Delek Logistics Partners, LP (DKL) Q1 2014 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning, my name is Allison, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the first quarter earnings conference call [Operator Instructions] Mr. Keith Johnson, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Allison. Good morning. I would like to thank everyone for joining us on this webcast to discuss Delek Logistics Partners first quarter 2014 financial results. Joining me on today's call will be Uzi Yemin, our General Partners' Chairman and CEO; Assi Ginzburg, CFO; Danny Norris, CAO; and other members of our management team. As a reminder, this conference call may contain forward-looking statements as that term is defined under securities laws. For this purpose, any statements made during this call that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the foregoing, the words believes, anticipates, plans, expects and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. You are cautioned that these statements may be affected by important factors set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and in our latest earnings release. As a result, actual operations or results may differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements weather as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay beginning today and ending August 7, by dialing (855) 859-2056 with the confirmation ID number 27447884. An online replay may also be accessed for the next 90 days at the partnership's website at deleklogistics.com. Last night, we distributed a press release that provides a summary of our first quarter 2014 results. This press release is available on our corporate website and through various news outlets. On today's call, Assi will begin with a few financial comments and Danny will review our financial performance. Then Uzi will offer a few closing remarks. With that, I'll turn the call over to Assi.

Thanks, Keith. Delek Logistics had a strong start in 2014, our DCF flow was $17.0 million and EBITDA was $20.2 million for the first quarter of 2014, which is an increase from a DCF of $13.1 million and EBITDA of $15.5 million in the first quarter of 2013. We ended the quarter with a DCF coverage ratio of approximately 1.6x. Based on our performance, we are pleased to increase our quarterly distribution to $0.425 per unit for the quarter ended March 31, 2014, which is a 2.4% increase from our fourth quarter 2013 distribution. This is our fifth consecutive increase and is 10.4% higher than our first quarter of 2013 distribution of $0.385 per unit. Now, I will turn the call over to Danny to discuss the financial results.

Thank you, Assi. Good morning. For the first quarter of 2014, Delek Logistics reported net income attributable to all partners of $14.7 million or $0.59 per diluted limited partner unit, compared to income attributable to all partners of $12.2 million or $0.50 per diluted limited partner unit in the prior year period. Improved performance compared to the first quarter of 2013 was driven by several acquisitions completed during the past year. As a result, contribution margin increased to $22.8 million in Q1 of 2014 from $17.2 million in the prior year period. In addition to acquisitions, strong results in the first quarter of 2014 were benefited from higher volumes on the SALA Gathering System and strong margins in our West Texas wholesale business. Now, I will spend a few minutes discussing our 2 reporting segments. First quarter 2014 contribution margin in our Pipeline and Transportation segment improved to $12.8 million on a year-over-year basis compared to $8.9 million in first quarter of 2013. The improvement was primarily attributed to storage fees from the Tyler tank farm purchased in July of 2013, the North Little Rock terminal acquired in October of 2013 and the El Dorado tank farm acquired in February 2014. During the quarter, volumes on the Lion Pipeline System declined year-over-year due to downtime associated with planned turnaround work at Delek US' El Dorado refinery. The financial effect of lower volumes was limited by fees generated under the minimum volume commitments on this system. Throughput on our SALA Gathering System benefited from Delek US' ability to store crude oil, while its El Dorado refinery was undergoing a turnaround in January and February. Contribution margin in our Wholesale Marketing and Terminalling segment was $10 million in the first quarter of 2014 compared to $8.3 million in the first quarter of 2013. Contribution from the Tyler, Texas terminal; the addition of the North Little Rock, Arkansas terminal; and the El Dorado, Arkansas terminal were the primary factors contributing to the improvement versus Q1 of '13. During the first quarter, volume per day increased under our East Texas Marketing Agreement to approximately 62,400 barrels per day from approximately 53,100 barrels per day in the first quarter of 2013. This was primarily due to maintenance work at Delek US' Tyler, Texas refinery during the first quarter of 2013 that reduced sales volumes during that period. In our West Texas wholesale business, volume was 15,999 barrels per day in Q1 of 14 compared to 16,555 barrels per day in the prior year period. This decline is primarily due to lower volume at the Abilene, Texas terminal due to maintenance work in February and March of 2014. The gross margin was $3.57 per barrel in Q1 of '14 compared to $3.69 per barrel in Q1 of '13. The margin per barrel in the first quarter included approximately $1.1 million or $0.75 per barrel from RINs generated in our ongoing ethanol blending activities during Q1 of 2014. This compares to a gross margin that included $1.8 million or $1.18 per barrel from RINs in the first quarter of '13. A strong wholesale margin helped offset the lower RINs benefit on a year-over-year basis. Also, the gross margin per barrel in the first quarter of 2014 improved sequentially from $1.24 per barrel in the fourth quarter of 2013. As of March 31, 2014, Delek Logistics had a cash balance of approximately $4.1 million and total debt was $260.5 million. We ended the quarter with approximately $126 million of unused availability under our $400 million credit facility. Capital expenditures were approximately $800,000 in Q1 of '14, which included no reimbursement under our Omnibus agreement with Delek US. Maintenance capital expenditures were approximately $700,000 and growth related projects were approximately $100,000. Total capital expenditures for 2014 are expected to be $18.5 million compared to $5.1 million in 2013. This increase from 2013 is associated with the acquisitions completed over the past year and additional capital expenditures for growth. The decrease from our previous estimate of $20.4 million in 2014 is related to timing of growth-related projects. The 2014 capital expenditure amount consist of $9.5 million of maintenance, $9 million of growth-related projects. Of these amounts, approximately $6.9 million should be reimbursed under our agreement with Delek US in 2014. With that, I will turn the call over to Uzi for his closing comments.

Thank you, Danny. We had strong results during the quarter and this occurred during a period that when throughput on our Lion Pipeline System was reduced, due to a scheduled turnaround at the El Dorado refinery, which was completed during the quarter. Any increase in throughput at the El Dorado refinery could result in extra fees to our company. We estimate that every additional thousand barrels per day above 2013 levels on the Lion Pipeline System will have the benefit of approximately $300,000 in our throughput fees. Also, we only benefited from half the quarter of performance from the El Dorado drop downs during the first quarter. Our purpose on growth over the past year resulted in a 30% increase in EBITDA from the first quarter of 2013. We increased our quarterly distribution by 2.4% from the fourth quarter of 2013 and remain committed to our goal of growing our distribution by at least 10% in 2014. Also, we remain focused on growing our operations over time through future drop downs and third-party acquisitions. And we have the financial flexibility to support this growth. With that, Allison, would you please open the call for questions?

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from the line of Theresa Chen

Question on the solid results in Terminalling throughputs. Can you give us a little incremental color on what your outlook for throughput is for the rest of the year, taking into account the contribution from drop downs in the acquisition?

I feel that you're talking about the Lion Pipeline System, is that correct? or in general?

In general.

Well.

Sure. When you look at the SALA Gathering System, we expect the SALA Gathering System to stay at those levels of 20,000 barrels a day and above. When you look at the El Dorado system, during 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, the El Dorado refinery was running at around 66 or lower throughput, which means, Delek basically paid DKL the minimum throughputs. As we said on the script earlier, every 1000-barrel increase in the El Dorado refinery throughput should result in an approximately $300,000 increase in our fees from Delek on that system. As you know, we should run or we should have the ability to run higher volumes in the El Dorado refinery now that we completed some of the upgrades at that refinery. And that's why we are optimistic that if, for example, we'll be able to add additional 10,000 barrels a day, that will be the original product -- project in El Dorado, it could result in an increase of $3 million annual EBITDA to the ability [ph]. When you add to that the drop down in Q1, on February 10, we had a drop down of the El Dorado tank farm. If you annualize that for an annual -- it should be resulting in around $10 million of EBITDA per year, that was our original forecast. With that being said, in the first quarter, we only enjoyed half a quarter of that. So the way we see it, through the potential increase of around $3 million in throughput fees from Delek on the El Dorado system in addition to another $1 million, that's an annual rate, plus another $1.5 million for this quarter, that's still missing, so annualized, that could be a big number for DK and DKL.

And then on the M&A front, do you have more transactions in mind like the North Little Rock terminal, any other opportunities out there that you're currently assessing?

Yes. If not maybe -- its not that we -- we know opportunities. If the [indiscernible] approaching these opportunities and decides what we want to do, but these opportunities exist in our areas and the company -- many, many questions we're being asked, why not we increase the distribution? We want to leave dry powder for more and more acquisitions. Obviously, we're very happy with our performance and we want to continue to grow our company towards the goal of $150 million EBITDA by the end of 2015.

Okay. And then follow-up on that, given the strong coverage right now, should we assume that another third-party acquisition may happen sometime this year?

I don't see any reason why we won't try to achieve that goal.

Your next question comes from the line of Cory Garcia with Raymond James.

We've been hearing a lot about crude starting to sort of stockpile and built up down in the Houston and even up in the Nederland markets, recognizing that not only you're Terminalling but also you're gathering footprint into East Texas and Longview areas. I was curious what sort of opportunities do you guys see in terms of playing a role in sort of alleviating those, really, profiting from those bottlenecks. Is it capital or is it organic growth that you guys see sort of connecting with those long-haul pipelines?

Cory, that's a great question. First of all, as you know, our company is teaming up with Delek to look at these projects. Usually, our company is not taking the commodity risk, we leave it with Delek. However, with that being said, the East Texas market and also the area west of Tyler, the discounts are widening and we don't see anymore the pricing we used to see. So because of the pressure in Houston or in Nederland, crude oil prices are falling in our areas. That will allow us, we think, to stop thinking about shipping more barrels to different places or even enjoy them in our system. That's the reason, as Assi mentioned, with the expansion of El Dorado and DK completing that project, we feel that the throughput through the El Dorado system should -- or the Lion System should increase almost immediately.

That's definitely helpful. And sort of a follow-on, I guess, any updated status or report on what you guys are thinking about for pay line?

Absolutely. That's a good question. With the differentials in each sector, looking the way they are, we're still evaluating that. I don't -- I expect to come to the market in the next few months with a solid update, but we're very optimistic about the situation of pay line.

Your next question comes from the line of Richard Roberts with Howard Weil.

Can you talk a little bit maybe about what drove the strength in the West Texas marketing margins in the quarter? And even stripping out the RINs impact, it looks like pretty solid results versus when you were for most the last year?

We agree. Couple of things. Ethanol -- cheap ethanol in West Texas, obviously, allow us to enjoy the margin. Second, surprisingly enough, we conducted maintenance in one of the terminals and that shortened the market. So we were able to sell inventory at much higher prices. We do see West Texas -- the strength in West Texas to -- continuing in the second quarter, especially in lack of the fact that one of our biggest competitors in that area is in turnaround right now, or is about to be in a turnaround.

And second, one of your MLP peers last week said that they're seeing some of the frothiness in the third-party acquisition market coming out in terms of pricing. Can you update us on maybe what you're seeing out there in some of the areas that you're losing as far as with -- what asset prices are looking like?

Absolutely. We always told you that we are targeting -- and even with the drop down, targeting 8x to 10x EBITDA. I don't see any reason why we change our behavior here. I hear that our prices that are going all the way to 15x EBITDA, 16x EBITDA are very competitive. I don't see us changing our behavior and going after 8x to 10x EBITDA target. So it will be very accretive to the share or unitholders as all of these acquisitions were in the past.

And then just maybe one final one, you talked several times about an ambition to get $250 million of EBITDA by the end of next year. We can see the EBITDA coming from the remaining drop downs, we can kind of make an estimate on what pay line might get. But even still, it's probably a bit of a gap, $250 million, so is there any sort of indication you can give us on how we get there aside from just acquisitions?

Well, I think that Assi just gave you another step forward with the question that he answered earlier. The idea of the expansion of El Dorado refinery for DK, as well as the drop down will add -- if DK is going to run close to what they are saying they're going to run, 80,000, then we're talking about another $3 million to $4 million addition on that side and then the drop down are not fully embedded in the numbers. Also, one thing that there is changing as well is the more throughput to other areas of our system that we have -- they were a minimum and it's growing nicely. So organic growth will add a good chunk, it doesn't mean that we don't need to continue to work very hard on third-party acquisitions, but from what we see on the M&A side, the organic growth, we are confident that the $150 million is pretty achievable.

[Operator Instructions] At this time, there are no further questions.

Well, I would like to thank my colleagues here round on the table, our employees, and of course, you, the investors for the confidence in our company. This was a very good quarter for us, and we believe that 2014 is fixing to be a very good year. Thanks, again, we'll talk to you soon.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.