Delek Logistics Partners Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
May 7, 2024

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Hello, and thank you for standing by. My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Delek Logistics Partners First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

Operator

I would now like to turn the conference over to Rosie Zuklic, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Good morning,

Speaker 1

and welcome to the Delek Logistics Partners' 1st quarter earnings conference call. Participants on today's call will include Avigal Sorek, President Joseph Israel, EVP, Operations Ruben Spiegel, EVP and Chief Financial Officer and Odeli Sakhazi, SVP, Delek Logistics. As a reminder, this conference call will contain forward looking statements as defined under the federal securities laws, including, without limitation, statements regarding guidance and future business outlook. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from our forecast. For more information, please refer to the risk factors discussed in the partnership's most recently filed annual report on Form 10 ks and quarterly report on Form 10 Q filed with the SEC, along with the press release associated with this call.

Speaker 1

The partnership assumes no obligation to update any forward looking statements or information, which speak as of their respective dates. I'll now turn the call over to Abigail for opening remarks. Abigail?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Rosy. Delek Logistics Partners reported a strong Q1. We once again exceeded $100,000,000 of the quarterly EBITDA. I'm pleased with our consistent performance. We saw continued strong performance from our mill and gathering operations and our operation in the Delaware Basin have started to exceed our expectations on a consistent basis.

Speaker 2

This validates our strong position in the Permian Basin. We have come a long way with DKL. Deck Logistics started back in 2012 as a classic dropdown story. It has evolved into something bigger. We started to develop 3rd party business back in 2016 focusing in the Midland and the Delaware Basins.

Speaker 2

Today, approximately 50% of our EBITDA is from third party business. Our growth efforts have been focused on gathering and processing segment. Our Midland Gathering system has premier asset in the heart of the Midland Basin. We built this system organically. It's now gathered up to 230,000 barrels per day and has around 350,000 of dedicated acreage contracted until 2,030.

Speaker 2

It's an attractive asset that provides the growth engine of our midstream operation. Moving to the Delaware Gathering business. We build this business inorganically and organically. The system provides complete crude, gas and water gathering to our customers. We have significant growth opportunities in our system.

Speaker 2

On a capital structure, we improved Delek Logistics, financial strength and flexibility. Ruben will speak to this. The debt and equity offering improved our liquidity to approximately $800,000,000 I'm proud of the team for their successfully executing these transactions. In May, the Board approved the 45th consecutive increase in the quarterly distribution to $1.07 per unit. Direct Logistics has shown strong track record of delivering value to our unitholders.

Speaker 2

We feel confident in our ability to maintain strong distribution to our investors. I will now hand it over to Ruben.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Abigail. Before I start the financial highlights, I wanted to give a little color on the recent debt and equity offerings. The combination of the primary equity issuance and extending our debt to 2029 improved Delek Logistics' ability to pursue its growth plans through improved leverage and financial liquidity. It also increased float in the units, attracting new investors and increasing the daily volume traded. As Avigal mentioned, we increased liquidity to approximately 800,000,000 dollars This was about $300,000,000 prior to these transactions.

Speaker 3

In addition, we reduced the leverage ratio to 4.01 from 4.34 last quarter. We see a pathway to continue improvement in the leverage ratio through the balance of the year. Moving on to the quarter results. The Q1 EBITDA was $101,500,000 compared to $93,200,000 in the same period of 2023. Distributable cash flow was $68,000,000 and the DCF coverage ratio was 1.35 times.

Speaker 3

For the Gathering and Processing segment, EBITDA for the quarter was $57,800,000 compared to $55,400,000 in the Q1 of 2023. The increase was primarily due to higher throughput from Delek Logistics Permian Basin assets. Wholesale marketing and terminalling EBITDA in the Q1 was $25,300,000 compared with $22,000,000 in the prior year. The increase was primarily from higher terminalling utilization. Storage and transportation EBITDA in the quarter was $18,100,000 compared with $13,400,000 in the Q1 of 2023.

Speaker 3

The increase was mainly driven by higher storage and transportation rates. And lastly, the investment in pipeline joint venture segment contributed $8,500,000 in this quarter compared with $6,300,000 in the Q1 of 2023. Moving on to capital expenditures. The capital program for the Q1 of 2024 was 15,000,000 dollars Most of the spend in the quarter was for growth projects, namely advancing new connections in the Midland and Delaware gathering systems. With that, we can open the call for questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question will come from the line of Doug Irwin with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi. Thanks for the question. I just want to start with the recent offerings. Could you maybe provide a little bit more context just into the decision to issue DKL Equity? And then maybe if you could just talk to the flexibility and some of the growth opportunities that this increased liquidity might allow going forward?

Speaker 4

And then just to follow-up on that, as you kind of recently issued another shelf offering, are there any plans to issue more equity going forward? Or are you kind of comfortable with where the balance sheet is today?

Speaker 2

Thank you, Doug. It's Avigal. I will start and then Ruben can add more color into that. So our offering that Ruben and his team did actually checked all the boxes that we need. It's improving leverage ratio, improving availability and get more float on the public units.

Speaker 2

So it checks many boxes to enhance the great activity that we have on the operation side. So it's a complementary action to the operation side to enhance the equity side and the balance sheet side. On the shelf offering that we have, obviously, that's a best practice to have a good chunk of offering for many reasons. Ruben, I don't know if you want to if you walk into that.

Speaker 3

Yes. The equity offering actually has a history. On June 30, 2022, we closed on 3 Bear, and we communicated back then to the market that we intend to finance the acquisition by €400,000,000 of high yield and €200,000,000 of equity issuance. However, both high yield market and the equity issuance were shut down at the time, and we had to be patient and look for the right time and the right opportunity, which we found in the last equity issuance. Given that it was the first one, we couldn't go all the way to 200, but I think we're happy with the outcome of the first one.

Speaker 3

And I think going forward, we'll just be opportunistic about it.

Speaker 4

Great. That's some helpful context around 3 there. And then just as a follow-up, maybe pivoting to the growth outlook. Could you maybe just talk about the opportunities that you're seeing for the G and P business moving forward as growth may be geared more towards the Delaware or the Midland? And then maybe if you could just talk about how you're thinking about organic growth versus maybe the opportunity to do some additional acquisitions moving forward?

Speaker 2

Yes. Doug, that's another great question. I will start and then I will let Odeli finish the answer. So it's easier to talk about the path and also the future for obvious reasons, but I think that we demonstrate to the market that we actually know to do both ways inorganically and organically. We demonstrated that the DPG assets in the Permian Basin can be very attractive, and we developed that over time to something we are really proud of.

Speaker 2

And we also developed the Delaware asset to and exceeded our expectation as well. So we have a good track record. We are in a point that we are aggressive around it, but we always want to make sure that we are doing whatever we are doing is attractive to both the DKL unitholder but also to our shareholders, Odell, of course. Odell, please. Yes.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Avigail. And good to hear from

Speaker 5

you, Thadeli. As Avigail mentioned, I think that on the inorganic, we're always optimistic and always look on opportunity and we're going to continue to do that. And obviously, it has to be something that makes sense and also accretive for us. So we're always going to continue to look at that. On the organic side, definitely, as you know, both the Delaware and also the Midland are both of the location where we continue to put capital in and we see a significant opportunity from a growth opportunity standpoint.

Speaker 5

Specifically on the Delaware, we feel that there is pretty much in all lines on the water side, the gas and the crude. We're able to execute that across the board and all our segments in the Delaware side on our DDG. And we see from our producer the continued need specifically in the location where we have our corn acreage with the Tree Bear Formula acquisition to continue to focus on that location on all tree streams. I think this is an area where it's a very needed for continued growth that we're definitely going to continue to look on organic opportunity in all streams.

Speaker 4

Great. That's helpful. Thanks for the time.

Speaker 2

Absolutely. Doug, thank you. Thank you for your support.

Operator

Your next question will come from the line of Neal Dingmann with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Good morning, guys. Maybe just talk about your MVC contracts. Any update particularly on Tyler or Eldorado? And then just again, just how the other sort of you're looking at other contracts, are you continuing to try to extend the duration? Or where do you sit with most of these other maybe prospective MVC contracts?

Speaker 2

Yes. So Anil, the intent of DKL is to renew this contract, and that's something that DKL is working at.

Speaker 6

And is there any time line for the Tyler or Eldorado negotiations?

Speaker 2

So obviously, that requires the conflict committees between DK and DKL. So this is the process, but you understand the intention.

Speaker 4

Sure.

Speaker 6

Okay. And then just lastly, kind of bolt on to the prior question. What kind of opportunities up by 3 Bear? You seem to be advancing up there. Are there opportunities to bolt on some assets?

Speaker 6

Or I guess maybe let me ask you another way. Is there any need to bolt on any assets do you believe up there? And sort of what are you doing to boost the margins in that area?

Speaker 2

Not when I talk about the margin, the margin is where the margin is in this area. What I can speak that we see a significant growth and opportunities in the area, and we will elect to do something that's going to be accretive to our unitholders. We see the demand for the service that we know how to provide. Obviously, as I said before, we know to provide in the area crude, gas and water. That's a pretty unique value proposition.

Speaker 2

Our infrastructure in the area is in a unique strategic location. So if we'll see something which is synergetic and make a lot of sense with the current offering we have and the physical asset, we'll not hesitate to do something as long as it's accretive to unitholders.

Speaker 6

Great to hear, guys. I think that's the right strategy. Thank you.

Operator

We have no further questions at this time. I will now hand the call back to Abigail for closing remarks.

Speaker 2

So thank you. I want to thank our employees for their commitment and hard work. I want to thank to our unitholder for their trust and interest in our partnership. I want to thank to our customer for touching us, and I want to talk to thank to our Board of Directors for their continuous support. And we'll talk next in the next quarter.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

And this will conclude our call today. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.

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