Holly Energy Partners, L.P. (NYSE:HEP) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Tim Go: And Ryan, let me just follow-up and say, we believe our Refining portfolio continues to be a strategic advantage and competitive advantage for us, just in terms of the markets we serve and the demographics that we serve in our markets. The West Coast, in particular, I would say is a beneficiary of this integration effort that we have been focused on here over the last six to 12 months. We have a — with the Sinclair and the legacy Holly frontier assets in the West, with the addition of Puget Sound, we really believe that that is a underappreciated portfolio that we are continuing to unlock the potential of and you are going to continue to see good results come out of the West.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Doug Leggate from Bank of America.

Unidentified Analyst: This is Clay on for Doug. So thanks very much for taking the question. My first question is on the Sinclair synergies. A $100 million was expected at the time of the deal, but now that you have got a few quarters under your belt, I am wondering how that opportunity set has evolved?

Tim Go: We were very pleased to be able to just capture that $100 million pretty quickly. In fact, it exceeded our timing expectations in terms of the ability for us to capture that. We see, as we have talked about on previous calls, much, much more opportunity to continue to improve and optimize those assets. But we broadened it now to really look across the entire portfolio, to look at Puget Sound in the mix, to look at our legacy assets in the mix. That’s really, when I say our priorities are reliability across our portfolio and then integration and optimization across our portfolio, that’s really code for we are looking for more synergies, we are looking for more optimization across the entire asset. We haven’t gone out and said anything specific, like we did with the $100 million of synergies.

But know that we are working that hard. Steve and his group have already talked a little bit about that. And what we are hoping you guys will be able to see is the results of that come out and not just our throughput but also our capture for both the West and the Mid-Con regions.

Unidentified Analyst: I guess we will keep watching with interest, my next question is more housekeeping. So on the quarter itself, CapEx looked at a touch low, wondering if there is anything to highlight there? And working capital seems to be a touch high, while some of your other peers are reporting some tailwinds. So just wondering if you could address those two things.

Atanas Atanasov: With respect to our capital spending, we are very pleased with how our CapEx program has gone, and this is just a function of completing our turnarounds on time and on budget. There is always some contingency built into our budget plans and this is — we are just demonstrating our capital discipline that manifests and [indiscernible] variance. With respect to working capital, we saw some working capital tailwinds this quarter as we are coming out of these turnarounds and working out inventory. Rising prices also had a beneficial impact on our working capital. So with that in mind, you could see that tailwinds to our cash flow from operations.

Tim Go: Atanas mentioned in his prepared remarks, Clay, that we anticipate coming in on the low end of the CapEx range now. And so that is a result of, again, better execution and solid performance on our turnarounds.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Paul Cheng from Scotiabank.

Paul Cheng: I am trying to see that if you can help me to bridge the gap. I think the company is expecting that on the longer term basis that you will be able to improve your reliability so that a reasonable co-unit one on an annual basis may get to about 640, and at that time that you can see the unit cost go down to about 6 to 650. And if we look at in the third quarter, your unit cost in the Mid-Con is around 650 and your West is about 970. And you are running at 576,000 barrel per day, just by improving it to 640, that would [indiscernible] that by yourself doesn’t seem that you will get you down to your target unit cost. So what are the initiatives or the core side that we should expect in order for us to maybe bridge the gap to go down to that level? That’s the first question.

Tim Go: We believe reliability has two benefits, at least, as we continue to prioritize that. Not only does it get the denominator down, as you just kind of mentioned the math of higher throughput, we will get your OpEx per barrel down, but it also reduces your maintenance costs, which will be in the numerator, which will also get your OpEx down. Again, there is a lot of good effort going on in that area of reducing OpEx and improving reliability. And Val, do you have any color you want to provide on that?

Valerie Pompa: As we said earlier, we are very focused on each asset putting forward, reliability improvement plans. We are focused both on competitive spend, write dollars to buy down operating risk to improve reliability and making sure our money is going in the right places and improving reliability, which will ultimately get our utilization up. We are more challenged in the West and those facilities are primary focus for our efforts, particularly our Sinclair assets along with Woods Cross and PSR are all working improved structure on cost. But again, our biggest opportunity is reliable assets, produce more barrels, they are safer and we get a better outcome in performance and execution.

Paul Cheng: [Indiscernible] do you guys have a number that you can share with at the West unit cost on the longer term basis that you are targeting in?

Tim Go: No, we are not ready to give out any specific numbers or guidance in that area. But we do believe there is plenty of opportunities in the West that we are going after.

Paul Cheng: Second question is that as you are about to post HEP and roll it back up, once that you have done that, is it just business as usual and then you simplify your corporate structure or that that’s going to see real actual operating benefit? Just want to see that whether we should expect some improvement or that is just say reducing the corporate structure capacity?

Atanas Atanasov: Your observation is correct. We are seeing opportunities for simplification and optimizing our portfolio. To give you just an example, what used to be at times complicated negotiation on contracts, inter-company contracts now is going to be a more simplified process, which would really help us to focus on efficiencies and commercial opportunities. So the simplification part of that benefit is going to be meaningful to us. And with respect to the corporate structure, you will get your run of the mills savings of essentially running one public company as opposed to having two public companies. And on top of that, we also see some synergies with respect to the debt as the growth gets rolled up at the DINO level. So all good outcomes for us.