Delek Logistics Partners LP

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the DLAC Logistics Partners for Quarter 2023 conference call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we'll conduct a question and answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Tuesday, February 27, 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rosie Zulek, VP of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead. Good day and welcome to the Delic Logistics Partners fourth quarter earnings conference call. Participants on today's call will include Avigal Thorek, President, Joseph Israel, EVP, Operations, Reuben Spiegel, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, and Odele Sakazi, SVP, Delic 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-K, and quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed with the SEC, along with the press release associated with this call. 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.

Thank you, Rosie. The Eric Logistics partner finished 2023 strong. We delivered another record quarter and achieved a record year. DKL exceeds $100 million in adjusted EBITDA this quarter. We saw a substantial growth from our new connection in our midland gathering operations, further validating our strong position in the Permian Basin. I'm very proud of our employees who are dedicated to making DELEX logistics succeed. It is their dedication to safe and reliable operation that makes our results The team has gone without a lost time injury four years in a row and counting. We are also focused on growing third-party revenues, allocating capital in a disciplined manner, and exploring natural gas opportunities in the Delaware Basin where we see significant growth. In January, the Board approved the 44th consecutive increase in the quarterly distribution to $1.055 per unit. The logistics has shown a strong track record of delivering value to unit holders. We feel confident in our ability to maintain competitive distribution to our investors. I will now hand it over to Ruben.

Thank you, Avigar. The fourth quarter of 2023 adjusted EBITDA was 100.9 million compared with 92.5 million in the same period of 2022. The fourth quarter EBITDA was 86.1 million, which included a 14.8 million goodwill impairment related to some of our Delaware gathering and processing assets. The impairment was primarily driven by a significant increase in interest rates. Our long-term outlook of the Delaware gathering system remains unchanged. Distributable cash flow was 65 million and the DCF coverage ratio was 1.4. For the gathering and processing segment, adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was 53.3 million compared with 48.1 million in the fourth quarter of 22. The increase was primarily due to higher throughput from Delic Logistics premium base and assets. Wholesale marketing and terminaling adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter 2023 was 28.4 million compared with 23.3 million in prior year. The increase was primarily from higher terminaling utilization. Storage and transportation adjusted EBITDA in the quarter was 17.5 million compared to 16.1 million in the fourth quarter of 22. The increase was mainly driven by higher storage and transportation rates. And lastly, the investment in pipeline joint venture segment contributed 8.5 million this quarter compared with $9 million in the fourth quarter of 2022. Moving on to capital expenditures. The capital program for 2023 was $74 million. This includes $7 million of proceeds from producers to partially fund growth projects. Most of the spend throughout the year was for growth projects, namely advancing new connections in the Midland and Delaware gathering systems. For 2024, Dellec Logistic Partner expects the capital program to be about 70 million. This includes approximately 20 million of sustaining and regulatory capital and 50 million of growth capital. We will continue to advance new connection in our gathering system for the volume growth at the partnership. With that, we can open the call for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. If you'd like to withdraw a question, please press star 2. Please ensure you lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Doug Arwin from Citi. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for the question. I just want to start with the Delaware Gathering and Processing assets. Understanding the long-term outlook is still intact, you maybe just talk about how the three bear assets are trending today, just first the initial expectations when you acquired them. I think the initial target for these assets when they were acquired was 100 million of annual EBITDA. Is that still a good number to work with here in your term?

Hey, Doug. It's a good morning. Thank you for joining our call. Generally speaking, the three bear, now DDG, is meeting our expectation, we also, being over there in that area, give us insight for more opportunities we see in the region. And as you probably picked up on my prepared remark, there is an additional opportunity mainly on the natural gas. So that was a very good position to get into, and we are happy around it.

Okay, got it. Thanks.

And then just a second question just on the broader 24 outlook. You gave last quarter, you talked about exiting 23 at 100 million quarterly EBITDA run rate, which you achieved this quarter. Are there any similar targets you can point to moving forward, whether that's on EBITDA volume growth or some other metrics just to kind of help frame the growth outlook for 24?

We are focusing to have a constant improvement, and we are committed to keep improving our business. So we are very optimistic about what we see in the business, on the opportunity. We've seen a nice, significant CapEx plan into the business that will enhance additional opportunities. But we are very optimistic, and we see consistent and constant improvement in the business. But that's going to be what we can provide at least 10 seconds.

Got it. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thank you for joining us today.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. There are no further questions at this time. I will turn – oh, we do have one more question. I apologize. From Paul Longwells from Lord Abbott. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi. I was curious. It looked like the Midland volumes were down a little bit sequentially and – Some of the gas and the water and the Delaware volumes were down a little bit sequentially. Forgive me if I missed that. Why is that, and should we expect that trend to continue?

Yeah, so thank you, Paul, for joining us today. The gathering, the Delaware volume are pretty much in line quarter over quarter. What we see in the thermal basin is a touch lower, and you can expect it after producer adding new production. You probably know that as good as anyone that the new production in the beginning goes to a very high and then stabilize over time, so that's what we see. As you probably picked up, we have a significant capital budget that will enhance additional volume and connection in the DPG, the million area. and we will see a volume picked up along the year. Odell, do you want to add anything to that?

Yeah, sure. And this is Odell Hypo. Great morning. I'll just give a little bit more coloring, familiar on the Delaware side, as Abigail mentioned. In Q4, we expedited some of our maintenance work that we planned to do in Q1 and decided to do it in Q4. That's actually helped us to continue improving volume, so this is why you see Gas slightly lower compared to Q, between Q4 and Q3 of this year. But if you look both in DPG and also in DDG in both sides, if you compare year over year, we obviously continue to improve our social performance. So Q4 primarily, we had that work that was done that we expedited. It was planned work on the most in the plan. But as we're looking right now in Q1, those numbers are already improving compared both to Q3 and also Q4.

Oh, and that improvement is for both Midland and Delaware?

Primarily, the Delaware is Midland. As Abigail mentioned, we do see the natural decline in business compared to the peak we've seen or compared to the volume we've seen in Q3. With that said, we do have a capital program, as Abigail mentioned, also Ruben mentioned his remark, of $50 million on connection. So we should start to see an increase for maybe the second half of the year as we implement this project.

Okay, great. And then I noticed corporate expenses were down a little bit sequentially. Could you talk about that a little bit?

So it's an effort, yes. It's an effort we are doing to close the companies to streamlined expenses. We had a big initiative from the parent company. To reduce expenses, we call it the zero-based budget with a target of $100 million. Some of that went all the way to DKL, so you see, to our partnership, so you see the fruits of that. So we didn't put it on the billboard here, but we were happy to enjoy it.

Okay, great. So we should expect expenses to kind of stabilize or maybe even continue to improve going forward?

Yeah, I don't think we are giving guidance, but there is no reason that we go back.

Okay, and then you have a few debt maturities coming up in 25. Any thoughts on those at this point in time?

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, we are actively examining various instruments. We'll probably be in the market in the next few months refinance some of the debt, especially the one that is coming current between the Term Note A and the $250 billion I yield. So some form of refinancing will happen this year.

Okay, great. And then my last question, you probably won't be able to say too much on it, but, you know, as you look at the sum of the parts and the strategic, it Are there ways, you know, what is your thoughts on leverage here at DKL, and are there ways that that could be improved as part of that? Anything you can kind of say on that subject?

So you can probably see the trend. All that we have seen with the leverage ratio was improving quarter over quarter. We will continue this trend. That's our plan. And obviously there are more ideas on the table, but once we get into a more – Higher level of resolution will communicate with the market. But I think that if you connect the dots that you have seen in the last year or so, you can be very pleased with the improvement in leverage ratio. We are doing that consistently culture after culture.

Great. And you think, should we think of your goal as four times or any thoughts on that?

Yeah, we started, we have the market. We want to be below four, and we're eventually going to get them. Excellent. Okay, thank you very much. Thank you, Paul.

There are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back over to Abigail for closing remarks.

Thank you. I would like to thank my colleagues around the table, to our board of directors, to our investors, and mostly to our

employees that they're making this as a great company it is and we'll talk again next quarter thank you so much ladies and gentlemen this concludes your conference call for today thank you for joining and you may now disconnect your lines thank you