The third quarter of 2018 was another strong quarter for Enterprise Product Partners with a reported income of $204m for the third quarter of 2018.

The company invested $1.1bn in capital investments in the third quarter of 2018, and $3.3bn for the first nine months of 2018. Included in these investments were sustaining capital expenditures of $76m for the third quarter of 2018 and $215m for the first nine months of 2018.

 A. J. “Jim” Teague, Chief Executive Officer of Enterprise’s general partner, stated “Robust volumes across our integrated midstream system, from the producing regions to end user and international demand, led to 16 operational and financial records during the quarter. Each of our reporting segments reported increases in gross operating margin compared to the third quarter of 2017. The NGL business segment reported record volumes for pipelines, marine export terminals, fractionation, and fee-based processing. Our crude oil pipelines and propylene business reported near record volumes.”

“Gross operating margin, excluding mark-to-market amounts, was $1.9bn for the third quarter 2018, a $576m increase versus third quarter 2017. Approximately $180m of this increase was associated with assets that began commercial operations over the last twelve months including our Midland-to-Echo crude oil pipeline; the propane dehydrogenation (or PDH) facility, ninth NGL fractionator at the partnership’s Mont Belvieu complex; our Orla I natural gas processing plant; and, the remaining 50 percent of the Delaware Basin gas plant serving the Permian Basin. Volume growth and operational leverage associated with our legacy assets accounted for over $135m of this increase, which excludes increases associated with contractual volume commitments and recent expansions. We estimate $87m of the increase in gross operating margin was attributable to a recovery in processing margins at our legacy natural gas processing assets offset by lower equity NGL production,” Jim said.

Enterprise also announced two additional growth projects with its third quarter results: a 150,000 bpd expansion of its NGL fractionation capacity at Mont Belvieu and its Mentone natural gas processing plant serving the Permian Basin. 

“Including these projects, we currently have $6.6bn of growth capital projects under construction that are scheduled to be completed and begin generating new sources of cash flow between now and 2020. The current environment of strong demand for midstream energy services, coupled with productive discussions with customers to develop new infrastructure projects across all four of our business segments, is the strongest business climate we have seen in recent memory. Our goal is to position Enterprise to capitalise on these opportunities, while self-funding our equity needs to drive continued growth in distributable cash flow per unit and the value of our partnership units,” said Jim.

For more information visit: www.enterpriseproducts.com

6th November 2018

6th November 2018