Revenue was up 29 percent year-over-year, aided significantly by the acquisition of Copano Energy last year and the dropdown of KMI assets acquired as part of its deal for El Paso Pipelines. Those additions also lifted distributable cash flow 28 percent.

But on a per unit basis that translated into a considerably smaller 6.8 percent year-over-year gain given $1.1 billion in equity issuance by KMP and its affiliate Kinder Morgan Management (NYSE: KMR) over the course of last year. The distribution increased by an even more modest 5 percent to $1.36 per KMP unit ($5.44 annualized) and is forecast to rise another 5 percent this year. KMI is projected to see a more significant slowdown in its own distribution growth, from 14 percent in 2013 to 8 percent this year.

The partnership family’s larger size may be playing its part, along with a downturn in gas trading and storage income that would have left the flagship natgas transportation segment’s bottom line down 3 percent year-over-year without the benefit of the Copano acquisition, instead of the reported 40 percent gain.

In any case, Kinder Morgan founder, CEO and chairman Richard Kinder is in no mood to concede that his family of partnerships has grown too large. He challenged his company’s critics on the conference call to sell him more KMI shares in addition to the 828,000 he bought in mid-December  in the market for $27.6 million. He noted that KMI and KMP “underperformed the market by a wide margin” in 2013, resulting in “the greatest disconnect to appropriate valuation since the period in 2006, just before we took the first KMI private.”

Asked to elaborate later during the conference call, Kinder didn’t tip his hand on the measures he might take to persuade the market this time around.  But he noted the similarities in the huge backlog of growth projects planned by the partnership family than and now, and pledged to once more prove the doubters wrong.  “So I guess my message to [critics] was you sell, I’ll buy, and we see who comes out the best in the long run,” said the billionaire.

The partnership’s latest results were boosted by increased oil production in the CO₂ segment and strength in the Products Pipelines and Terminals businesses.

The partnership is spending heavily on a variety of expansion projects likely to prove quite lucrative, including a crude pipeline from the Eagle Ford shale to the Texas Gulf Coast and another that would carry Canadian oil sands crude to a terminal on that country’s West Coast.

Kinder Morgan’s purchase of American Petroleum Tankers and State Class Tankers for $962 million is expected to close this month, and Kinder extolled the move into coastal marine shipping as a strategic benefit that will give customers more options to move swelling domestic crude volumes.

And he continues to see lots of upside potential in natural gas, as input to the growing number of LNG projects now moving ahead, a pipeline export to fast-growing Mexico and, increasingly, the fuel of choice in the Northeast US given the region’s proximity to the gas wells in the Marcellus and the Utica.

Still, longer-term worries remain. During the Wednesday conference call, one analyst asked if management’s current long-term distribution growth guidance — 9-10 percent for KMI and 5-6 percent for KMP — was still valid. Kinder replied that “we haven’t completed running those numbers” and said updated growth targets through 2018 would be shared during an analyst day presentation due next week.

If the expected growth rate stays strong and KMI and KMP continue their recent recoveries in the market, KMI shares especially could once again look attractive. They currently yield 4.6 percent, and long-term distribution growth could approach 10 percent based on KMI’s incentives as the general partner of a large and expanding MLP family. But we would like to see more of Rich Kinder’s cards first.  Continue to Hold KMI.