Unless otherwise indicated, the terms "NuStar Energy," "NS," "the Partnership,"
"we," "our" and "us" are used in this report to refer to NuStar Energy L.P., to
one or more of our consolidated subsidiaries or to all of them taken as a whole.
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION
In this Form 10-Q, we make certain forward-looking statements, such as
statements regarding our plans, strategies, objectives, expectations, estimates,
predictions, projections, assumptions, intentions, resources and the future
impact of the coronavirus, or COVID-19, the responses thereto, the
Russia-Ukraine conflict, economic activity and the actions by oil producing
nations on our business. While these forward-looking statements, and any
assumptions upon which they are based, are made in good faith and reflect our
current judgment regarding the direction of our business, actual results will
almost always vary, sometimes materially, from any estimates, predictions,
projections, assumptions or other future performance suggested in this report.
These forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the words
"anticipates," "believes," "expects," "plans," "intends," "estimates,"
"forecasts," "budgets," "projects," "will," "could," "should," "may" and similar
expressions. These statements reflect our current views with regard to future
events and are subject to various risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which
may cause actual results to differ materially. Please read Item 1A. "Risk
Factors" contained in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended
December 31, 2021, as well as additional information provided from time to time
in our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, for a
discussion of certain of those risks, uncertainties and assumptions.
If one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or if the underlying
assumptions prove incorrect, our actual results may vary materially from those
described in any forward-looking statement. Other unknown or unpredictable
factors could also have material adverse effects on our future results. Readers
are cautioned not to place undue reliance on this forward-looking information,
which is as of the date of this Form 10-Q. We do not intend to update these
statements unless we are required by the securities laws to do so, and we
undertake no obligation to publicly release the result of any revisions to any
such forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or
circumstances after the date of this report or to reflect the occurrence of
unanticipated events.
Our Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of
Operations is presented in five sections:
•Overview, including Trends and Outlook
•Results of Operations
•Liquidity and Capital Resources
•Critical Accounting Policies
•New Accounting Pronouncements
OVERVIEW
NuStar Energy L.P. (NYSE: NS) is primarily engaged in the transportation,
terminalling and storage of petroleum products and renewable fuels and the
transportation of anhydrous ammonia. Our business is managed under the direction
of the board of directors of NuStar GP, LLC, the general partner of our general
partner, Riverwalk Logistics, L.P., both of which are indirectly wholly owned
subsidiaries of ours.
Our operations consist of three reportable business segments: pipeline, storage
and fuels marketing. As of September 30, 2022, our assets included 9,970 miles
of pipeline and 63 terminal and storage facilities, which provided approximately
49 million barrels of storage capacity. We conduct our operations through our
subsidiaries, primarily NuStar Logistics, L.P. (NuStar Logistics) and NuStar
Pipeline Operating Partnership L.P. (NuPOP). We generate revenue primarily from:
•tariffs for transportation through our pipelines;
•fees for the use of our terminal and storage facilities and related ancillary
services; and
•sales of petroleum products.
The following factors affect the results of our operations:
•economic factors and price volatility;
•industry factors, such as changes in the prices of petroleum products that
affect demand or production, or regulatory changes that could increase costs or
impose restrictions on operations;
•factors that affect our customers and the markets they serve, such as
utilization rates and maintenance turnaround schedules of our refining company
customers and drilling activity by our crude oil production customers;
•company-specific factors, such as facility integrity issues, maintenance
requirements and outages that impact the throughput rates of our assets; and
•seasonal factors that affect the demand for products transported by and/or
stored in our assets and the demand for products we sell.
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Recent Development
On April 29, 2022, we sold the equity interests in our wholly owned subsidiaries
that owned our Point Tupper terminal facility (the Point Tupper Terminal
Operations) to EverWind Fuels for $60.0 million (the Point Tupper Terminal
Disposition). The terminal facility had a storage capacity of 7.8 million
barrels and was included in the storage segment. We recognized a non-cash
pre-tax impairment loss of $46.1 million in the first quarter of 2022. Please
refer to Note 3 of the Condensed Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in
Item 1. "Financial Statements" for additional information.
Other Events
Eastern U.S. Terminals Disposition. On October 8, 2021, we completed the sale of
nine U.S. terminal and storage facilities, including all our North East
Terminals and one terminal in Florida (the Eastern U.S. Terminal Operations) to
Sunoco LP for $250.0 million (the Eastern U.S. Terminals Disposition). The
terminals had an aggregate storage capacity of 14.8 million barrels and were
included in the storage segment. We recorded non-cash asset impairment losses of
$95.7 million and $34.1 million, respectively, in the third quarter of 2021.
Houston Pipeline Impairment. In the third quarter of 2021, we recorded a
non-cash asset impairment charge of $59.2 million within our pipeline segment
related to our refined product pipeline extending from Mt. Belvieu, Texas to
Corpus Christi, Texas (the Houston Pipeline).
Please refer to Note 3 of the Condensed Notes to Consolidated Financial
Statements in Item 1. "Financial Statements" for additional information on the
Eastern U.S. Terminals Disposition and the Houston Pipeline impairment.
Trends and Outlook
In 2022, we continue to execute our plan to improve our leverage and strengthen
our balance sheet. For the full-year 2022, we expect to fund all of our
expenses, distribution requirements and capital expenditures using internally
generated cash flows as we did in 2021. We also expect to repurchase as much as
one-third of the Series D Preferred Units outstanding by the end of 2022,
primarily with borrowings under our revolving credit agreement, and we will
continue to evaluate other sources of liquidity to manage the planned redemption
of the Series D Preferred Units in 2023 and 2024. We plan to continue to manage
our operations with fiscal discipline and to evaluate our capital expenditures
as we remain committed to increasing the amount by which our internally
generated cash flows exceed our expenses, distribution requirements and capital
expenditures, thereby increasing our financial flexibility in 2022 and beyond.
We expect sustained healthy U.S. shale production growth to remain through the
end of 2022 from improving global demand as well as supply constraints from the
Russia-Ukraine conflict. For the full-year 2022, we expect our Permian Crude
System volumes to continue to benefit from strong producer volume growth and the
completion of pipeline expansion projects. Prices for motor fuels this year have
been, and remain, at higher levels than in previous years and global inflation
continues to raise prices for most, if not all, goods and services, which many
economists have predicted will increase downward pressure on consumer demand
across sectors, which would, in turn, reduce demand for the transportation and
storage services we provide. Based on historic performance and current trends,
we expect our refined products pipeline systems to continue to perform at or
above 100% of our pre-pandemic levels through 2022, due in part to the fact that
our systems are located in the mid-continent and Texas where unavailability of
alternative modes of transportation makes the demand for motor fuels relatively
inelastic, especially in comparison to more densely populated coastal U.S.
regions. In addition, we expect our pipeline systems to benefit from the
positive revenue impact of our tariff indexation increases effective July 1,
2022, which will help us to counterbalance the impact of inflation on our
business.
While many terminals in our storage segment are somewhat insulated from demand
volatility due to contracted rates for storage and minimum volume commitments,
revenue at our St. James facility, where some contract expirations this year are
coinciding with the ongoing economic uncertainty and continued crude price
backwardation, has been negatively impacted as some customers have declined to
renew until market trends improve. Conversely, we expect our West Coast region
to continue to benefit from our recent completion of two more renewable fuel
projects, which continues to grow our renewable fuels distribution system and
further solidifies the significant role NuStar plays in facilitating
California's transition to low-carbon renewable fuels.
Overall, the lingering impact of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to ripple
through the U.S. economy, notably in the form of rising inflation and supply
chain issues. The Russia-Ukraine conflict seems to have only amplified inflation
and supply chain constraints so far in 2022. The U.S. Federal Reserve has raised
interest rates several times in 2022 and is expected to implement additional
increases, which will increase the cost of our variable-rate debt. In addition,
the distribution rates on our 8.50% Series A, 7.625% Series B and 9.00% Series C
Fixed-to-Floating Rate Cumulative Redeemable Perpetual Preferred Units have
converted, or will convert by year-end 2022, from fixed rates to floating rates
that increase or decrease with prevailing interest rates. On the other hand, our
ability to pass along rate increases reflecting changes in producer and/or
consumer price indices to our customers, under our tariffs and contracts, should
help to counterbalance the impact of inflation on our costs.
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Our outlook for the partnership, both overall and for any of our segments, may
change, as we base our expectations on our continuing evaluation of several
factors, many of which are outside our control. These factors include, but are
not limited to, uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and the
Russia-Ukraine conflict; uncertainty surrounding future production decisions by
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and other oil-producing
nations (OPEC+); the state of the economy and the capital markets; changes to
our customers' refinery maintenance schedules and unplanned refinery downtime;
crude oil prices; the supply of and demand for petroleum products, renewable
fuels and anhydrous ammonia; demand for our transportation and storage services;
the availability and costs of personnel, equipment, supplies and services
essential to our operations; the ability to obtain timely permitting approvals;
and changes in laws and regulations affecting our operations.
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