Magellan Midstream Partners, L.P. (NYSE:MMP) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

So we just try to pick a reasonable number. We think there’s a good chance it’s going to be a little better this year than what we experienced last year. But in any event, it’s still elevated versus where it has historically traded by a pretty substantial margin. So it’s just us using our best estimate on what we see the full year turning out to look like, which we — or forecasting it to be slightly better than last year, but certainly not as good as it has been historically.

Operator: The next question comes from Praneeth Satish of Wells Fargo.

Praneeth Satish: On capital allocation, I’m just wondering if you’ve given thought to to raising the pace of distribution growth? I mean, EBITDA is going to be up — projected to be up 4% this year, but you’re only growing the distribution 1%. So it seems like there’s an active decision here not to grow distributions in line with cash flow growth. And I know you’re doing buybacks but I guess at what point would you consider accelerating distribution growth?

Aaron Milford: Yes, it’s an interesting question and we think about it, I think, fairly simply. The first thing I want to mention is we view a healthy distribution an important part of our overall value proposition. So for us, it’s really a question about what do you do incrementally from where you’re at, to your point, growing the distribution faster or emphasizing buybacks. That’s really the decision point that we have to make. And for us, it seems like adding materially to an already attractive distribution at spreads that are still to treasury is still wider than we think they should be. And we compare doing that to the opportunity to buy back units and when we compare the two, which one of those do we think will create the most long-term value for our investors long term.

And as we sit here right now, we still think buybacks make the most sense for us. The key I would make is that’s true right now. We’ve always tried to say things can change depending on what’s happening and where we see the best place to add value. So it’s important that we see both of them being very important. And if we look marginally right now, we see opportunity in our unit price. And as long as we see that opportunity, that’s where we’re going to focus. But it’s not set in stone, that’s just where we are right now.

Praneeth Satish: And then I think you mentioned that you’re getting higher rates on contracted capacity on Longhorn versus the marketing margin. So I’m just wondering if there’s plans to contract that small remaining piece of open capacity on Longhorn in 2023 or leave that open and contract it later when things potentially tighten?

Aaron Milford: And I think some of that difference. Well, first of all, if we have a counterparty that wants to pay us an attractive rate, as you look through time, we’re interested in talking about that. And it’s very counterparty specific. As I’ve mentioned in the past, people take different views of how much term they want to think about, how do they feel about capacity and different producers and customers have different motivations to either want to just sort of ride the spot market, so to speak or whether or not they want to make commitment for term to have surety of export out of the basin. So if we have counterparties out there that want to come up with a fair rate with some term on it, we’ll certainly consider it. So one of the reasons why the commitments are typically at higher rates is those are with customers that are taking a longer term view and they’re wanting to have term and we’re looking at that saying, if we’re going to look at this over a longer period of time, we need to make sure the rate is fair.