Kinder Morgan (KMI) released disappointing earnings last night that sent the stock lower after hours. But the stock is rallying hard today, as there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Here are some highlights.

From Richard Kinder:

We are pleased with KMI’s business performance for the year especially in light of a tremendously challenging commodity environment, and we are glad to have generated the greatest amount of annual distributable cash flow in the company’s history along with a 7 percent increase in our DCF per share year-over-year,” said Richard D. Kinder, executive chairman. “However, we were disappointed by KMI’s stock performance, which declined 65 percent during 2015.

Disappointed? You and me both, Richard!

As Kinder continuesL

“The decision to reduce our dividend was very difficult and was a direct result of the rapid and significant disconnect between the performance of our business and the performance of our stock. We believe this bold move is in the best interest of the company and our shareholders. We expect the reduced dividend has completely eliminated our need to access the capital markets to fund growth projects in 2016. This insulates us from challenging capital markets and significantly enhances our credit profile. Moreover, by reducing the dividend and high-grading our backlog, we do not expect to need to access the capital markets to fund our growth projects for the foreseeable future beyond 2016.

“Additionally, as our future cash flow exceeds our investment needs, we are in an improved position to return value to shareholders. While the markets appear to have begun 2016 on the same sour note on which they left 2015, we are confident that we are one of the best positioned companies to withstand these headwinds.”

While 2015 was a miserable year for shareholders, I agree that management did the right thing in slashing the dividend. It’s in the long-term best interest of the shareholders. I have no idea when the credit markets will return to “normal,” and neither does Kinder’s management team. This takes that question out of the equation.