Portfolio Action Summary

• NuStar Energy (NYSE: NS) added to Growth Portfolio. Buy below $70
• NuStar GP Holdings (NYSE: NSH) added to Growth Portfolio. Buy below $45

 AmeriGas Partners (NYSE: APU) recently announced the naming of a new chief operating officer by its general partner to fill a vacancy created by retirement. The unit price is down 6.5% over the last month. Buy APU below $51.

Antero Midstream Partners (NYSE: AM) said annual revenue more than quadrupled while adjusted EBITDA quintupled in its first quarterly report since the initial public offering. The partnership is in the early stages of capitalizing on its sponsor’s aggressive drilling program in the Marcellus shale.  The unit price was down 6% over the last month. Buy AM below $30.

Boardwalk Pipeline Partners (NYSE: BWP) provided new information on its supply contracts in a March investor presentation, noting that 91% of revenue last year came from reservation charges and utilization fees under agreements with a weighted-average five-year remaining term. The partnership is planning its future around the needs of Gulf Coast natural gas consumers for reliable supplies from the Northeast. The price has held steady over the past month. Buy BWP below $19.

Buckeye Partners (NYSE: BPL) recently announced a $40 million revenue reduction to its recently announced annual results, based on the settlement offer it has made in the long-running suit by several airlines alleging fuel overcharges at New York City airports. Buckeye noted that despite progress in the talks its offer hasn’t yet been accepted. The progress of the partnership’s south Texas crude processing and export venture with major oil trader Trafigura is much more important for Buckeye. The unit price is down less than 1% in a month. Buy BPL below $83.

Capital Products Partners (NASDAQ: CPLP) announced charters for two of its fuel tankers with the partnership’s sponsor, one for 12-14 months at a gross daily rate of $27,000 and the other for two years at $29,000. Those ships previously earned $17,000 and $24,000 a day, respectively, indicating continuing strength in fuel tanker charter rates. The unit price is up 6% over the last month and 26% since the Dec. 17 recommendation. Buy #7 Best Buy CPLP below $10.

Cedar Fair (NYSE: FUN) announced a quarterly distribution of $0.75 per unit payable March 25 to holders of record as of March 13. The amusement park operator’s payout was up 7% year-over-year and offers a current annualized yield of 5.2%. The unit price has advanced 2% over the last month and 10% since our Jan. 21 recommendation, recently testing our buy limit. But FUN below $58.

CVR Refining (NYSE: CVRR) highlighted its access to low-cost crude, its two refineries’ high distillate yield and its growing crude gathering business in a recent investor presentation. The unit price has rallied 14% over the last month and 47% since we called CVR Refining a Best Buy on Jan. 21. Buy #10-ranked CVRR below $26.

DCP Midstream Partners (NYSE: DPM) stressed its resilience to low commodity prices while leaving the door open to slowing distribution growth in quarterly results covered in the March 5 MLP Investing Insider. The partnership also announced the return to its board of directors, effective immediately, of retired Spectra Energy (NYSE: SE) CEO Fred Fowler, replacing two other board members. The unit price is down 2.5% over the last month, but up nearly 8% since March 12.  Buy DPM below $42.

Delek Logistics Partners (NYSE: DKL) posted a 64% increase in fourth-quarter distributable cash flow, providing 1.7x coverage for a distribution increased 23% year-over-year. It plans to increase its payouts by at least 15% annually from over the next few years. New contracts with non-affiliated shippers for the Paline crude pipeline in east Texas are expected to boost annual distributable cash flow by 13 million, or 16% of what the refinery logistics specialist delivered last year. On March 23, Delek Logistics announced a 50/50 joint venture with Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE: PAA) for a new $100 million crude pipeline originating like the Paline in Longview and running 80 miles south to Shreveport, Louisiana. Delek will also take a 33% stake in a new $125 mile crude pipeline project in West Texas. Both projects feature the partnership’s sponsor as a shipper. The unit price is up 3% over the last month. Buy #9 Best Buy DKL below $42.

Energy Transfer Equity (NYSE: ETE) released a presentation last month highlighting this year’s expected 47.5% increase in the distributions due from affiliated partnerships over what ETE received in 2014. As reported in the March 20 MLP Investing Insider, CEO Kelcy Warren is already up a lot on recent ETE unit purchases. The unit price was flat over the last month, but is up  10% year-to-date. Buy #3 Best Buy ETE below $66.

Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) took advantage of low interest rates while they last to issue $2.5 billion in debt, at rates ranging from 4.05% for its 10-year notes to 5.15% for the $1 billion in 30-year notes sold. On March 23, ETP announced the dropdown of a 32% stake in its retail business to the affiliated Sunoco (NYSE: SUN) partnership for $775 million in cash and $41 million in Sunoco shares. The transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to both MLPs, since SUN yields 4.6% vs. 7.1% for ETP. ETP’s unit price is down 4% over the last month. Buy #4 Best Buy ETP below $70.   

EnLink Midstream (NYSE: ENLC) recently completed the $600 million acquisition of privately held Coronado Midstream in concert with the EnLink Midstream Partners (NYSE: ENLK) MLP it manages. The deal will allow it to link Coronado’s system with one of its own, dramatically expanding EnLink’s footprint in the Midland Basin section of the Permian Basin in West Texas. Meanwhile ENLC majority owner Devon Energy announced its first dropdown to ENLK. It’ll get $210 million to $220 million for the Victoria Express Pipeline, a 56-mile link between Devon’s Eagle Ford acreage and port facilities on the Texas coast. The sale price works out to 10 times Victoria’s estimated 2015 EBITDA and 6 to 8 times its forecast EBITDA in 2016 after an expansion this year. Since ENLK already pays ENLC incentive distribution rights in the highest 50% tier, the effective multiple for ENLK’s limited partners will be double that, to the ultimate benefit of ENLC and Devon. ENLC’s share price is down 9.5% over the last month ahead of the March 30 annual analyst meeting. Buy ENLC below $44.

Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD) made a presentation at the ongoing World Petrochemical Conference in Galveston, Texas, highlighting the rush of petrochemical construction projects seeking to take advantage of cheap U.S. energy. Despite those efforts, North America could become self-sufficient in crude by 2020, according to EPD, which is continuing to lobby for the lifting of a ban on crude exports. That would bring Enterprise a windfall of new business. The partnership’s privately held general partner recently bought units worth $100 million from the MLP to bring its stake in EPD to 35%,  worth almost $22 billion. The unit price is down 4% in the last month. Buy top-ranked Best Buy EPD below $42.50.

EQT (NYSE: EQT) announced the dropdown of its Northern West Virginia Gathering System to the midstream MLP affiliate EQT Midstream Partners (NYSE: EQM) on March 10, for nearly $1 billion in cash and EQM units that brought total consideration to $1.05 billion. The big Marcellus driller will now not need to finance the $340 million in growth capital the system is expected to consume over the next four years. That growth will instead be financed by EQM, with EQT pocketing 50% of the resulting increase in per-unit distributions under its incentive distribution rights. The share price has dipped 3% in the last month. Buy EQT below $100.

EQT Midstream Partners (NYSE: EQM) is paying a nominal multiple of 10 times 2015 cash earnings for the West Virginia gathering system it has agreed to acquire, as described above. The multiple is 7 times based on the system’s estimated cash earnings in 2018. But because EQT gets half of future increases in EQM’s distributions per unit, the effective multiple for EQM LPs is doubled. EQM’s unit price fell 5% the next day on the news, ahead of a $627 million secondary offering tied to the acquisition, a drop it still hasn’t recouped. The drain of EQT’s incentives and the modest 3% yield leave EQM a Hold despite a 9% price decline over the last month.   

Exterran Holdings (NYSE: EXH) reported solid results backed by improvement in its manufacturing operations last month and affirmed plans to spin off those operations, along with its international business, into an independent company in the second half of the year. The largest North American supplier of leased compressors said demand for these stayed strong late last year and so far in 2015. Though the company is braced for some weakness later on, it expects the pressure to be modest since compression demand correlates with production rather than drilling. The share price is up 2% over the last month. Buy EXH below $42.

Exterran Partners (NYSE: EXLP) is the affiliated MLP that handles the bulk of Exterran’s U.S. compression contracting, and its results were received even better than its parent’s, sparking a rally of almost 12% in the unit price over the last month. The distribution has been increased 4.7% year-over-year, with fourth-quarter coverage rising to 1.41x on a payout still yielding 8.7%. Buy EXLP below $34.

GasLog Partners (NYSE: GLOP) drifted 6% lower over the last month. Buy GLOP below $26.

Genesis Energy (NYSE: GEL) reported a 27% increase in its fourth-quarter segment margin on Feb. 19, led by offshore pipeline profits that nearly doubled in a year’s time as a result of a new pipeline completed in July. Distributable cash flow produced 1.11x coverage on a distribution increased 11.2% year-over-year for a current yield of 4.2%. The unit price advanced 3% in the last month. Buy GEL below $53.

Global Partners (NYSE: GLP) reported a 53% surge in annual distributable cash flow on March 12, but fourth-quarter DCF was down 16% as gasoline wholesaling proved much less profitable after a big quarter a year ago. Despite the drop, distributable cash flow provided 2.14x coverage for a distribution increased 8.6% year over year, with a current yield of 7.5%. Since recently very strong filling station margins are expected to drift lower, Global is projecting an EBITDA of $205 million to $225 million this year, down from a record $242 million in fiscal 2014. On March 23, a private group owned by the same family that controls GLP’s general partner launched an offering of 1.96 million GP units, accounting for a third of its holdings and for approximately 6% of common units outstanding. The unit price has dropped 7% in the two days since, and is now down 6% for the last month. Buy #8 Best Buy GLP below $50.

Hi-Crush Partners (NYSE: HCLP) nearly tripled its contracted volumes last year and now has 88% of its frac sand production capacity sold at least through the end of 2016, with most such supply contracts expiring at the end of 2018 or 2019. Some of those customers have recently sought discounts from HCLP as from other oilfield suppliers, leading management to discuss the possibility of slowing the rapid distribution growth at least a bit. The most recent payout was up 32% year-over-year, for a current yield of 7.2% with 1.26x coverage over the last 12 months. The unit price is up 5% in the last month. Buy HCLP below $40.

Holly Energy Partners (NYSE: HEP) reported a 22% year-over-year increase in fourth-quarter distributable cash flow on Feb. 24, for 1.09x annual coverage on a distribution that has increased 6% in a year’s time and currently yields 6.8%. The refinery logistics MLP sponsored by HollyFrontier (NYSE: HFC) expects EBITDA to jump 15% over the next two years based on its contractual fee increases and recent growth projects, including a new crude gathering system in new Mexico and an expansion of storage facilities in Las Vegas. The unit price is down 3% in the last month. Buy HEP below $40.

Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) recently announced anchor shipment contracts that will move 500 million cubic feet of natural gas a day from the Marcellus shale to New England utilities as part of the Northeast Energy Direct pipeline project set to come online in late 2018. The midstream giant has promised to increase its dividend 15% to $2 per share this year, with more than $350 million of excess coverage at current oil and gas prices. Some 85% of Kinder Morgan’s expected profit this year is due from fixed-fee arrangements, and a further 9% is hedged against commodity price swings. The share price has dipped 2% in the last month. Buy KMI below $45.

Magellan Midstream Partners (NYSE: MMP) has finalized plans to build a 550-mile crude pipeline linking Colorado’s DJ Basin to Cushing, Oklahoma, in a partnership with Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE: PAA) and Anadarko Petroleum (NYSE: APC). Magellan and Plains will each own a 40% stake in the project, while Anadarko exercised its option as an anchor shipper for the remaining 20%. The 20-inch pipeline, expected to cost $800 million to $850 million and to go into service by mid-2016, would initially carry some 200,000 barrels per day, though it will have the capacity to double that volume. Magellan will serve as the construction manager and operator. Its unit price has slipped less than 1% over the last month. Buy #2 Best Buy MMP below $90.

MarkWest Energy Partners (NYSE: MWE) posted a 46% increase in its 2014 distributable cash flow in annual results reported on Feb. 25 thanks to rapid growth in its Appalachian midstream assets, by far the largest processing booming natural gas production from the Marcellus and Utica shales. As a result, distribution coverage improved to 1.12x for the year from .99x in 2013, even as MarkWest increased distributions per unit by nearly 5% and its unit count by 30%. Payout increases of a penny per unit per quarter are expected to continue this year, then accelerate to 2 cents per unit per quarter in 2016, for an annual growth rate of more than 7%, and to 10% annually in 2017 through 2020. The unit price ticked up 2% over the last month. Buy MWE below $77.

Navios Maritime Partners (NYSE: NMM) endured an especially rocky stretch, with the unit price down 30% between Feb. 3 and March 20, culminating in a 10% drop Friday on heavy volume. There was no public news to justify the decline, though the looming expiration of several of NMM’s dry bulk charters in a depressed market has stoked worries about the security of the dividend despite management’s promises to maintain it through 2016. The unit price has rebounded 17% over the last three days however, bolstered by a Deutsche Bank upgrade to Buy with a $15 price target. Like that analyst, we believe the partnership has the ability and the incentives to maintain the distribution by continuing to shift away from dry bulk carriers to container ships. Buy NMM below $17.70.

Oaktree Capital Mgmt (NYSE: OAK) The unit price has dipped 2% over the last month and 9% since Valentine’s Day. The leading manager of distressed debt funds launched another secondary offering on behalf of top insiders on March 3, helping them raise $210 million while increasing the publicly traded  float by approximately 9%. Yet a Morningstar analyst recently argued that publicly traded alternative asset managers like Oaktree are misunderstood and undervalued. in Oaktree’s case, ” We believe the firm’s client-first approach has engendered unusually strong client loyalty,” he wrote. “Oaktree routinely has to turn down billions of capital. Insiders own 72% of the firm’s outstanding units, and top executives receive no compensation other than distributions from their unit ownership.” Buy OAK on dips below $52.

PBF Logistics (NYSE: PBFX) recently reiterated guidance for 2015 that implies annual distributions of $1.64 per unit, for a forward yield of 7.3%. Annualizing the last quarterly distribution by the refinery logistics partnership gives a yield of 5.9%. The unit price is down 10% over the last month despite the security provided by long-term, inflation-indexed contracts with the sponsor backing virtually all of PBFX’s revenue. Buy PBFX below $28.

Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE: PAA) is down 11% over the last month, failing to recover so far from the Feb. 26 launch of a $1.1 billion equity offering. The decline has pushed the yield up to 5.8%, from a premier collection of crude pipelines offering 7% distribution growth even during what management has acknowledged will be a down year. Buy PAA below $58.

Plains GP Holdings (NYSE: PAGP) has held up better of late than the Plains MLP for which it serves as the general partner, it share price virtually unchanged over the last month. Rising incentive distribution rights from PAA have PAGP aiming for 21% dividend growth this year. Between 2004 and 2014 its GP cash flows compounded at a 45% annual rate. Buy PAGP below $30.

Regency Energy Partners (NYSE: RGP) has set a unitholder vote for April 28 on its pending all-equity buyout by corporate kin Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP), with the deal likely to close immediately thereafter. Under the terms of the merger, each RGP unit will be exchanged for .4066 ETP units, plus another equity fraction worth 32 cents. With the vote a formality, RGP units have traded in lockstep with ETP’s, losing 4% over the last month. RGP has so far produced a total return of 178% over nearly six years for our portfolio. It will remain a Hold until the merger closes.

Scorpio Tankers (NYSE: STNG) more than doubled the revenue earned on its fuel and oil tanker charters as well as fourth-quarter operating income in results reported on March 2, as it continues to dramatically expand its fleet in a strengthening market. Scorpio has took delivery of 13 ships in that period and 8 more in January and February; another 12 new builds set to be delivered  during the remainder of the year will leave it with 77 vessels total.  Last week, the company announced two more loan facilities worth a combined $113 million with European banks partially financing the cost of four long-range product tankers due to be delivered next year. Scorpio remains heavily exposed to the recently rising spot rates via charter pools operated by its sponsor. The share price is up more than 11% over the last month. Buy STNG below $9.50.

SemGroup (NYSE: SEMG) reported a 44% rise in fourth-quarter EBITDA on Feb. 26, keyed by rising crude pipeline shipments and marketing proceeds. The mid-continent midstream operator and sponsor of the Rose Rock Midstream (NYSE: RRMS) MLP hiked its dividend by 40% year-over-year, for a current yield of 1.8%. The company plans to increase the dividend by 50% to 60% this year and 30% to 40% annually over the next three based on its rising receipts from Rose Rock. The share price is up 6% over the last month. Buy SEMG below $82.

Shell Midstream Partners (NYSE: SHLX) delivered a 1.15x coverage ratio on the minimum distribution specified before the initial public offering last fall in its first report as a public partnership. Rising crude volumes on the reversed and expanded Zydeco Pipeline bringing crude from Houston to the refineries in coastal Louisiana were the main driver of improved annual results, as revenue nearly doubled while operating income soared 157%. The fledgling MLP continues to carry a nosebleed earnings multiple as investors bet on numerous dropdowns from the asset-rich sponsor. But at a current yield of 1.7% it will take years for the partnership to build a competitive payout. The unit price is down 2% over the last month. Continue to hold SHLX.

Sunoco Logistics Partners (NYSE: SXL) dropped 9% over the last month, hurt by the 7% stumble on March 11 after a $564 million equity offering. The operator of crude, NGL and refined fuel pipelines and terminals is planning to spend $2 billion on fee-backed growth projects this year, even as it continues to increase distributions 20% annually. Buy SXL below $55.

Targa Resources (NYSE: TRGP) closed on its acquisition of the Atlas midstream assets on Feb. 27, then followed up on March 12 with a well received $292 million equity offering, a rare one by an MLP general partner. The share price is down 6% over the last month, boosting the yield to 3.4% on a payout still likely to rise 20% or more this year. Buy #6 Best Buy TRGP below $135.

Western Refining (NYSE: WNR) made an extra $200 million in the recently reported fourth quarter as input costs slid much more sharply than product sales, which were aided by fatter markups at Western’s 261 filling stations. Gross margin per throughput barrel just about tripled year-over-year. As reported in the March 5 MLP Investing Insider, Western returned $553 million -representing more than 10% of its enterprise value — to shareholders last year via share repurchases and regular and special dividends, all without appreciably increasing its debt. The company partially financed this largesse by selling logistics assets into an affiliated master limited partnership. The MLP trades at a dramatically higher valuation than Western’s EV/trailing EBITDA multiple of 5, approximately.  The share price is up 15% in the last month. Buy WNR below $57.

Williams (NYSE: WMB) is continuing to enlarge its strategic Transco gas transmission network on the eastern seaboard, asking the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last week to approve the Dalton Expansion Project, which would extend Transco’s reach in Georgia and Mississippi at a cost of $275 million for Transco’s 50% stake. The company noted that 99% of the $9 billion in growth spending planned by its affiliated Williams Partners (NYSE: WPZ) MLP over the next three years is similarly backed by fee-based commitments. The unit price has slipped less than 1% over the last month. Buy #5 Best Buy WMB below $59.