The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, Aug. 22, edition that Keyera is one of the few energy stocks still worth owning. The Globe's guest columnist Gordon Pape writes that Keyera is a mid-stream energy company that services oil and gas producers in the Western Canada sedimentary basin. Given the problems in the energy industry, the company's strong second quarter results earlier this month came as a pleasant surprise. Per-share earnings were almost double those of the same period a year ago. Keyera said profit in the quarter was $219.4-million ($1.03 a share), a significant increase from $106.8-million (52 cents) in the same period last year. For the first half of the year, earnings were $253.2-million ($1.19), up from $194.5-million (94 cents) in 2018. The improvement was largely because of the contribution of the marketing segment, which delivered an operating margin of $117-million in the second quarter, compared with $74-million a year ago. Keyera increased its dividend for the ninth year in a row, by 7 per cent to 16 cents a month ($1.92 annually). That brought the forward yield to 5.9 per cent. The payout ratio in the first half of the year was 76 per cent, compared with 56 per cent the year before.