Dirty Little Secrets

Much the way that COVID-19 accelerated the trends toward working from anywhere, shopping online, and exercising at home, the pandemic and its far-reaching energy-market effects fast-forwarded the challenges that many North American midstream companies had been expecting to face more gradually through the 2020s. The good news — if you can call it that — is that a lot of economic pain was front-loaded into the past 10 months. The bad news is that a sizable subset of midstreamers is saddled with too much capacity in shale basins where drilling activity and production are down sharply. For them, there’s still more pain ahead, even bankruptcy in a few cases. In today’s blog, we discuss highlights from the newly released 2021 edition of East Daley Capital’s Dirty Little Secrets report about what’s ahead for the midstream sector and 27 leading companies within it.

There’s no question, the pressures on many U.S. midstream companies have been steadily increasing for some time now, and the past few months have really tested them. Like exploration and production companies, refiners, and others in the energy space, midstreamers have seen their well-considered plans for 2020 upended by demand destruction, commodity-price gyrations, and cutbacks in capex, drilling, and production. While it may be tempting to simply wait out the last few weeks of this crazy, unforgettable year and hope that 2021 will be better, there’s actually at least some good news out there for the midstream sector, and good reason to believe that midstreamers have been positioning themselves to financially weather whatever next year may have in store. Today, we discuss highlights from East Daley Capital’s newly issued 2021 Midstream Guidance Outlook, which focuses on key trends affecting midstream asset owners.

For much of the 2010s, the U.S. midstream sector has been on a development spree. New or expanded everything — pipelines, gas processing plants, fractionators, storage facilities, liquefaction trains, export terminals and more — all to keep pace with the production gains of the Shale Era. But now, at the start of the 2020s, the build-out frenzy appears to be fizzling and flickering. Midstreamers’ capital spending plans are on the decline, at least for now, as most of the infrastructure needed to handle current and expected volumes for the next few years is either in place or under construction. But that doesn’t mean things won’t stay interesting — far from it. This new decade brings with it a period of midstream-sector strategizing and portfolio rejiggering. Today, we discuss highlights from East Daley Capital’s newly released “Dirty Little Secrets” report about the next phase of midstream strategy.

As a most eventful decade for the U.S. energy industry draws to a close and 2020 looms, it’s a perfect time to consider what’s ahead for the midstream sector — and, more important from an investor’s standpoint, for the individual companies within it. The last few years have driven home the point that while all midstreamers are impacted to some degree by what happens on a macro-level, the relative success of each company is tied to the myriad decisions its leaders make over time regarding which basins and hubs to focus on and which assets to build, expand, acquire or divest. Assessing these micro-level assets and the contributions they each make to a company’s bottom line requires particularly deep analysis. Today, we discuss key themes and findings from East Daley Capital’s newly issued 2020 Midstream Guidance Outlook.

The forward curve for natural gas supports 2019 production growth that is likely to far outpace expected gains in gas demand. This impending supply/demand imbalance suggests that gas prices will be pressured lower. Lower gas prices will boost demand, but there are real limits to how much demand can rise in the short term. What will really be needed to balance the market is for producers in at least a few plays — the Marcellus and Utica among them — to rethink and rework their 2019 production plans. Which raises the questions, how much will production growth need to be cut, and where will the bulk of the pruning occur? Today, we continue our review of key themes and findings in East Daley Capital’s newly updated “Dirty Little Secrets” report on the midstream sector.

There’s a case to be made that midstream-sector stocks are being undervalued, in part because of the market’s stubborn adherence to an old — and now outdated — dictum that links midstream prospects to the price of crude oil. That maxim, based largely on the belief that lower prices result in declining production and pipeline volumes, has been undone by the Shale Revolution’s proven promise that, thanks to remarkable efficiency gains, production of crude, natural gas and NGLs can increase even during periods of not-so-stellar prices. Despite this new Shale Era rule, the outlook for individual midstream players can vary widely, depending on a number of factors, including their assets’ locations, their exposure to shipper-contract roll-offs and their strategies for growth. Today, we discuss key themes and findings from East Daley Capital’s newly updated “Dirty Little Secrets” report assessing the owners of U.S. pipelines, processing and storage facilities, export terminals and other midstream assets.

While the recently enacted federal tax cuts have been widely viewed as a boon to corporate America, including businesses in the energy sector, a new report by our friends at East Daley Capital finds a major drawback in the law for midstream companies. By slashing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% — and by allowing partnerships and “pass-through” entities to take a 20% deduction on their income pre-tax — the new law will increase the return on equity that midstreamers earn on their crude oil, NGL and natural gas pipelines. That may well lead the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to re-set its formula rates for at least some gas pipelines, and also is likely to heighten regulatory scrutiny of the rates charged by the owners of oil and NGL pipelines. Today, we continue our review of East Daley’s new “Dirty Little Secrets” report with a look at the tax law, the higher pipeline ROEs resulting from the tax cuts, and the midstream companies that may be affected most.

The recent rise in crude oil prices to levels not seen since late 2014 certainly has captured everyone’s attention, and generally boosted the financial prospects for U.S. producers and midstreamers alike. But while it’s often said that a rising tide lifts all boats, the fact is that accurately assessing the relative value of — and prospects for — specific midstream energy companies requires a deep, detailed analysis. Where are their assets located? How do they complement each other? Do their contractual obligations help or hinder? Sure, things may be looking up in the midstream sector in a big-picture sense, but that hardly makes every midstream company a winner. Today, we review highlights from a new East Daley Capital report that shines a bright light on 28 U.S. midstream companies.