Keith Johnson – Vice President-Investor Relations Assi Ginzburg – Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Danny Norris – Chief Accounting Officer Uzi Yemin – Chief Executive Officer Fred Green – Executive Vice President.
Theresa Chen – Barclays Capital.
Good morning. My name is Felicia, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Delek Logistics Partners Third Quarter 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 Instructions] Thank you. I will now hand the conference over to Keith Johnson. Sir, you may begin..
Thank you, Felicia. Good morning everyone. I would like to thank you for joining us on this webcast to discuss Delek Logistics Partners third quarter 2015 financial results. Joining me on today’s call will be Uzi Yemin, our general partner's Chairman and CEO; Assi Ginzburg, CFO; Danny Norris, CAO; and 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 and in our latest earnings release.
As a result, actual operations or results may differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Today’s call is being recorded and will be available for replay beginning today and ending February 4, 2016 by dialing (855) 859-2056, with the confirmation ID number 55517449. An online replay may also be accessed for the next 90 days at the partnership’s website at deleklogistics.com.
Last night, we distributed a press release that provides a summary of our second quarter 2015 results. This press release is available on our corporate website and through various news outlets. On today’s call, Assi will begin with a few financial comments, and Danny will review our financial performance.
Then Uzi will offer a few closing strategic remarks. With that, I’ll turn the call over to Assi..
Thank you, Keith. During the third quarter 2015, DKL continue to maintain a strong financial position. And our DCF coverage ratio was 1.46 times. On a year-over-year basis, our DCF increased by 24% to approximately $22 million, from $17.7 million in the prior year period.
Our EBITDA was $26.1 million for the third quarter of 2015, compared to $21.2 million in the prior year period.
Based on our performance, we are pleased to announce an increase in our quarterly distribution to $0.57 per limited partner unit for the second quarter – for the quarter ended September 30, 2015, which is a 3.6% increase from our second quarter 2015 distribution per unit.
This is our 11th consecutive increase and is a 16.3% higher than our third quarter 2014 distribution of $0.49 per unit. Now I will turn the call over to Danny to discuss the financial results..
Thank you, Assi. For the third quarter of 2015, Delek Logistics reported net income attributable to all partners of $18.6 million, or $0.70 per diluted common limited partner unit, compared to net income attributable to all partners of $15.1 million, or $0.59 per diluted common limited partner unit in the prior year period.
Our performance during the quarter benefited from a higher contribution margin from the Paline Pipeline, compared to the third quarter of 2014. Fees associated with the El Dorado rail offloading racks and the Tyler crude oil storage tank purchased on March 31 of 2015 and acquisitions completed over the past year.
These factors in the third quarter of 2015 were partially offset by lower margin in the West Texas wholesale business. As a result, our contribution margin increased to $29.1 million in the third quarter of 2015 from $23.7 million in the prior year period. Now I will spend a few minutes discussing our two reporting segments.
Third quarter of 2015 contribution margin in our Pipeline and Transportation segment improved to $20.4 million compared to $14.7 million in the third quarter 2014. The improvement was primarily attributable to increased performance from the Paline Pipeline, and performance from the dropdown assets purchased on March 31 of 2015.
Contribution margin in our Wholesale Marketing and Terminalling segment was $8.7 million in the third quarter of this year, compared to $9 million in the prior year period.
On a year-over-year basis, results benefited from improved performance in our East Texas assets, which increased due to the higher volume at Delek US’ Tyler refinery, following the completion of its expansion project in March of 2015. That increase was offset by $1 million decline in the West Texas gross margin.
Our West Texas wholesale gross margin was $1.50 per barrel in the third quarter of 2015 compared to $2.20 per barrel in the prior year period. This decrease in margin per barrel was partly driven by a competitive environment during the period.
In the third quarter of this year, gross margin was reduced by approximately $400,000 of cost related to ethanol and lower cost of market inventory charges. The margin per barrel in the third quarter of 2015 included approximately $1 million or $0.57 per barrel from RINs generated in our ongoing ethanol blending activities.
This compares to a gross margin that included $1.2 million or $0.74 per barrel from RINs in the third quarter of last year. As of September 30, 2015, Delek Logistics total debt was $325 million. We ended the quarter with approximately $372 million of unused availability under our $700 million credit facility.
Our leverage ratio was 3.1 times well within the 4.75 times currently allowable under our credit facility. Capital expenditures were approximately $4.2 million in the third quarter of this year, of which $2.3 million of CapEx was reimbursed under our Omnibus agreement with Delek US.
Approximately $14 million has been spent year-to-date through the third quarter of this year. Total capital expenditures for 2015 are expected to be $16.8 million, which includes $11.5 million of maintenance and $5.3 million of discretionary related projects.
Included in the 2015 amount is approximately $5 million of CapEx to be reimbursed under our agreement with Delek US. This compares to total capital expenditures in 2014 of approximately $7 million. Through September of this year, we’ve invested approximately $31 million in our joint venture pipeline projects.
We expect our estimated total investment for the RIO and Caddo pipelines to be approximately $96 million, which is a $5 million increase from our previous estimate. With that, I will turn the call over to Uzi, for his closing comments..
Thank you, Danny. The combination of acquisitions and improved utilization of our assets over the past year has increased our stable fee-based business. While providing continued growth in our EBITDA in DCF. This has supported our ability to increase distribution and maintain a strong financial position.
We continue to focus on opportunities to provide future growth. Our pipeline development projects two joint ventures are moving forward and both projects are expected to be completed in the second half of 2016. In addition to pipeline development projects, we remain focused on third-party acquisitions.
As the MLP market continues to face challenges with changes in commodity prices and marketing evaluations, we believe that it may create opportunities.
The combination of our financial position, mix of stable fee-based business and a strong sponsor should allow us the ability to explore different options and act quickly as opportunities are identified.
Through our growth initiative and financial position, we believe that we can continue to support our target of an annual distribution increase of at least 15% per year, in the future. With that Felicia, would you please open the call for questions..
[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Theresa Chen of Barclays Capital..
Good morning..
Good morning..
First in reverse to the West Texas wholesale margin, it looks like the effects from the – brings the lower cost of inventory expense to ethanol costs explained a little bit more than half of the year-over-year decline on the margin for unit basis.
And would the rest be explained by the competitive environment? And if so when we look at 2016 if the margin is declining as a result of a competitive environment due to reduced drilling, should we expect this to be like a continuous headwind until crisis recover?.
If you look it on a year-over-year base, we actually incurred some hedging losses, during Q3 of 2015. I think it will have $100,000 hedging losses, compared to $1.8 million hedging gains in 2014. So that was also part of the explanation. Although, the West Texas market isn’t a competitive market, it is still a positive market.
The net decks in the area are good. And when we look at – at least the beginning of next year and the end of this year, the ethanol that’s used to be s drag to the margin is actually turning. And right now, when you look at our fiscal contracts, they are actually below market, though, we should see some change in the trend going forward..
Okay, great. And then in relation to your announced organic projects.
What was the reason for the small increase in the budget and are there other possible avenues that – or factors of the construction spending that would cause budget to run over?.
Theresa, this is Fred Green. The change was primarily on the Caddo Pipeline and it was a result of some of the fixed cost estimates that came back from our construction contractors. They’ve added some contingency there just based on the long-term forecast of wetter weather and as a result they have to use more maths to do the pipeline construction.
So while it’s certainly possible that they will chew up that entire $5 million amount at this point, it’s really contingency..
Okay.
And do you see any other reasons that the estimated CapEx might increase later on in 2016?.
Nothing that we’ve seen so far..
Okay, and then beyond the announced projects that are going to be completed next year, what other organic opportunities do you see as of now?.
Obviously, we have several things in the make. Without going into too much details here, the Alon announcement yesterday of their MLP assets is one of the avenues the other one is acquisitions that I'm not going to go to too much details but the market is right for acquisition.
If you ask about organic growth, obviously we have our assets we just completed the Tyler and El Dorado turn around to fewer [ph] expansion if you will. And we expect to continue to see that growth along these two assets..
Thank you very much..
[Operator Instructions] At this time, there are no further questions..
Well, I would like to thank my colleagues around the table. Also I’d like to thank our employees for their hard work and for their big effort during the quarter. We’ll talk to you soon. Thanks..
Thank you for participating in today’s conference call. You may now disconnect..