is not a pretty sight when there are docking problems for ships since they need to unload those cargoes and it is a black eye for the LNG industry.

A lot of natural gas is likely going to have to be flared to the atmosphere (those are the tall stacks you see at plants that show a flame burning like a candle). These flares are actually for safety at the plants since pipes gather up all flammable waste gases at the facility and send them up the flare to be burned off safely. Matrix takes a nosedive off the side of an LNG storage tank. Better luck next time. EXTN dumps -6% last week. RES crashes -13%. TTI -4%. LNG loses -4%. TELL -3%.

It is a shame the US is stupidly pursuing the electric car craze when natty gas vehicles would be a far better direction to go in. We have gas coming out of our ears and natty burns super clean. The infrastructure plan would create hundreds of thousands of jobs. Alas, it is better to burn coal to create electricity that we can plug into a car and say that we are doing our part for the environment. Aren't humans funny? It's a Wild Wild Life. This information is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Do not invest based on anything you read or view here. Consult your financial advisor before making any investment decision.