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 decline in 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, 2020 and this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, 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 of petroleum products and anhydrous ammonia, and the terminalling and storage of petroleum products and renewable fuels. 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 March 31, 2021, our assets included 9,915 miles of
pipeline and 73 terminal and storage facilities, which provide approximately 72
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 transporting crude oil, refined products and anhydrous ammonia
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 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 Developments
COVID-19. The coronavirus, or COVID-19, had a severe negative impact on global
economic activity during 2020, significantly reducing demand for petroleum
products and increasing the volatility of crude oil prices, beginning in March
2020. While a number of countries, including the United States, have made
significant progress in 2021 in deploying COVID-19 vaccines, which has improved
economic conditions and outlook in those nations, many more continue to struggle
to obtain and/or disseminate vaccinations to their populace, which is
frustrating widespread global economic recovery. Even in the United States, if
we are unable to vaccinate a sufficient proportion of people to reach herd
immunity or if vaccine-resistant strains emerge, we may face additional
resurgence in COVID-19 case count in some regions, which could slow the pace of
domestic economic improvement and undermine rebounding demand in the markets our
assets serve.

NuStar continues to take measures to ensure we operate safely and reliably and maintain a safe working environment for our employees at our locations across North America. In 2020, we implemented social distancing through revised shift schedules, work-from-home policies and designated remote work locations where appropriate, restricted non-essential business travel, required testing and self-screening for employees and contractors and other measures. Although the number of cases of COVID-19 has fallen across North America, we are continuing to closely monitor each of our locations to ensure the safety of our employees as well as the operational functionality of each location.

Senior Notes. On February 1, 2021, we repaid our $300.0 million of 6.75% senior notes at maturity with borrowings under our revolving credit agreement.

Term Loan Credit Agreement. On February 16, 2021, we terminated an unsecured term loan credit agreement with certain lenders and Oaktree Fund Administration, LLC, as administrative agent for the lenders (the Term Loan). Please refer to Note 5 of the Condensed Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 1. "Financial Statements" for further discussion.

Trends and Outlook As America begins to recover from the impact of COVID-19 and begins returning to normal activity and growth, we are seeing signs of stabilization and improvement, across the U.S. and in NuStar's footprint. U.S. refined product demand outlook has improved as COVID-19 vaccinations have continued to allow more and more Americans to return to normal day-to-day activities.

Within our pipeline segment, refined product demand on NuStar's systems averaged near 100% of pre-pandemic demand in January and averaged 95% for the first quarter. We continue to expect our refined products systems to perform at around 100% of our pre-pandemic levels for the remainder of this year. Stronger refined product demand is contributing to higher crude prices, which are improving expectations for U.S. shale production, particularly in the Permian Basin. We believe the Permian Basin, and our system in particular, has geological advantages over other shale plays, including lower production costs and higher product quality, that have benefited and will continue to benefit our assets in 2021 as crude demand, price and production continue to recover. Sustained healthy U.S. shale production growth should drive U.S. export growth in the future, which should be positive for increased volumes on our Corpus Christi Crude System. We continue to expect our storage segment to benefit from growth of our renewable fuels distribution system on the West Coast, particularly as California replaces conventional fuels with renewable diesel and other renewable fuels, and other states, in the Northwest and beyond, adopt similar low-carbon fuel standards that prioritize the renewable fuels our assets are positioned to facilitate.

We expect our second quarter 2021 operational results and throughputs for our pipeline segment to be higher than the comparable period due to the precipitous decline in overall demand for refined petroleum products in the second quarter of 2020 following stay-home orders, business closures and other measures to reduce the spread of the virus. For our storage segment, we expect our second quarter 2021 results to be comparable to the prior year's quarter as we continue to benefit from the contango market from last spring and renewable fuels-related projects at our West Coast terminals. We expect our full-year 2021 results to be comparable to 2020.

We plan to continue to manage our operations with fiscal discipline in this turbulent environment and to evaluate divestitures of non-core assets to reduce leverage. For the full-year 2021, we expect reliability and strategic capital expenditures to be comparable to 2020. We expect to fund all of our expenses, distribution requirements and capital expenditures for the full-year 2021 using internally generated cash flows.

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, including its duration and lingering impacts to the economy; 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


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Table of Contents unplanned refinery downtime; crude oil prices; the supply of and demand for crude oil, refined products and anhydrous ammonia; demand for our transportation and storage services; the availability of personnel, equipment and services essential to our operations; the ability to obtain timely permitting approvals; and changes in laws and regulations affecting our operations. Please read Item 1A. "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 and this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for additional discussion on how these factors could affect our operations.

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