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Plains GP Holdings, L.P. (PAGP)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 5, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the PAA and PAGP’s Fourth Quarter and Full year Results Conference Call. During today’s call all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, there will be an opportunity for your questions and instructions will be given at that time. [Operator Instructions] And as a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Director of Investor Relations, Ryan Smith. Please go ahead, sir.

Ryan Smith

Analyst

Thanks, Gill. Good morning and welcome to Plains All American Pipeline’s Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2014 Results Conference Call. The slide presentation for today's call is available under the events and presentations tab of the Investor Relations section of our website at www.plainsalllamerican.com. In addition to reviewing the recent results, we will provide forward-looking comments on PAA's outlook for the future. In order to avail ourselves of Safe Harbor precepts that encourage companies to provide this type of information, we direct you to the risks and warnings included in our latest filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today’s presentation will also include references to non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP financial measures can be found under the guidance and non-GAAP reconciliations tab of the Investor Relations sections of our Web site. There you’ll also find a table of selected items that impact the comparability of PAA's financial information between periods. Today’s presentation will also include selected financial information of Plain GP Holdings, or PAGP. As the control entity of PAA, PAGP consolidates the results of PAA and PAA’s general partner into its financial statements. Accordingly, we do not intend to cover PAGP’s GAAP results. Instead, we have included a schedule in the appendix to the slide presentation for today’s call that reconciles PAGP’s distributions received from PAA's general partner, with the distributions paid to PAGP shareholders as well as the condensed consolidated balance sheet. Today’s call will be chaired by Greg Armstrong, Chairman and CEO. Also participating in the call are Harry Pefanis, President and COO; and Al Swanson, Executive Vice President and CFO. In addition to these gentlemen and myself, we have several other members of our management team present and available for the question-and-answer session. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Greg.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Thanks Ryan. Good morning and welcome to all. Anticipating that there is more interest in our comments regarding PAA's report in this past quarter's performance, I intend to keep my opening remarks on 2014 brief and focus mostly on 2015. PAA reported growth in fourth quarter of 2014 results was nearly up at the end of the guidance range published in November 5, 2014. Adjacently, the gap was on the fourth quarter and the full year of 2014 with 594 million and 2.2 billion respectively. Slide 3 contains comparisons for a variety of metrics to our performance in the same quarter of last year versus our fourth quarter 2014 guidance and slide 4 highlights that this is the 52nd consecutive quarter of the PAA's delivery in results in line with the above guidance. Given the events occurring in the current market after our last earnings call, we are pleased with how PAA finished out the final quarter of 2014. As noted on slide 5, we are also pleased to report PAA accomplished each of its 4 goals for 2014 and PAGP exceeded this target of distribution growth for the year as well. For this quarter, PAA recorded a distribution of $0.67.5 cents per common unit or $2.70 per unit on an annualized basis which will be paid next week. This distribution represents an approximate 10% increase over PAA's distribution paid in the same quarter last year and a 2.3% increase over PAA’s distribution paid last quarter. Distribution coverage for the quarter on a standalone basis was 111% and was also 111% for the year. PAA has now increased its distribution in 41 out of the past 43 quarters and consecutively in each of the last 22 quarters. Additionally, PAGP scored a distribution of $0.20.3 cents per share, represents a 27%…

Harry Pefanis

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Thanks, Greg. During my portion of the call, I’ll review our fourth quarter operating results compared to the midpoint of our guidance, the operational assumptions used to generate our 2015 guidance and provide an update to our 2015 capital program. As shown on Slide 10, adjusted segment profit for the transportation segment was $270 million, which is approximately $9 million above the midpoint of our guidance. Volumes of 4.3 million barrels per day were in line with our guidance. Adjusted segment profit per barrel was $0.68 or $0.02 above the midpoint of our guidance. The acquisition of a 50% interest in the BridgeTex pipeline in mid-November was a primary contributable to our financial over performance in the quarter. Adjusted segment profit for the facilities segment was $151 million, which was approximately $4 million above the midpoint of our guidance. Volumes of 122 million barrels are in line with our midpoint of our guidance. However, adjusted segment profit per barrel was slightly above guidance of $0.41. Of our volumes adjusted segment profit was higher than anticipated primarily due to higher throughput of a Cushing terminal and lower than expected operating expenses partially offset by a slight delay in startup of our bigger field crude oil and rail terminal. Adjusted segment profit for the supply and logistics segment was $173 million or approximately $12 million above the midpoint of our guidance. Volumes of 1.3 million barrels per day were in line with the midpoint of our guidance. Adjusted segment profit per barrel was $1.48 or $0.09 above the midpoint of our guidance. The higher than anticipated adjusted segment profit was primarily due to crude oil differentials with more favorable than forecasted partially offset by lower than forecasted profit of NGI was largely shift in timing into the first quarter of 2015. Let…

Al Swanson

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Thanks, Harry. During my portion of the call, I will provide comments on a few yearend counting items and a general overview of our financing activities, capitalization and liquidity, as well as our guidance for the first quarter and full year of 2015. As a result of significant price decreases during the fourth quarter, we had marked to market derivative gains net of operating inventory evaluation adjustments of $166 million which are associated with operating activities in 2015 and beyond. Additionally, we recorded a non-cash impairment totaling $85 million on our long term inventory. As a reminder our long term inventory is comprised of minimum inventory in third party asset and other working inventory that is needed for our commercial operations and is required for the foreseeable future. From a business perspective, we consider the long term inventory to be similar to line sale and do not hedges as doing so would create price risk not eliminated. However, under GAAP accounting rule our long term inventory is subject to impairment testing which resulted in non-cash impairment. Line fill is not subject to this type of impairment testing. As is our standard practice both of these non-cash items were treated as selected items impacting comparability and therefore are not included in our adjusted results. Moving on to finance related items. In the fourth quarter PAA issued approximately 3.6 million units raising $197 million in equity capital through our continuous equity offering program. As illustrated on slide 14, for the full year 2014, we issued 15.4 million units through this program raising $866 million in equity capitals. Since first implementing the program in 2012, we have raised approximately $1.9 billion. In the debt capital market, PAA has raised $1.15 billion through the sale of $500 million of five year senior note and…

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Thanks Al, we are pleased with our PAAs overall performance for 2014. With respect, our 2015 guidance, our planning case incorporates all process hovering around the $50 per barrel level for the entire year and producer activity levels calibrated to that outlook. Based on our understanding of public information put forth so far by number of producers, our approach appears to be on the more conservative side as it appears many are forecasting a pickup in prices during the second half of year, which supports a higher activity level than incorporated into our outlook. As we proceed through the year, actual prices and developments will likely require all of us to re-calibrate to some extent. We believe our approach of honoring the continuation of current prices for the entire year is a reasonable and prudent force of action that hopefully airs on the conservative side and positions us to benefit from an improvement prices and activity levels, while minimizing our down-side during an uncertain environment. We feel good about the gaps range we provided for 2015 operating financial performance, as well as our distribution growth targets and believe our expansion capital program will further strengthen our business platform for many years to come. With this outlook in mind, let me now review our 2015 goals, which are highlighted on slide 20. During 2015, we intend to deliver operating financial performance in line with or above guidance, we intend to successfully execute our 2015 capital program and set the stage for continued growth in 2016 and beyond. Increase our November 2015 annualized distribution by 7% over our November, 2014 distribution levels. And finally, selectively pursue strategic and accretive acquisitions. PAGP ‘s goals also highlighted at the bottom of this slide, which is to increase PAGP’s November 2015 annualized distribution by 21%…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We will go to Brian Zarahn with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Brian Zarahn

Analyst

Good morning.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Morning Brian.

Brian Zarahn

Analyst

Greg, during the oil price slide you have been able to get commitment from new projects in today's Permian announcement but given the new oil price assumptions how do you view the organic opportunity going forward?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Brian, I would tell you that we take a fundamental approach and so ours is kind of grassroots ground up assessment of the resource basin and well by well, county by county analysis so we are picking the spots that we choose to build projects and to work on building future projects. I don't think the overall project portfolio has really changed in the aggregate size, certainly I think there is versus maybe a view of what we would have assumed those projects would have been developed on let’s say six months ago, it's probably pushed out into a ride a little bit but for the near term I really don't think we are going to see much different in what we undertake over the next 12 to 24 months than we not have otherwise. It's really going to affect years there, four and five and you kind of get that - you see that impact Brian in that one slide where we showed the $80 case and the $50 case and the two recovery cases. It's basically just pushing everything out into the ride but it's really not changing from our perspective the projects we were going after. I think it can affect the marginal projects that other might have been chasing to try knock the top off the peak production curve but that hopefully means there are probably less competition as we go forward but our project portfolio really hasn’t changed materially when you say, I would agree.

Brian Zarahn

Analyst

Some more of a timing issue. I guess, I am looking at one of your projects can you give a little update on cap line, has the timing of that potentially changed. I know it's little further out and then how should we think that project does move ahead, what’s the opportunity potentially to bring West Texas barrels over to St. James potentially increasing diamonds capacity, how should we think about just overall asset footprint to get more barrels to the Louisiana gulf coast?

Al Swanson

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

I will let Harry comment on some of the details, but I will just say if you stand back and look at it from 15,000 or 20,000 fee and you look at the interconnectivity, the extension of the Diamond pipeline from Cushing to Memphis where we will cross over and be able to touch the cap line system and as you mentioned the inter connectivity then we already have barrels coming from West Texas, barrels coming from the Rockies into Cushing and then more Canadian crude coming in really puts PAA in the [indiscernible] with respect to be able to service many, many markets. Really can't add much in the way of information regarding the status of cap line then what’s been put in the press so far which is that we - the owners are conducting the study I think in a call earlier this week, Marathon which was the operator acknowledge that they thought they would be bringing the study to conclusion with respect to finishing the analysis in the first quarter and then obviously there is a lot of discussion has to happen with the operator but when you think about it I mean Diamond really adds a lot of additional optionality to the potential to optimize cap line. It's a longer term project Diamond will be in service until 2017 any potential reversal of cap line would have to be after Diamond in service. It's going to largely supported by Canadian crude, supplemented by the ability to source crude and diamond as well. So it's hard to sell out more than Greg already mentioned other than probably when you think of it as a longer term project.

Harry Pefanis

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

And I would view this as a upside option because it really does and contributed significantly to cash flow today, I think the current cash flow that we receive offer cap line is probably in the $10 million a day or less, excuse me, $10 million a year or less so limited downside very significant upside if you start running any kind of meaningful volumes on a reset there.

Brian Zarahn

Analyst

I will stay tuned on that last one from me, on potential M&A, oil prices are expected to recover over the next 12 months. Does that imply a rather small window to do acquisitions and also just what’s your view of the competitive environment to do accretive deals given there is so many potential acquires?

Unidentified Company Representative

Analyst

Yes, this is John, let me kind of back up. I will give you a couple of comments on some things that have actually happened in the market and what we infer from them. We have obviously seen two material asset transactions. One of them -- of note of transaction obviously happened very quickly from our process standpoint. The price was, I would argue attractive from a seller standpoint but sold to the very strategic partner and it was for cash. And the other inference is with the EMP company, high quality EMP companies will capitalize the EMP company. I am doing something this strategic. I am going to bring that up, we would expect to see more of that in the Permian basin Wollaston is. The second transaction I would bring up happen in the Permian little bit smaller, all cash, start ups all about profit equity. I will bring it up because it was a cash transaction again one in a Permian basin. Two, the buyer is bidding on a recovery and activities over the long term. And it probably emulates to what we are going to see going forward on the asset side both from the EMP companies, who are now looking at the sale as they are more attractive alternative to an IPO because of timing and the amount of cash they can get up front and the need and desire to put their capital into ground faster. The third transaction obviously was consolidation among the affiliated parties that is of note which I will segway into kind of what from my perspective we think it's going to happen going forward and on a consolidation side, combinations it feels like we are going to see over the next 12 to 18 months I mean I don't…

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Yes. And Brian I would just say, I think again as John said, we are not really kind of restrict in our thoughts for the next 12 months what we think is going to be 12 to 24 months window. I do think that as John alluded to the synergies and commercial capabilities that we have has more value in this type of environment and they have had over the last three years when we were competing against, lots of availability of capital to everybody at very cheap levels. And the other thing I will just leave you with is that our goal is not to try and pick the bottom and say let’s wait until everything bottoms out before we make a move. We are looking for opportunities to build our business make it stronger, make it accretive, and part of the negotiation for any transaction especially when you have got a lot of synergies that it takes to make a transaction work is who gets the benefit of those synergies to all of them and to the benefit of the buyer or do you have to share some of those with the seller to be able to get the deal done and the answer is probably the later. So we are not here to pick the bottom but we are here to looking for ways to as we look out five and ten and 15 years how do we improve the strength of our business franchise.

Brian Zarahn

Analyst

I appreciate all the color guys. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Steve Sherowski with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Steve Sherowski

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning. Just trying to drill down a little bit more on the guidance revision, I mean it looks like your volumes specially out of your transportation facility segment, are strong at least expectations are the strong volume going into 2015, and I am just wondering what was the primary revision with the guidance does that have anything to do with perhaps like lower your expectation for lower tears on certain pipelines or lower spot volumes just maybe you could talk a little bit about that?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Yes, Steve if you look and we included this concept out there but we have slides like this on each and every area basin. Slide 8 is really an overview of what an $80 environment looks like versus the $50 environment and as you can see the volume growth in the red and the blue lines stays pretty strong through the first three, four, five months of the year and then you start to see a fall off. So, you are correct in the projects that we have we have got good volume but at the margins, the volumes that were not included in the guidance now that we were before that may have been the un-contracted spot volumes we would expect to capture because of the overall material balance that you need to do to protect the capacity certainly adds a lot at the margin. The second thing is I think you saw the facility segment was flat to down slightly that’s the combination of volumes obviously as I mentioned in my comments, at the margin, our volumes competing for an exit out of the Rockies on rail are going to number one, more competition to try and everybody fill up their rail cars and two it's going to compress margin. So the combination of expecting margin compression and having to adjust fees if appropriate to capture that value so it's really a augmentation of all that but it's all really driven by the change between the blue and the red line that you see there as it affects both pipeline and facilities.

Harry Pefanis

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

On the transportation segment, it's not tariff related. Its volume related. It's the tariffs are the tariffs, we just, we had forecasted a low growth, small growth in 2015 and as Greg mentioned it's flattened out, slightly declining in the second half of the year. And hopefully, I mean we are running the $50 case and we are certainly aware that others maybe running expectation for $65 on average and we would just observe that in order to get to $65 average when we have already average done to $50 for the first 33 days of the year, prices would have to go tomorrow to $67 a barrel and stay there for the next 330 days or if you believe if we say $50 barrel for the first quarter, you are going to have to go to $71 barrel for the rest 330 days. So, I think we have got a very realistic outlook about what capitals is going to be available and be invested, what’s going to get invested and more importantly if you go beyond the slide 8 and you look at each and every one of the areas that’s how we build that up. I hope at the end of the day they are right and we are wrong because our being wrong means we get up our numbers. I think when somebody else is wrong that means they got to come down with their numbers and we are out looking up that would up there looking down.

Steve Sherowski

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

That makes sense and that’s helpful. I guess moving on to John's comment earlier, just on potential EMP mid stream asset sales is there any way that you could quantify or scope that opportunity?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

I actually like to prefer not to, okay. Talking too much is about sometime, most of the times I want to respond about lights and [shells] right okay. And the group at the end of the table started to show it was, anyway. So, it really, I do want to kind of restrict some of my comment. I actually think it will be fewer than most people expect because you are going to want to have high quality asset underlined in the mid stream asset and what you are buying. Those are by definition going to the people who have the most -- go through the down turn. So, I think it will be fewer than most people expect today coupled with there are lot of people lining up on the private equity shops, lining up in particular that want to step in and do structured deals. So, it will be active but the under would be, I would take the under that it won't be as much as the market. Thanks. I am probably, I think this will be the driver for the consolidation we have all been anticipating for the last decade and within the industry. But, it will take 12 to 18 plus months to unfold and again it's going to be constructive. I mean that in a positive way. It's not destructive consolidation. Okay.

Steve Sherowski

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Got it. No it's helpful. Let me just have a quick follow-up question. In the past you have mentioned that your supply logistics business has occasionally act as a private equity shop filling demand or back stopping volumes if you can't get those committed volumes from third parties, do you see any potential opportunities for that type of transaction or this sort of deal playing out over the next 12 to 18 months given the weaker commodity price environment?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Well, I may have not understood the comment. I don't think we ever view ourselves like a private equity shop. I think what we have - are able to do is we are able because we have a very active gathering and marketing effort and we basically purchase at the well head roughly 1.1 million barrels a day, where we have a better feel for the market at many and we are able to when we purchase those barrels to determine how we are going to get those to the vast market whether that we are going to move it by pipelines on our pipelines or by rail or on third party pipelines or in the case where we think there is let's say two competing new pipeline projects necessary where at least one is necessary to move product away from the market we certainly have the ability to make a commitment from our S&L group to transportation group because we again have under contract those barrels and we get to select which market they go to. So I wouldn't character that as a private equity approach at all. I think they are just monetizing credit rating more than they are moving barrels on but that’s what the self help is that’s why during these down cycles that you saw on one of the slides I talked about we are able to make sure that the barrels go, the charity begins at home. We are going to send it to our pipelines.

Steve Sherowski

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

That’s helpful that’s it from me. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jeremy Tonet with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Hey Jeremy.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

I was just wondering if you could comment a little bit more on the market structure for container out there. It seems like it's pretty favorable right now and I know generally plains only basin with near term visible as far as guidance is concerned and I was just wondering what potential upside can we see as seeable canting environment persist to the balance of the year?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

You know certainly we haven’t put the bait all canting opportunities that are out there right now there is a lot of considerations that go into those. There is certainly some potential for upside and as you said we do factor into our near term guidance capturing that which is obviously available. It makes sense to lock in. I think I would tell you at this point of time well again there is upside to our numbers, there is other things going on out there I mean if we go back to $44 or $40 price level you might see that yes, we can capture more canting but we may see producers producing less volumes than we forecasted. So I go back to my comments and the conference call that we are comfortable with - we feel good about the guidance. We feel good about the distribution growth and we certainly feel good about the long term but I would hate to try to take one aspect of what’s going on in the market and say that will be added to but nothing else has changed because I think personally you are going to hear changes throughout the year and I think some producers think they can get by with only cutting their budget 20% and our numbers assume that they are going to have to cut 40% I think you are going to see some of those changes ripple through there. So, and it could be difficult I mean there may be more opportunities to capitalize than what you currently see for the next couple of months as markets are dynamic but there will be all steadiness to it as well. So, I would want you to just hang your head on that one very positive note that yes, we were aware of it, we are participating but I just have to tell you there is a heck of a lot going on in the industry right now. We are in a state of transition and I think some are in the state of denial and what we have tried to do is give you a very realistic approaches, it says if you think about it, if I gave you a forecast to say here is our numbers and they are right back where they were let's say before we revised it down, and we say we work on $65 oil that means production - excuse me price would have to go 40% from the current level. I mean it just doesn’t make sense. I mean you wouldn't want me to tell you at $100 oil where it cannot be $140. And so I think we are just - we are not in control of the mechanisms that are driving prices. We are in - on top of the issues that are driving volumes and that’s what we reflected on our guidance.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

That makes sense. Thanks for that. And I was wondering if you could comment a bit on rail and how rail fits into to this new environment where bases differentials are bit tighter, do you see much change in your outlook there?

Harry Pefanis

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Yes, I think we forecasted it into, included into our forecast for 2015 that we expect part of the differentials to be tighter than the normal. It seems like lot of the volumes are going to Cushing because there is sort of the storage full there and once storage gets full Cushing you should see the differentials normalize again rather go to the natural market and Cushing selling up at a pretty high rate and two months it will be full.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Yes, I think we have seen this before where differentials can get upside down for what you got historical relationships are. There is a really good chance we are going to see some of that happen here. But I would tell you in general rail, whether it's the rail road companies, whether it's those that furnish cars, whether those who furnish load and unload fees, are just like service and supply guys coming under pressure to the producers that part of the market is going to come under pressure because there is a lot of excess capacity out there if volumes aren’t filling up everything and it's going to be margin compression. So as Harry said we try to factor that into our guidance hopefully wrong we get to revise our numbers up but it would then be bullish on our part to assume that we are going to do the same volume at the same price for the marginal barrel when we know that there is a excess of loading capacity certainly and then as one of the differentials would come in. again we are seeing already in the last probably 45 days brand trade inside of WTI and today I think it's $6 outside of WTI that doesn’t sound to me like it's a steady state planning model.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Okay. Great. So at this point would it be fair to say that you haven’t differed any of your growth CapEx plans on the rail side?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

No I think the - what we had in for August we were very confident, we put in service the Bakersfield facility we have got a few tweaks back by commitments on the few other facilities and then we were preparing for some additional optionality in some of our unloading facilities.

Al Swanson

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

And then we have got project campaign in Canada which we’ll move heavier Canadian crude.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Okay. Great. Thanks. And then I suppose I will leave with the obligatory M&A question at this point and I was just wondering I mean you guys have a tremendous crude oil platform and I am wondering lot of the crude oil assets I don't think we have seen as much pain at this point or prices has necessarily come down where we have seen more pain in the mid stream markets more outside of crude maybe towards natural gas and gathering and processing, potentially cheaper assets to be picked up there and I am just wondering is that area would be of interest to you guys to diversify further into or is that something outside of what you were looking for?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

We obviously have a substantial NGL business and we have continuously looked at the NGL assets that have been on the market over the last several years and we will continue to look at them. They have probably been impacted from by the commodity downturn as anybody in the midstream space just because you of the processing contract, nature some of the processing contracts and have closed their all the well heads and so we’re trying to really kind of digest what the cash flow generating capacity of that those types of assets and businesses are. I think that’s the first thing even I have to do.

Harry Pefanis

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Yes, I think kind of add onto that Jeremy I think number one we are looking for good deals, we don’t really have the diversification as a strategy, we like the businesses that were in and we certainly like to be bigger in the businesses that we are in. I think where we have the most competitive advantages and then even playing field is which the absence of widely available cheap capital kind of levels playing field little bit is where we have synergies and we have most of those in the crude and the NGL areas so we are not against good deals in other parts of the business where we already have footprint but we are not looking to quote diversify for the sake of diversification we are looking at good deals we think the good deals are mostly come in the years, we have the synergy which will be the crude oil NGL.

Jeremy Tonet

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

That make sense, thanks for that color.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Mark Reichman with Simmons & Co. Please go ahead.

Mark Reichman

Analyst · Simmons & Co. Please go ahead

Good morning just a few questions. With the [contango] in the crude oil market structure, could you just talk a little bit about the contract profile, crude oil storage, discuss your ability to benefit from perhaps were knowing capacity with high rates and also your plans to keep storage available for your own activities?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Simmons & Co. Please go ahead

Well, yes given that we’ve got 120 million barrels plus of storage capacity and I will probably tell you that we are not going to be the company that’s going to go out to our customers and say, there is contango market and we are going to trying the jag the rates up because of that. Primarily because the ones marked, we serve are the ones that are going to use it regardless whether it’s a contango or backward market so Cushing for example we’ve got over 20 million barrels and 90%, 95% is leased to long term customers that use it again regardless I mean, they’re the refiners, the gas that are operational storage and they were the ones that renewed with us when rates were low and at higher rates then what others were getting. I think the ones that probably fall into the category that you are adhering to the ones not in the tier 1, the preferred area of Cushing but they are in tier 2 and tier 3 where they really the only utilization taken just for contango opportunities and I think certainly they are going to do is just what you said if they can. As far as we manage the portfolio of assets we haven’t disclosed exactly how much of that we use for own account but it's meaningful, I mean it's enough to where we can participate in the opportunities but not so much where we got a lot of dead assets so to speak when there is not containment of opportunities and beyond just by the way the contango, you see out in the street, for the WTI there has always been other opportunities on a grade basis or a location issue and so again I would just recap by saying I think we have 5% of our package in Cushing is really for own account. Rest of it is for customer account that’s the way we want it, it's the way MLP with steady state fee based activities growing the distribution wants to have it throughout the rest of the 90 million barrels we have throughout the U.S. and Canada there are areas where we have strategically build off of opportunities or amounts of tankage for our own account and we will use that for these types of opportunities because you might expect the contango doesn’t just exist in Cushing, we are able to access it in other parts of the U.S. and Canada.

Mark Reichman

Analyst · Simmons & Co. Please go ahead

With this challenging environment for producers, are you getting any request for discounts on like transportation contracts and under what circumstances might you discount?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Simmons & Co. Please go ahead

I can't think of 100 reason why I shouldn't answer that one way I should. Just because I mean our customers, we are here to get the best value for the service that we provide and so if I could respectfully decline to give our competitors or our customers road map as to how to get more money out of my pocket I will do that.

Mark Reichman

Analyst · Simmons & Co. Please go ahead

Okay. Fair enough and then just lastly, with respect to the state line pipeline what would you expect in terms of the mix between condensate and crude?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Simmons & Co. Please go ahead

I think state line is probably going to be more of a crude based line but that area you know that whole area is kind of very well, you get areas where you get pockets where there are 40 gravity crude and not too far away you get pockets where there is 50 gravity crude. So we are set up all those systems to segregate the condensate and crude not - crude into Black Tip and then we have got two pipelines from Black Tip to link and then multiple pipelines out of Wink, so we will be able to segregate the condensate if there is market demand we will have it segregated.

Mark Reichman

Analyst · Simmons & Co. Please go ahead

Thank you very much.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Simmons & Co. Please go ahead

Thanks Mark.

Operator

Operator

Our next question will come from Cory Garcia with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Cory Garcia

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Good morning guys. Two quick ones for you, I guess moving back to sort of your commentary on 2015 guidance and recognizing and appreciate actually the conservatives on that $50 price tag but curious if there is any rule of thumb or any color you guys can provide say on sort of different oil price sensitivity that we should just simply back into okay with $80 now it's $50, is the difference or is there different price points in terms of every $5 or $10 move higher from here it equates to x amount of cash flow. Is there a rule of thumb to backing any sort of sensitivity there?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

No, there is not Cory and the reason for that you kind of normally get back to slide 8 to some extend we don't have any direct exposure to the commodity price of any significance at all. We are impacted by what producers have available to invest and that’s tied to their cash flow so we purely run areas for example where in the Permian for example, there is a project at $80 oil made them 35% rate of return and at $50 oil it only makes 5% rate of return. Well that’s an area then we would say gosh we don't expect a lot of volume growth. On the other hand we run numbers that say in that area that only has 5% return if the service and supply cost that they are paying go down 20% that number may go back to 15% to 18% and so there is so many issues that dwell the surface that are going on that are going to impact that and so we do have perspectives in our company as to each areas what we think it's going to take to move that but there is no way that you could put that any kind of normal graph and say here is the impact on PAA because again it's not - we are not the mostly directly exposed to commodity prices to producers, but again there is a lot of factors that can affect their availability of capital and their willingness to drill in particular areas and you almost have to have all the information we have to be able to come up with that so I do think we try to combat that so we don't keep you in the dark. I think we put the most detailed guidance out there on area by area pipeline by pipeline than anybody in the business and we will continue to do that.

Cory Garcia

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Yes, absolutely appreciate that. There is a quite few moving pieces on equation. I guess change in focus up and force to catch one, how should we be thinking about the phasing of cash flow from these projects, obviously a nice uptick in capital over the next two years. Should this be similar to your other projects where the cash flow gestation periods call it a year or 18 months or is there difference sort of phases to look in over the next 12 or 18 months where we can actually see some of that cash flow ramp sooner?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Those are projects that take a little longer time to develop, developing caverns and rail facilities and buying capacity. So it's probably more like a 18 to 24 months, time so you probably starting kicking in mid 2016.

Harry Pefanis

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

And even there Cory, with catalog we had in Cactus where you are going to start off at one level and then the volumes would build up and that’s why when we talk about lot of the capital we are spending now is really not have any impact on 2015. It will start in 2016. you will probably see the full run of it in 2017, some of them in the early 2018.

Cory Garcia

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Yes, great. Thanks for the color guys.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mathew Philips with Clarksons, please go ahead.

Matthew Philips

Analyst · Clarksons, please go ahead

Good morning guys.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Clarksons, please go ahead

Hey Mathew.

Matthew Philips

Analyst · Clarksons, please go ahead

To really beat the dead horse on the M&A topic I mean in the past couple of years you have all invested a lot of capital in the Eagle Ford and the Permian mid count in general I mean did you expect to M&A opportunities to mirror that or do you see this as a chance to enter new basin and then increase the footprint in Canada, you know things like that.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Clarksons, please go ahead

Again, I go back to we are looking for good deals. There is not an areas that we are in right now that we wouldn't want to be bigger and better in that so we are certainly looking at own backyard. There is also areas that we believe that there is opportunities for volumetric growth where we don't have the biggest footprint currently as we like to have, but I know you want to ask me on this call to tell our competitors where we are looking so I don't have to worry about that. As far as again, we are not looking for diversification for the second diversification. We are looking for good deals and areas we can have synergies. I will say that there is an opportunity because of the way we have inter connectivity and would intend to connect any area that we branch out into geographically to capture incremental synergies. So, you shouldn't assume that just because we are not there currently, it doesn’t mean we wouldn't have synergies if we bought a footprint. That the kind of value we can bring to the table. So it's more the same.

Matthew Philips

Analyst · Clarksons, please go ahead

Okay great. Thank you.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Clarksons, please go ahead

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Sunil Sibal with Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning guys and thanks for taking my question. So my question is related really to the rail facilitates segment and the rail projects that you are bringing online in 2015. how should we be thinking about especially volume commitments on those facilities, I mean what kind of in terms of percentages commitments are there and are the commitments sufficient to meet your hurdle rate of mid teens kind of returns on those products?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead

Most of the projects that we are bringing on in 2015 in fact are supported by commitments I think Cactus for example, is one and was got a lot of commitment we also have some plumbing to do to be able to fully optimize the benefit of that. So even though we may have capacity today we hoping line to do - to put 200,000 barrels a day and we don't necessary have the capacity at the other end of the pipe to take 200,000 barrels a day out of it, move on to the systems that’s why it's important for us to expand the JV. But having said that we have sufficient commitments on that and several of the other projects, Eagle Ford etcetera to support the expansion of those and meet our minimum return. In some cases the minimum rate of return is maybe 100 or 200 basis points over our cost and capital which won't get you to the mid teens, but then the optionality or the ability for spot barrels to fill up the Permian space to get you there which again is the function of kind of what the overall volume level is in the areas and what markets we serve versus others. So, I think from the downside protection we are in very good shape. From an upside opportunities we have got room to run.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead

Okay, that’s helpful. And then on the M&A front, I think you previously talked about support from the GP especially bidding on assets in this competitive environment, I was curious if there is any updated thoughts there with regard to the support from GP or IDR concessions?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead

Well, we have been prepared for this type of market for a while. So, we have no less tools than what we had coming into this and we probably have more desire to use the tool that we have. So, there is support today as they ever had been and probably more so specially when we see good deal.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead

And then just last one from me, when you look at 2015 CapEx program in terms of the funding you obviously know did the $1 billion facility, how should we be thinking about supporting the 2015 program from dead end equity perspective?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead

Yes, our plan will be to continue to finance our growth capital with equity in long term debt. The liquidity facility was designed to bolster our liquidity in, but we think will be fairly on certain times. So again the plan will be raising equity either through our continuous equity offering program or through underwritten offering and accessing the senior notes market at some point.

Harry Pefanis

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead

Yes, I would say Sunil, the important thing is we will continue to keep a balanced funding approach. We don't use the real low slightly higher than free short term debt rates when we look at our analysis. So, we are using basically the ten year rate with our credit spread on top of it and then we are using the equity. So it's about 55%, 45%, 55% equity, 45% debt and that’s what we will continue to do. So, no change there but again keep in mind we kind of entered into this opportunities in the fourth quarter last year prefunded with the opportunity to take advantage of acquisitions and we did and we have got additional funding this year on the capital program but again nothing that’s going to be significant hurdle.

Sunil Sibal

Analyst · Global Hunter Securities. Please go ahead

Okay. Very helpful. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from [Lin Chen with Height], please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. Can you comment a little bit more about their current contango market and how long do you think will it last. You just mentioned that Cushing is filling up very quickly maybe full in two months or so. So how will it change their contango market?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Well, part of it is going to be a function of what happens in the other market. Once it get forming obviously then the differential is going to change to pull the barrel out of Cushing, you are going to have to have some differential that supports the movement because to get from Cushing to gulf coast which is about $3 plus there and right now the markets don't support that movement at the margin. So, I think the answer is, depending on what happens to demand and refinery turnarounds etcetera, you are going to see a little bit like if you are familiar with that name [Whack Molly] you are going to see certain things pop up and you are going to knock that down, and something else is going to pop up. So, if we had the absolute road map what it looks like we probably wouldn't share on this phone call because it would be a competitive advantage but we do think we have assets in all the right areas to be able to be a meaningful participant in that type of favorable market, favorable for our business model maybe not so favorable for others.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

One of the refineries talk about their contango market yesterday or the day before yesterday on their conference call said, they expected their contango in the first half of this year and then like less contango in second half of this year or so. Do you think that makes sense?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

I had to know more what their fundamental assumptions are and again it maybe specific to their regions that they are in. So, I really couldn’t comment on those who are having more context.

Harry Pefanis

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

If you need more demand or less supply to change the dynamics of the contango market it will be contango fundamental balance and fundamental start pulling crude out of storage.

Al Swanson

Analyst · JP Morgan. Please go ahead

Yes, there is some quality issues Lin, also will affect the ability to bleed the storage down so that you don't have a continued contango market because a lot of what we are producing today that is not wanted by the market is the lightest crude and condensate to the extend that’s getting stored, you are not only going to have to change in market structure but you got to change in quality differentials to be able to balance that out. So, I think we would probably - if we had the air, we would air on the side of it, once it gets in pulled in contango it could stay here longer than we think unless obviously Saudi Arabia comes out July 1, and so they are going to cut reduction a significant amount it might change the market almost immediately both more for perception and reality but it still changes. So, I would say anybody that actually says they know what the market is going to do, well I’ll just leave it at that it will be tough to really have that kind of vision.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

And our final question will comes from _ please go ahead.

Selman Akyol

Analyst

Thank you, good morning. One quick question here just regarding the facility segment guidance, your per barrel profit goes to $0.41 to $0.38 for 2015. I think in some of the previous comments you made that that was really due to the more competitive rail rates and in the fourth quarter that you just reported facilities you really called out your reference to declining natural gas storage rates. So, the question I am asking here is that abated in terms of natural gas storage rates or is that still a fairly strong headwind going into 2015 and is reflected in the declining rates as well?

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

It's included, but natural gas storage is only 4% of total EBITDA or something like - it's not huge. I mean it's - so point being is this going to be the driver for that, it's other factors but all that is wrapped up, I would say the natural gas storage is still placing headwinds. I think we had indicated a year ago that we thought this was probably going to stay around for three years. Hopefully still only has two year left but there is no question it hasn’t abated from where it was.

Harry Pefanis

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

That’s not really a big between 2014, 2015. Gas processing in the gulf coast is also included in the facility segment and those margins will be tighter in 2015 than they were in 2014.

Selman Akyol

Analyst

Alright thanks very much.

Greg Armstrong

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead

Thank you, Selman.

Operator

Operator

We have no further questions.

A - Greg Armstrong

Analyst

We really appreciate everybody dialing in, for those who have invested in Plains, we appreciate your confidence in this and we look to update you on activities in the first quarter, for the first quarter in May. Thank you.