Delek Logistics Partners LP

NYSE:DKL

Earnings Call Transcript 2019-Q3

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the third quarter earnings call for Delek Logistics Partners LP. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star, one on your telephone. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star, zero.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Blake Fernandez, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Market Intelligence. Thank you, please go ahead.

[Blake Fernandez]

Thank you Jerome, and good morning. I would like to thank everyone for joining us on this webcast to discuss Delek Logistics Partners’ third quarter 2019 financial results. Joining me on today’s call will be Uzi Yemin, our general partners Chairman and CEO, and Assaf Ginzburg, CFO, as well as other members of our management team.

As a reminder, this conference call may contain forward-looking statements as that term is defined under federal securities laws. For this purpose, any statements made during this call that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Without limiting the foregoing, the words believes, anticipates, plans, expects, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. You are cautioned that these statements may be affected by important factors set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission in our last earnings release. As a result, actual operations or results may differ materially from the results discussed in forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

In addition to reporting financial results in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP, we report certain non-GAAP financial results. Investors are encouraged to review the reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable GAAP results, which can be found in the press release which is posted on the Investor Relations section of our website.

On today’s call, Assaf will begin with a financial review, then I will review results, and then Uzi will offer a few closing strategic remarks.

With that, I will turn the call over to Assaf.

[Assaf Ginzburg]

Thanks Blake. Our third quarter performance benefited from the full quarter contribution from Red River JV acquisition, completed in May of this year, and improved results from the Paline Pipeline, East Texas marketing, and SALA Gathering system on a year-over-year basis. Our DCF was approximately $33.7 million in the third quarter 2019 compared to $32.4 million in the third quarter 2018. Our DCF coverage was 1.11 times for the third quarter 2019 compared to 1.25 times in the prior year period. EBITDA was a record $52 million which represents a 20% increase over the prior year period.

Based on our performance and outlook, we increased our quarterly distribution to $0.88 per limited unit for the quarter ended September 30, 2019. This distribution will be paid on November 12, 2019, a 3.5% increase from the second quarter of 2019. This is our 257th consecutive quarterly increase and is 11.4% higher than our third quarter 2018 distribution.

At September 30, 2019, DKL had approximately $254 million of available capacity on our $850 million credit facility. Our total debt was approximately $841 million and a total leverage ratio of 4.6 times is within the 5.2 times currently allowable under our credit facility.

Now I will turn the call over to Blake to discuss the results.

[Blake Fernandez]

Thanks Assaf. For the third quarter 2019, Delek Logistics reported net income attributable to all partners of $30.5 million, which compares to $23.3 million in the prior year period. Limited Partners interest in net income in the third quarter was $21.6 million or $0.89 per unit compared to $16.7 million or $0.68 per unit in the prior year.

In our pipelines and transportation segment, the third quarter 2019 contribution margin was $27.1 million compared to $25.2 million in the third quarter of last year. This increase was primarily attributable to improved performance from the Paline Pipeline. The Paline Pipeline benefited from a higher tariff after the incentive rate expired at the end of February 2019.

Operating expenses increased to $12.5 million in the third quarter of 2019 from $9.5 million in the prior year period, primarily due to outside services and employee expenses. We expect elevated operating expenses in the fourth quarter due to some one-off remediation expenses.

In our wholesale marketing and terminaling segment, the contribution margin was $19.4 million in the third quarter of this year, which was an increase from $17.9 million in the prior year. This increase was due to higher East Texas marketing gross margin, trucking revenues, and improved Big Spring terminaling operations, including asphalt. This was partially offset by a lower gross margin in our West Texas operations. Operating expenses of $5.9 million were in line with the prior year period.

Our West Texas wholesale gross margin was $4.82 per barrel in the third quarter compared to $4.65 per barrel in the third quarter of the prior year. Throughput in West Texas was 9,500 barrels per day compared to 12,200 barrels per day in the prior year period.

During the third quarter of 2019, our equity income from joint venture crude oil pipelines was approximately $8.4 million compared to income of $1.9 million in the prior year period. Capital expenditures were approximately $4 million in third quarter of 2019, including $281,000 discretionary spending and $3.7 million of sustaining maintenance. During the third quarter of 2019, approximately $786,000 was reimbursed by Delek U.S. in third quarter of 2018. Total capital expenditures were $3 million. For full year 2019, our gross capex forecast is $9.8 million, which includes $1.5 million of discretionary and $8.3 million of maintenance capex before reimbursement by Delek U.S. We expect approximately $5 million of maintenance capital expenditures to be reimbursed in 2019.

With that, I will turn the call over to Uzi for his closing comments.

[Uzi Yemin, President, Chief Executive Officer]

Thank you Blake, and good morning everybody. The Red River transaction provided a full quarter’s contribution to DKL and continues to perform well. We are expecting increased cash flow generation upon completion of the expansion in the first half of next year. With Red River in the portfolio, it provides the next step in our growth.

We continue to evaluate options to simplify IDRs, organic growth, and drop-down opportunities from our sponsor, DK. As DK continues to focus on realizing company-owned versus third party assets to meet their logistics needs, it should increase the opportunity to partner with our sponsor to provide future growth at DKL.

With continued growth at DKL, this should support our annual distribution growth for limited partner units of at least 10% through 2019 while maintaining appropriate annual distribution coverage.

With that, Operator, can you please open the call for questions?

[Operator]

There are no questions at this time. Please continue.

[Uzi Yemin, President, Chief Executive Officer]

Well, I’d like to thank everybody around the table for the hard work that they put together in this quarter that was a record quarter for our logistics segment, or DKL. I’d like to thank the board of directors for their trust in us. Of course, I’d like to thank you analysts and mainly investors for your continued trust in our company and continued investing in our company. Mainly, I’d like to thank each one of our employees for making this company the great company it is.

We’ll talk to you soon. Have a great day, thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you again for joining us today. This concludes today’s conference call. You may all disconnect. Have a great day.