Delek Logistics Partners, LP (DKL) Q1 2016 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good morning. My name is Erica and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Delek Logistics Partners Q1 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] Keith Johnson, Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Erica. Good morning. I would like to thank everyone for joining us on this webcast to discuss Delek Logistics Partners First Quarter 2016 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 the federal securities laws. For this purpose, any statements made during this call that are not statements of historical facts maybe 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, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Last night, we distributed a press release that provides a summary of our first quarter 2016 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 strategic remarks. With that, I will turn the call over to Assi.

Thank you, Keith. Our DCF was approximately $20.4 million in the first quarter of 2016, which is a 21% increase from $16.8 million in the first quarter of 2015. EBITDA increased to $23.7 million for the first quarter of 2016 compared to $21.1 million for the prior year period. The DCF coverage ratio was 1.5x. Based on our performance, we are pleased to announce an increase in our quarterly distribution to $0.61 per limited partner unit for the quarter ended March 31, 2016. This distribution is payable on May 15, 2016 and is a 3.4% increase from our fourth quarter 2015 distribution per unit. This is our 13th consecutive increase and is 15.1% higher than our first quarter 2015 distribution of $0.53 per limited partner unit. During the first quarter of 2016, DKL continues to maintain a flexible financial position with $337 million of availability capacity on our $700 million credit facility and the leverage ratio of 3.5x, which is well within the 4.75x currently allowable under our credit facility. Now, I will turn the call to Danny to go over the financials.

Thank you, Assi. For the first quarter 2016, Delek Logistics reported net income attributable to all partners of $15.4 million or $0.54 per diluted common limited partner unit compared to net income attributable to all partners of $14.6 million or $0.56 per diluted common limited partner unit in the prior year period. Our contribution margin increased to $26.8 million from $24.5 million in the first quarter of 2015 as performance in both segments increased on a year-over-year basis. First quarter 2016 contribution margin in our Pipelines and Transportation segment improved to $20.3 million compared to $19.4 million in the first quarter of 2015. The improvement was primarily attributable to fees associated with the El Dorado rail offloading racks and the Tyler crude oil storage tank purchased in March of 2015. I want to provide some guidance on the Paline Pipeline as you model the coming quarters. As you maybe aware, the current contract expires on June 30, 2016. Beginning in the third quarter, the revenue from that pipeline is expected to decline as the capacity leased is reduced from 35,000 to 10,000 barrels per day as we have exercised our option to extend the contract at a lower rate through the end of this year. During the third quarter, this pipeline is scheduled for hydro testing, which is required by FEMSA every 5 years and is expected to last 40 days. In anticipation of the contract ending, we are evaluating the options for this pipeline in 2017, which could include reversing it to flow from the Gulf Coast to Longview, Texas to allow interested shippers to take advantage of crude oil differentials in that market. Contribution margin in our Wholesale Marketing and Terminalling segment was $6.6 million in the first quarter of this year compared to $5.1 million in the prior year period. On a year-over-year basis, results benefited from improved performance in our East Texas assets due to higher volumes from Delek U.S.’s Tyler, Texas refinery, which underwent a scheduled turnaround in the first quarter of 2015. That increase was partially offset by a $1.4 million decline in the West Texas gross margin and $800,000 of expenses associated with internal tank contamination at two terminals during the first quarter this year. Our West Texas wholesale gross margin was $0.53 per barrel in the first quarter of 2016 compared to $1.40 per barrel in the first quarter of 2015. The first quarter of this year margin was negatively affected by higher cost inventory being sold at the beginning of the quarter as prices were declining. Also competitive market continues to exist as suppliers face lower demand as drilling activity in the region slowed. We did experience an improvement in gross margin per barrel later in the quarter, with March averaging more than $1. Looking forward, we expect the gross margin per barrel should be in a range of $1 to $1.75 during the remainder of 2016, but will vary based on product supply and demand changes in the region through the year. West Texas wholesale throughput was 14,370 barrels per day compared to 16,645 barrels per day in the first quarter of last year. Capital expenditures were approximately $1.1 million in the first quarter of 2016. We have reduced our total capital expenditure forecast for 2016 to $14.3 million, which includes $3.5 million of discretionary and $10.8 million of maintenance. This compares to our previous forecast of $18.2 million, which included $13.4 million of maintenance and $4.7 million of discretionary related projects. We have invested approximately $56.1 million as of March 31 in our joint venture pipeline projects and the estimated total investment for the RIO and Caddo pipelines is expected to be approximately $96 million, pending revisions to the estimated cost related to an extended construction schedule at Caddo due to weather conditions. At this time, we do not expect the revisions to be material. With that, I will turn the call over to Uzi for his closing comments.

Thank you, Danny. Our operations improved on a year-over-year basis and we continue to maintain financial flexibility at DKL. This financial position should support our growth initiatives, which include our joint venture pipeline project investments, evaluating third-party acquisitions and partnering with our sponsor, Delek U.S. Our first joint venture pipeline project is expected to be operational in the third quarter when the RIO pipeline is completed in July. Construction on the Caddo pipeline is expected to be completed by January 2017. We continue to explore third-party acquisition opportunities created by challenging MLP environment. Also, there may be potential opportunities to partner with our sponsor. As previously disclosed by our sponsor, Delek US is exploring options to unload the value of its retail assets and DKL continues to evaluate the feasibility of this type of dropdown. In addition, Delek US investment in Alon US may create additional opportunities for DKL in the future. Through our growth initiatives and financial position, we believe that we can continue to support our target to increase the annual distribution per limited partner unit by 15% for 2016. With that Erica, could you please open the call for questions?

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Brian Gamble from Simmons. Your line is open.

Good morning guys.

Good morning Brian.

A question on – I would just start with Paline on the pipe, so taking the contract down and extending it clearly that you needed to do that testing at some point interface, the impact from that test did you say was all in Q3?

That is correct.

So the combination of having that downtime in Q3 as well as the, I guess reduction in the capacity on the lease, what sort of margin impact do we anticipate that having on Q3 and Q4?

Well, it’s hard to say and I will tell you why because we do believe that even though the E&P capacity is coming down, there may be shippers on that line. So if you ask about the 40 days downturn because of the hydro test, then we can probably calculate that and get back to you later. In regard to the coming down to 10,000 barrels, I wouldn’t read that its 10,000 barrels as the pipeline will continue to operate and to let people ship on top of the 10,000 barrel. Mark, do you want to…?

Yes. Brian, this is Mark Smith. We are also – during our planning schedule for the hydro test, we are trying to actually minimize because we have some extra capacity in that line. We are trying to minimize the amount of volume during that 40-day hydro test that actually doesn’t ship. So that’s another piece of the pie that Uzi’s talking about. It’s kind of hard to tell you exactly what the impact is. We are trying to minimize the volume impact of that hydro test.

As far as other volumes that are sitting there that could potentially be put on that pipe, are there enough volumes there to, I guess feasibly cover the complete delta there between the old contract and the new contract or are we looking at supplement part of the missing barrels?

Yes. I think it all depends on market conditions. There is a lot of volume that gets into long view off of all those pipelines that expansion of PE2 plays as a pipeline coming in from Cushing there. So I think it all is going to depend on differentials. So we have now that the capacity lease is kind of reduced, that gives us extra space for other interested parties that might want to shift given differential conditions.

Great. That’s helpful, and then on the wholesale business the West Texas part, it’s a little lower than we had anticipated, nice to see it bounce a little bit in March. We talked about kind of a baseline $2 for the year at the last call, now we are talking $1, $2.75 for the rest of the year, is that purely based on, I mean I guess walk me through the factors that have changed that thought process for the rest of the year.

Yes. I think it’s really related to the RINs. So you as know at the beginning of the year, when the RBO got announced RINs jumped from last year being about $0.50 to where they have kind of stayed pretty steady this year that $0.71, $0.72 a gallon. And the fact that we are not an obligated party and there is a few others of us like us wholesale marketers out in West Texas, what has happened is that basically, that has become a part of the calculation of what potential margin you could have. So people are trying to get volume because of the decrease in drilling activities. So they are basically driving the margins down because we have this extra margin in the high margin in the RIN that we can then sell to a third-party capture. So the racks in West Texas are all selling at prices below transportation costs because of the RIN value.

That makes sense. And I guess your forecast for what the RIN value does for the rest of years is pretty consistent and the $1 to $1.75 per barrel that you were anticipating at rack?

Correct.

And then on the CapEx numbers dropped in growth a little bit, great to see maintenance come down at any point, what were we able to save on the maintenance front and what got slightly pushed out on the growth, so I am guessing that might be some Caddo dollars but not completely sure what – just walk me through the pieces there?

Most of the maintenance, our tank maintenance at the refineries, we are generally on a 10-year schedule at the refineries for tank maintenance and when we re-looked at our Delek US overall CapEx budget for 2016, we reduced it from 90 to 65 by basically moving some of the tank maintenance to future years. And therefore, you saw reductions. I don’t think there was a big reduction in growth CapEx at this point.

Great, I appreciate the color guys.

Thank you.

And there are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to the presenters.

Well, thank you so much. These are challenging times in our market, but I would like to still thank investors. I would like to thank my colleagues here, our Board and mainly our employees, who made this company what it is. Thank you. We will talk to you soon.

And this concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.