Trey Karlovich
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open
All right. Thanks, Mike. As Mike mentioned, we closed the Retail Propane sale to Superior Plus on July 10. So this will be our final quarter to include retail in our financial results. We will recognize a gain of over $400 million in the upcoming quarter related to this sale. We’ve used the proceeds to immediately reduce borrowings on our credit facility. The net debt reduction from this transaction was approximately $875 million after working capital and certain transaction costs, which should be reflected in our 9/30/2018 balance sheet once it is released. Our first quarter results were highlighted by the following: adjusted EBITDA totaled $80 million for the quarter with every segment in line with our guidance and expectations. Water Solutions grew 75% compared to the same period of last year and 20% over the prior quarter. It is now our largest segment, producing over 40% of our total adjusted EBITDA for the quarter. Grand Mesa continues to perform at or above expectations with an average of 112,000 barrels per day for the quarter. The Liquids business is benefited from few released railcars and lower costs, allowing for better margins on both propane and butane and the Refined Products segment performed significantly better in the first quarter last year, increasing adjusted EBITDA by approximately $12 million. As I mentioned, we are right in line with our guidance and expectations for the year. Based on our guidance ranges, we are forecasting the first quarter between $70 million to $82 million. We currently expect adjusted EBITDA to increase between $20 million or $25 million each quarter for the remainder of this fiscal year, driven by the growth in our water business and volumes on Grand Mesa and the normal seasonality in Liquids and Refined Products. Our targeted adjusted EBITDA for this fiscal year remains unchanged at $450 million, and we are confirming our guidance ranges for each segment. We declared a $0.39 per unit, $1.56 per unit annualized distribution for the quarter and our trailing 12-month distribution coverage is now up to approximately one times, as 0.95x to be exact. We plan to rebuild coverage to our targeted 1.3 times coverage or better, at which time we would evaluate the potential distribution increase or other use of the excess cash flow, including funding growth, reducing debt or repurchasing equity. Leverage and interest coverage are improving, and we expect significant improvement in all credit metrics for the upcoming quarter with the debt reduction from the propane sale. Touching on some specifics for each business segment. The crude segment generated approximately $30 million of adjusted EBITDA this quarter with Grand Mesa contributing $45 million gross and approximately $38 million on a net basis. The remainder of the Crude Logistics segment operated at an approximately $8 million loss for the quarter, which continues to include the loss for shipping commitments on third-party pipelines. However, we entered into agreement at the end of the quarter, whereby we have backstopped our commitments on one pipeline, which we expect we’ll save approximately $26 million for the remainder of this fiscal year. This agreement was contemplated when we gave our guidance range for the year. However, the benefits will not start to be recognized until the second quarter. This benefit will be recognized for the remainder of the contract, which runs through March 2020. Financial volumes on Grand Mesa averaged about 112,000 barrels per day for the quarter and physical volumes averaged about 110,000 barrels per day during the quarter. We continue to extract volumes averaged $115,000 barrels per day for the year as we expect to increase production out of the DJ Basin over the next several quarters, and MVCs began to increase as well. While we expect to benefit from higher differentials out of many of the basins, like the Permian and increased utilization of our transportation assets, we are not adjusting our guidance range for crude segment at this time. However, we are currently expect – expecting to be at the higher end of the guidance range for the year. As a reminder, our FY 2019 adjusted EBITDA guidance for this segment is between $145 million to $155 million, which does not assume any significant capital invested in this segment. Water Solutions’ adjusted EBITDA was $39 million for the quarter, which included a realized loss on skim oil hedges of approximately $4.6 million. Water volumes averaged 920,000 barrels per day this quarter with quarter-over-quarter increases in every basin we operate. Skim oil production was approximately 3,600 barrels per day during the quarter with an average crude cut of 0.39%. The crude cut is specifically lower in the spring and summer months, and we continue to expect the crude cut for the year of approximately 0.42%. Now, continuing to layer and hedges, and have hedged approximately 87% of our expected skim oil production at a weighted average price of approximately $56 per barrel through March 2019, which includes our legacy hedges as well. We’ve hedged approximately 2,200 barrels per day for fiscal 2020 at an average price of $57 per barrel. We also now have hedges covering approximately 1,000 barrels running through April through December of 2020 at approximately $61 per barrel. We’ll continue to layer in positions in the outer years to protect our downside exposure on the skim oil. We believe we would capture significant upside to a crude price rally through the expected increase in volumes. We’re exposed to the basin differentials for the sale of our skim oil. However, we would expect to benefit from those differentials in the Crude Logistics segment, another benefit of our diversified business portfolio. We estimate that the Permian differential had about $1 million impact on just our water results for the first quarter. We invested approximately $175 million in our water business during the first quarter, which included approximately $126 million in acquisitions and about $50 million in organic capital. We closed another $46 million in acquisitions in early July. We now have 26 disposal facilities and 42 wells in the Delaware Basin, along with numerous permits and continue to execute on our plan to have many of those facilities pipeline connected over the next year. We continue to expect to generate adjusted EBITDA between $200 million and $225 million in FY 2019 with over 1.25 million barrels per day on the system by the end of this fiscal year. Adjusted EBITDA for our Liquids segment totaled $10 million this quarter. As I mentioned, margins have improved with fewer railcars and lower average railcar lease costs. We’ve also lowered our costs through the reduction in lease storage and increased our railcar utilization percentage during the quarter. Volumes were strong compared to last year, and we continue to grow our presence, servicing producer needs for liquids takeaway and marketing. We’re taking a hard look at optimizing our proprietary terminals and contracting for winter propane. We will continue to provide propane to Superior through this fiscal year and possibly beyond depending on the economic terms. The Liquids team is systematically targeting new customers and growing volumes with existing customers to support its strategic plan. Our fiscal year guidance range for the Liquids business remains $55 million to $70 million. Refined Products reported adjusted EBITDA of $4 million this quarter, which while that sounds like a very small number is a vast improvement over the same period last year. Gasoline volumes and margins were in line or exceeded expectations during the quarter and remain positive at this time. Hedging our gasoline inventory into a backwardated market continues to be a headwind for this segment. However, rack margins are strong and we do expect to benefit as we move through the blending season starting in September. Our blending business is now fully operational with strong logistical positions in the New York Harbor, which allows for full participation in transatlantic flows as well as domestic pipelines, and in Collins, Mississippi, which is the last injection point for Colonial. We have seen strong rack margins for diesel in certain areas, most notably the Permian Basin, where demand continues to remain strong from oilfield activity. Our FY 2019 guidance range for the refined business remains $55 million to $80 million. Our corporate costs were $8.7 million this quarter, which included approximately $1.7 million in legal costs associated with EPA case, which we recently settled. We continue to expect corporate and other to be $25 million to $30 million of expense, which includes a net benefit from the Retail Propane of approximately $5 million from this first quarter. Maintenance CapEx was $12.4 million this quarter and was slightly higher than expected in our water segment, which totaled $7.1 million due to one-time cost associated with the lightning strike and tubing and pump replacements to improve efficiency of certain wells. Approximately, $3.4 million of maintenance CapEx incurred this quarter was related to the Retail Propane business, which we’ve sold. We are currently expecting remaining CapEx for this fiscal year to be between $5 million to $7 million per quarter and those costs will primarily be in the water segment. In summary, this was a very significant quarter for the partnership, as we announced the sale of the Retail Propane business and the transition into a more streamlined and focused entity. We’ll continue to have a diversified portfolio as we believe that is beneficial to manage the changes in commodity price. However, we have executed on numerous transactions to improve our balance sheet, strengthen our cash flow stream and focus on our strongest opportunities. Thank you for your interest in the partnership. And we’ll now open the line for questions.