Today I'm reviewing an oil and gas equipment firm. It's a small-cap stock with market capital of between $200 million and $2 billion. Its name is USA Compression Partners  It's trading ticker symbol is USAC. 

USA Compression Partners LP provides natural gas compression services under term contracts with customers in the oil and gas industry, using natural gas compressor packages that it designs, engineers, owns, operates and maintains.

It serves oil companies; and independent producers, processors, gatherers, and transporters of natural gas and crude oil. USA Compression GP, LLC operates as the general partner of USA Compression Partners, LP. 

The company was formerly known as Compression Holdings, LP, and changed its name to USA Compression Partners, LP in June 2011. 

USA Compression Partners, LP was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.

I use three key data points gauge the value of any dividend equity or fund like USA Compression Partners LP: 

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

After those three, four more keys will finally unlock an equity or fund in which to invest.

However, those first three primary keys best tell whether a company has made, is making, and will make money. 

USAC Price

USA Compression Partners's price was $18.80 per share at Friday's market close. A year ago its price was $17.54 for a gain of $1.26 per share in the past year.  

Assuming USA Compression Partners price will trade between the range of $15.00 to $25.00 next year, its price could grow another $1.26 from $18.80 to $20.06 by April 2019. 

USAC Dividends

USA Compression Partners's most recent variable quarterly dividend was $0.525 paid yesterday, February 14th.  Total annual dividend paid in 2017 was $2.10 per share.  An expected repeat of the $2.10 amount for 2018 yields 11% at yesterdays stock price.

Gains For USAC?

The $1.26 estimated year over year price gain plus an anticipated dividend of  $2.10 makes a projected gross annual gain of $3.36, which will be reduced by the cost to trade these shares.  

$1,000.00 invested today at the $18.80 price buys 53 shares. 

A $10 broker fee paid half at purchase and half at sale subtracts about $0.19 per share

Taking that $0.19 brokerage cost out of the estimated $3.36 gross gain leaves a net gain of $3.17 X 53 shares 

= $168.01

or a near 17% potential net gain on a $996.40 investment.

Therefore, USA Compression Partners LP (whose ticker symbol is USAC), now shows a possible 17% net gain including a 11% dividend yield. 

Seven analysts cover this stock. Three say buy. Two say it will outperform. Two say hold. None see it underperforming or time to sell. 

The seven broker analysts consensus recommendation is outperform with a mark at the  1.9 level on the 1 (buy) to 5 (sell) scale.

These seven brokers also set a median price target as $20.86 which is 4% higher than my year over year estimate of $20.06.

The forward-looking numbers were conjecture based on past year performance. Actual results remain to be seen. They could turn out to be far higher or lower. More study is required for you to determine if USA Compression Partners is worth your time and money.