Kinder Morgan's 4Q Natural Gas Transport Volumes Fall -- Commodity Comment
January 20 2021 - 5:56PM
Dow Jones News
By Mary de Wet
Kinder Morgan Inc. said its natural gas transport volumes fell
2% in the fourth quarter from a year ago.
The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in lower energy demand during the
three months ended Dec. 31, the pipeline operator said.
On natural gas:
The company's natural gas pipelines segment experienced lower
contributions from multiple gathering and processing assets due to
sharply reduced natural gas production and from the sale of the
U.S. Cochin Pipeline in December 2019, said KMI President Kim
Dang.
"These reduced contributions were partially offset by greater
contributions from the Texas Intrastate systems, Natural Gas
Pipeline of America (NGPL), and Elba Island LNG."
Natural gas transport volumes were down 2% compared with the
fourth quarter of 2019. Volume declined on the Colorado Interstate
Gas Pipeline and the Wyoming Interstate Pipeline due to the
production declines in the Rockies basin. El Paso Natural Gas saw
volume fall due to increases in transportation alternatives for
Permian Basin production, the company said.
"These declines were partially offset by: increased volumes on
the Texas Intrastate systems, due primarily to increased Gulf Coast
contract activity largely serving LNG and industrial markets; on
Tennessee Gas Pipeline, driven by increased LNG and power plant
deliveries sourced largely from the Appalachian region; and, on
Elba Express, due to increased deliveries to Elba Island."
On crude and refined products:
"Continued low refined products demand and lower crude and
condensate volumes during the fourth quarter reduced contributions
from the Products Pipelines segment.
"Crude and condensate pipeline volumes were down 26% and total
refined products volumes were down 13% compared to the fourth
quarter of 2019.
"Gasoline volumes were below the comparable period last year by
10% and jet volumes were still very weak (down 47%) but diesel
volumes were strong, 7% above the fourth quarter of 2019."
On terminals:
"Terminals segment earnings were essentially flat compared to
the fourth quarter of 2019 after adjusting for the impact of the
December 2019 KML sale. Refined product volumes that move through
our terminals continued to reflect reduced demand due to the
pandemic, though they recovered meaningfully during the second half
of the year.
"Conversely, we saw historically high effective utilization
across our network of nearly 80 million barrels of storage capacity
due to term contracts entered into during the second quarter of
2020.
"Due to the structure of our contracts, a much more significant
portion of our revenue comes from fixed monthly payments on tank
leases versus the revenue we receive for moving product through our
terminals."
On carbon dioxide:
"CO(2) segment earnings were down compared to the fourth quarter
of 2019 due to lower CO(2) sales volumes and lower crude
production, partially offset by lower operating expenditures and
higher realized crude prices."
"Fourth-quarter 2020 combined oil production across all of our
fields was down 16% compared to the same period in 2019 on a net to
KMI basis, and CO(2) sales volumes were down 35%."
Write to Mary de Wet at mary.dewet@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 20, 2021 17:41 ET (22:41 GMT)
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