Robert D. Bondurant
Analyst · Raymond James
Okay. Thank you, Nicholas. And to let everyone know who's on the call today, we have Ruben Martin, who's our President and Chief Executive Officer; Joe McCreery, who's our VP of Finance and Head of Investor Relations; and Wes Martin, VP of Corporate Development. Before we get started with financial and operational results for the first quarter, I need to make this disclaimer. Certain statements made during this conference call may be forward-looking statements relating to financial forecasts, future performance and our ability to make distributions to unitholders. We report our financial results in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and use certain non-GAAP financial measures within the meanings of SEC Reg G, such as distributable cash flow or DCF; and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization or EBITDA; and we also use adjusted EBITDA. We use these measures because we believe it provides users of our financial information with meaningful comparisons between current results and prior reported results, and it can be a meaningful measure of the partnership's cash available to pay distributions. We also included in our press release issued yesterday, a reconciliation of EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA and distributable cash flow to the most comparable GAAP financial measure. Our earnings press release is available at our website, www.martinmidstream.com. Now I would like to discuss our first quarter performance. For the first quarter, we had adjusted EBITDA of $38.8 million compared to the fourth quarter EBITDA of $38.6 million. Our distributable cash flow or DCF for the first quarter was $21.5 million, a distribution coverage of 1x. This coverage ratio does not include any IDR payments to the General Partner as we have suspended IDR payments until a cumulative suspension of $18 million is met. And at March 31, our cumulative suspension amount was $11.9 million. As we previously disclosed on our previous earnings call, our first quarter DCF was negatively impacted by heavy maintenance capital expenditures in the quarter as a result of our lubricant refinery turnaround and acquired coast guard offshore vessel dry dockings. Total first quarter maintenance capital expenditures and turnaround cost were $6.5 million, and we continue to forecast approximately $17 million to $18 million of maintenance capital expenditures in 2014, of which 2/3 should be spent in the first 6 months. Now I would like to discuss our first quarter cash flow by segment compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. In the Terminalling segment, our first quarter EBITDA, which is defined as operating income plus depreciation and amortization, but excluding any gain or loss on sale of assets, was $18.1 million in the first quarter compared to $15.9 million in the fourth quarter '13. Our specialty terminals cash flow was $13.4 million in the first quarter compared to $10.4 million in the fourth quarter of '13, an increase of $3 million. Between these quarters, we had an increase in cash flow in our lubricants packaging business of $1.4 million, an increase in cash flow at our Corpus Christi crude terminal of $0.7 million, and an increase in cash flow at the Smackover refinery of $0.6 million, and an increase in cash flow from our legacy specialty terminals of $0.3 million. Lubricant packaging business returned to a normal cash flow in the first quarter when compared to its weakest seasonal quarter, which is the fourth. The increase in cash flow at our Corpus Christi crude terminal was the result of having our dedicated marine dock operational for the entire first quarter. As a result, our throughput volume increased 20% to over 140,000 barrels per day. Although our Smackover refinery was down for 55 days in the first quarter due to our turnaround, cash flow was actually up due to required minimum throughput fees which were paid, and lower variable operating cost due to the turnaround downtime. This, of course, is offset by actual turnaround costs that were capitalized in the quarter, which negatively impacted our DCF. The refinery restarted in early April and achieved its capacity production of over 7,600 barrels per day on April 8. On the shore-based side of the terminal business, EBITDA was $4.7 million in the first quarter compared to $5.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2013. This decrease in cash flow was a result of normal repair and maintenance costs in the first quarter when compared to minimal repairs and maintenance costs in the fourth quarter of 2013. Looking towards the second quarter, overall terminal cash flow performance should be slightly improved when compared to the first quarter. In our Sulfur Services segment, our cash flow was $11.2 million in the first quarter compared to $8.4 million in the fourth quarter of '13, an increase of $2.8 million. Our fertilizer cash flow was $7.4 million in the first quarter when compared to $3.4 million in the fourth quarter of '13. This increase was anticipated as the first and second quarters are the highest seasonal demand periods in the fertilizer business due to the timing of farmers planting crops. Buy-ins between the first and fourth quarters increased 71%, and margins improved 17%. Generally speaking, farmers have had to delay planting in the Midsouth and Midwest due to this year's colder and wetter weather patterns. Because of this factor, we believe that additional cash flow we were anticipating in the first quarter will transition into the second quarter. As a result, we anticipate a strong second quarter in the fertilizer business. On the pure sulfur side of the business, cash flow was $3.8 million in the first quarter compared to $4.9 million in the fourth quarter of '13. Our cash flow in the first quarter was down when compared to the fourth, as we had our molten sulfur offshore tow-in drydock for the month of March. This tow came out of drydock in early April. Looking forward, the second quarter should reflect our cash flow performance in the first quarter on the pure sulfur side of the business. In the Natural Gas Services segment, we had cash flow of $9.1 million in the first quarter compared to $12.7 million in the fourth quarter of '13. The decrease in cash flow was primarily in our refinery-grade butane business, as refineries began to transition away from butane demand in March due to regulatory blending requirements that begin every year on April 1. This drove our overall NGL volume down approximately 5%, and our overall NGL margins down 16% when compared to the previous fourth quarter. Looking forward in the second quarter, our Natural Gas Services segment will face a seasonal decrease in cash flow as the demand for refinery-grade butanes will end and not pick up again until late September. During this period, we will be purchasing refinery-grade butane supply and transporting a significant portion of it to storage. As a result of this process, we will see inventory and working capital building this segment through the second and third quarters. In our Marine Transportation segment, we had cash flow of $4.5 million in the first quarter compared to $6.3 million in the fourth quarter of '13. The decrease in marine cash flow was primarily attributable to the offshore side of the business as we had our offshore NGL tow going to drydock in late February. This tow came out of drydock on April 22. We also had a crude oil offshore tow going to drydock in late March. We anticipate this still will come out of the shipyard in mid-May. Now looking forward to the second quarter, we anticipate Marine cash flow to be slightly less in the first quarter due to our crude oil offshore tow being out of service for half of the second quarter. Our unallocated SG&A cost were $4.7 million in the first quarter compared to $5.6 million in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter, we expensed the acquisition due diligence costs on 2 failed acquisition opportunities. Looking forward, our unallocated SG&A cost should average between $4 million and $5 million on a quarterly basis. In addition to our 4 business segments, we own a 100% of Redbird Gas Storage, which now owns a 42.2% interest in Cardinal Gas Storage. And for the first quarter, we had distributions from Cardinal of $0.2 million, the same as the fourth quarter. Also, our $15 million preferred stock investment in Martin Energy Trading, an affiliate of our general partner, yielded a distribution of $0.6 million for both the first and fourth quarters. We anticipate receiving distributions from this investment of $2.3 million in total in 2014. Now I would like to turn the call over to Joe McCreery, who will speak about liquidity, capital resources and recent partnership activities.