Ten days ago Enterprise Products (EPD) announced that they may in the future initiate a buyback of units, perhaps in 2019. Bigger news was the moderation in the growth rate of their distribution, so the buyback received less attention. But it highlights an interesting fact about MLPs, which is that they rarely do buybacks.

Part of the reason is taxes. Companies in the S&P500 in aggregate return only 42% of their profits in the form of dividends. From a purely tax-efficiency standpoint they shouldn’t pay dividends at all – profits are subject to corporate tax and then the holder has to pay tax on the dividend income. The distortion caused by taxes means that corporations that pay dividends deprive investors of the benefit of deferring taxes, which they could do if companies fully relied on buybacks to return capital. In this way, investors could choose when to realize a portion of their investment and incur the corresponding tax liability. Don’t expect this to change anytime soon though.

By contrast, distributions paid to MLP investors don’t determine their taxes; Buy and hold MLP investors pay taxes on their proportionate share of the profits of the business, regardless of the distributions received. Because MLPs themselves aren’t taxed, there’s no double taxation of profits to owners. For years the market rewarded steadily rising dividend payments, and so MLPs paid out the substantial majority of their Distributable Cash Flow (approximately equivalent to Free Cash Flow less Maintenance Capex) and raised new equity when they needed capital. Since distributions paid to MLP investors aren’t tax-inefficient, there’s little need for MLPs to use buybacks to return extra cash to investors. Moreover, in the GP/MLP structure in which the GP operates like a hedge fund manager (see MLPs and Hedge Funds Are More Alike Than You Think), buybacks might lower the payments received from Incentive Distribution Rights (IDRs), as IDRs are determined both by the level of dividend paid as well as the number of LP units outstanding. So MLPs don’t do buybacks – they generally pay out most of their cashflow and typically issue new equity for new projects.

Except now, EPD has announced they may initiate buybacks, reflecting another development in the shifting financing model for energy infrastructure. Traditional MLP investors (i.e. the wealthy, taxable Americans who are willing to deal with K-1s) have turned out to be an unreliable source of new capital. They like their distributions but they don’t like reinvesting them through secondary offerings or IPOs. This relative tight-fistedness has exposed the comparative largesse of MLPs in distributing most of their cashflow at a time when the Shale Revolution has created opportunities to put it back into their businesses. This is why many large MLPs have concluded that the structure doesn’t work if you need to raise a lot of money.  Kinder Morgan was the first to pursue “simplification”, which by now is understood to result in reduced payouts, freeing up more cash for investing in new projects and therefore less need to issue equity at high yields.

The point of having a public equity listing is to be able to raise capital. The 7.6% yield on the Alerian Index doesn’t entice investors as much as it should because they suspect further simplifications. But for MLPs, it still represents an unreasonably high cost of financing.

EPD is conservatively run, and a reduced growth rate in their distribution is a modest step to redirect capital internally so as to lessen their need to raise money externally. It’s simplification-lite. Intriguingly though, rather than boost the growth rate back up in a couple of years, they may buy back units. Stable distributions are highly prized and even the best run businesses want to shield investors from variability in profits with highly predictable payouts. EPD is introducing greater capital flexibility, since buybacks are never guaranteed. They’re adopting one feature of a C-corp (lower payout ratios) while retaining the tax-efficient MLP structure.

An interesting debate is whether the large MLPs abandoned the investor (as holders of Kinder Morgan Partners certainly felt) or whether the MLP investors abandoned MLPs (as demonstrated by persistently high yields). Simplification transactions and more minor changes such as EPDs are all a result of MLP investors not wanting to reinvest their cashflows as eagerly as their businesses would like them to.

It’s the best explanation we have to justify continued weakness in the sector, as the investor base migrates (not altogether smoothly) away from the yield-seeking to the growth-oriented buyer.

We are invested in EPD

Recently a client drew our attention to a presentation by Stanford University Futurist Tony Seba. He has made a splash with his predictions of imminent, dramatic changes in the transportation industry. In less than a generation he expects a world of self-driving (i.e. autonomous), electric vehicles (EVs) supported by a heavily solar/wind-powered electric grid. In June he gave this presentation which you might find interesting.

Tony Seba is an engaging presenter. Moreover, the future of U.S. energy infrastructure will be impacted both by the increasing use of renewables for electricity generation as well as the growth in EVs (renewables and EVs are separate topics, albeit linked). In discussions with investors both of these topics regularly come up. There’s the near-term impact on the sector of growing production driven by the Shale Revolution. Farther out, the growth in renewables (mainly solar and wind) combined with dramatic improvements in battery technology, could represent an existential threat to segments of the U.S. oil industry.

We read and think about these issues a lot. Behavioral economists teach that humans tend to make overconfident forecasts, whether it’s of equity returns, jellybeans in a jar, or the impact of new technology. Precise forecasts exude confidence and draw attention. A date when EVs will predominate is more eye-catching than a range of dates within which such change is more likely than not. Nonetheless, precision in such matters is usually wrong, and we are not with Tony Seba at the extreme end of predictions; the future is rarely so certain. He makes some specific forecasts, including that crude oil demand will peak in 2020-21, after which it will fall 30% by 2030. He also forecasts that by 2030, 100% of new mass-market vehicles bought in the U.S. will be autonomous EVs.

Exxon Mobil (XOM) recently published Outlook for Energy: Journey to 2040, their regularly updated long-term energy forecast. They have an institutional bias towards fossil fuels so they’re never going to line up with a futurist. Nonetheless, forecasting energy use is critical to their long term survival. Seba includes a reference to Eastman Kodak, a company which invented digital photography and was then destroyed by it. XOM will be aware of that example of disruptive technology.

The Outlook for Energy makes forecasts too, beginning with growth in global GDP and population. They forecast 1.8 billion cars, trucks and SUVs on the roads in 2040 (versus 1 billion today) as rising living standards in developing countries drive demand. While expecting impressive percentage growth rates in wind and solar, they expect oil and natural gas to increase their share of the world’s energy needs. Overall, they see fossil fuels slipping modestly, from above 80% to just under 80%, with both coal and oil losing market share to natural gas. They expect crude oil consumption to be around 17% higher in 2040 than it is today. By 2040 they expect 15% of new car sales globally to be hybrids, and 10% of U.S. car sales to be EVs.

To summarize:

One of these will be spectacularly wrong.

Although they’re both point forecasts and so unlikely to be precisely right, we think it’s more likely Seba will miss by a lot. His presentation opens with an old photo of New York’s Fifth Avenue in 1900 full of horse-drawn vehicles, and moves to 1912, same place, with all automobiles. It’s true that some new technologies have been highly disruptive, but it doesn’t follow that they all are. Seba’s analogy to the car is intended to validate his EV/solar forecast, although he wasn’t around in 1900 to predict the former.

Growth rates can quickly lead to exponential change when projected out a decade or more. Yet change more often follows an “S” curve, with a high growth rate during widespread adoption followed by slower growth thereafter. We think it’s unlikely the electric grid could adapt so quickly to transmitting the substantially increased electricity required to run a national EV fleet. We also note Seba’s assuming no new advances in the technology of the internal combustion engine, whereas there are continual improvements here too. And the Shale Revolution itself is a form of disruptive technology. We think natural gas is the most likely winner, as it’s the cleanest fossil fuel and enables increased use of renewables by providing baseload electricity for when it’s not sunny or windy.

The price advantage Seba forecasts for solar assumes that the recent substantial productivity improvements in shale drilling don’t continue at all. In fact, he assumes that all the losers, which includes automakers, utilities, oil and gas producing companies, refineries and all those invested in life today as we know it, will stand by passively while their business models are disrupted by new technology. In fact, they are and will continue to respond, by improving their own technology. Furthermore, until battery storage technology and cost improve substantially, we still need backup power for intermediate solar power.  This provides demand for of fossil fuel baseload capacity, which often comes from natural gas “peaker” plants (i.e that run only during times of high demand). It’s hard to see a widespread transition to renewables without increased natural gas usage..

An 80% drop in car ownership by 2030 (another Seba forecast) implies widespread car-sharing. Using an Uber-type app to summon an autonomous EV when you need it suggests acceptance of a generic car. What if you need a babyseat? Extra room for luggage? A big family? We think car demand will remain more heterogenous than Seba suggests. Other non-technology hurdles include issues of liability — if your autonomous EV causes an accident, who’s at fault? What if a software bug causes multiple, simultaneous collisions? The deep-pocketed corporations developing the technology will need protection from class action lawyers before it is allowed to go mainstream.

Directionally, Seba’s probably right in that we’re eventually moving to EVs. But investing requires timing too. Seba’s most extreme, widely known forecasts could miss and yet still gain plaudits for getting the direction right, in the same way an equity analyst might gain followers with the highest target price for a hot stock even if it never gets there. But as investors, we care about pace of change as well as direction. Vaclav Smil, a thoughtful and prolific writer about many topics including energy, articulated the major impediments confronting widespread, rapid adoption of renewables. This brief essay, albeit nearly four years old, is still relevant.

The left chart in the panel below looks complicated, but it shows the proportion of primary energy delivered by each source going back two centuries, on a semi-log scale. The point is that growth slows sooner than expected, and the notes underneath highlight that fossil fuels in aggregate stopped gaining market share in the 1970s, which is probably not intuitive to most people. The chart is from Energy Transitions: Global and National Perspectives, 2nd edition (2016) by Vaclav Smil. The chart on the right shows sales of hybrids and the sensational early growth that fizzled out. Had Tony Seba been giving his presentation in 2005, he probably would have had a chart projecting a car market dominated by hybrids and leaping from its then current 1.4% market share, whereas a decade later it was at 2.0%.

And yet, it really is an exciting future. Personally I can’t wait for autonomous vehicles. I’m sure I’ll own one myself once the technology is proven (I am known by my friends as a late adopter of new things). Being driven by software so the passenger can read, send a text message or even sleep will surely be a great improvement in safety. When I’m finally in my autonomous EV and not driving I’m sure it’ll be better for those around me. Although  Seba doesn’t highlight this, one of the strongest arguments in favor of autonomous vehicles is that the software will operate them more safely than unpredictable, sometimes impaired humans. Automobiles kill nearly 1.3 million people globally every year and an additional 20-50 million people are injured or disabled. In this arena like so many others, technology will eventually make the world a better place.

We watch these and other developments carefully. We acknowledge the danger of holding any view with excessive confidence, and new information can cause a reassessment.  The further out one goes the harder it is to be certain about oil demand and its price. Growth in wind, solar and other future energy technologies should be taken seriously and must already be a consideration for any big, conventional oil and gas project with a projected return over decades. The optimistic case for renewables highlights the incredible advantage of the Shale Revolution, where development costs are low, production quick, and investments recouped in months. This compares favorably with conventional projects (respectively, high, slow and over many years).  For now, we believe Tony Seba’s vision is farther off than he thinks, but what a fascinating journey we will be taking with American innovation revolutionizing the global energy markets from both sides.

For the first half of the year crude oil prices moved irregularly lower before bottoming in June, since when they’ve moved smartly higher. Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) have roughly followed this path, and have also moved smartly higher in recent weeks. Non-crude cashflows drive MLP operating performance, but crude drives investor sentiment. No amount of typing by this blogger will shake the relationship between the prices of MLPs and crude.

Interestingly though, U.S. crude oil production has continued to grow all year, seemingly impervious to prices. From 8.85 Million Barrels a Day (MMB/D) in January, output reached 9.2 MMB/D in June. Hurricane season caused a slight late Summer dip in the Gulf of Mexico, but the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is forecasting an average of 9.3 MMB/D for the full year. Production is therefore forecast to continue rising into 2018, for which the EIA is forecasting 9.8 MMB/D. That would eclipse the prior record of 9.6 MMB/D set in 1970. America is Great!

Longer term oil forecasts from both the EIA and the International Energy Agency (IEA) are for rising prices. The EIA’s International Energy Outlook 2017 models crude oil roughly $25 higher by 2020. The IEA goes even further, warning of the risk of a price spike by 2020. They cite growth in annual demand of 1.6MMB/D (around 1.7%) as well as too little new investment in new sources of production. They note that spare capacity (mostly OPEC) of 2 MMB/D doesn’t even cover two years of growth in demand, and expect OPEC to eventually abandon their production limits.

As an aside, a friend recently told me about an investor he knows who is convinced oil prices will collapse as consumers flock to electric vehicles (EVs)  and shun the internal combustion engine. That is almost certainly not going to happen. In fact, depressed crude oil would be just about the worst thing for Tesla fans, because it would hurt their competitiveness. High oil prices combined with strong demand for EVs is a possibility; low oil prices and disinterest in EVs is another. Cheap gasoline will dampen the enthusiasm of those opting for environmentally-inspired transportation choices. Moreover, internal combustion engine technology improvements continue to reduce emissions, narrowing the gap with EVs.

The EIA expects overall energy use to grow worldwide even while energy intensity drops (meaning it’s used more efficiently for a given level of GDP). Other than coal, all sources of energy will see growing production with renewables growing the fastest. Non-OECD Asia is responsible for most of the forecast growth in energy consumption through 2040, including 80% of the growth in petroleum and other liquid fuels.

During the 2015 collapse in crude prices, U.S. production dipped but surprised many (including OPEC) at how robust it stayed. The drop in crude early this year didn’t seem to affect domestic output at all. We now seem to be moving into a period of rising prices combined with rising production. U.S. shale output just isn’t growing fast enough to satisfy the 1.6 MMB/D in new demand noted above as well as offset global depletion (estimated at 3-4 MMB/D annually; see Why Shale Upends Conventional Thinking). The world needs another 5-6 MMB/D in new supply, annually. Rising prices will stimulate shale drillers into more activity, but not enough to depress prices.

In presenting their latest forecast, IEA oil markets head Neil Atkinson conceded, “We underestimated the resilience of U.S. shale producers. We failed to understand the resilience. We failed to appreciate the technical ingenuity.” In other words, the IEA underestimated America. So did OPEC last year (see OPEC Blinks). Both the EIA and the IEA have had to recalibrate their models to reflect the ongoing success of U.S. shale (see Oil Forecasters Have to Work Harder).

Rising crude prices along with rising U.S. output could be just as potent for energy infrastructure stocks as the opposite combination was bad in 2015. Moreover, it’s not only crude output that is rising; the EIA is forecasting natural gas production to average 73.7 Billion Cubic Feet per Day (BCF/D) in 2017. This is up 1.4 BCF/D from 2016, and in 2018 a further jump of 4.4 BCF/D is expected.

Clearly, for the U.S. energy sector, its best days are still ahead.

Below is a new trademarked logo we have designed for our energy infrastructure business. We believe the Shale Revolution is leading to American Energy Independence, and our investment choices increasingly reflect the search for those businesses that will most clearly benefit. Expect to see more of this logo in the months ahead.

It’s seldom appreciated outside the energy industry, but drilling for oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids (NGLs) involves handling far more water than hydrocarbons. This isn’t just because production often involves pumping water into a well. Water is usually present naturally, and comes up with the oil and gas that is produced. Ideally in holding tanks the oil separates from the water and floats above it, although often some further treatment is required to isolate them. Following separation, the water needs to be disposed of safely. This is creating some growing challenges.

Much of the available data is fragmented because in the U.S. the states generally oversee Exploration and Production (E&P) activities except where on Federal land. As a result, the aggregated data that does exist relies in part on estimates because of differing standards of collection. In addition, the most recent data is still a few years old, and given the growth in domestic oil and gas production since then, today’s figures would be higher.

“Produced water” refers to any water that comes up along with hydrocarbons. Water occurs naturally  in most plays and comes up with the extracted oil and gas. But it also includes water pumped into a mature well to force oil up (Enhanced Oil Recovery, EOR) and the flowback of water used in fracking. Any water that comes out of a well is deemed produced water and is subject to Federal rules on safe disposal. Sifting through the available studies, while the ratio of produced water to oil varies widely, it’s clear that we produce substantially more of the former. The water/oil ratio differs by region, by play and by age of well. With conventional drilling, early output typically favors oil and becomes less favorable over time. Produced water generally has no value, although not always; for example, iodide recovered from produced water in Oklahoma represents the largest source of iodine in the U.S. But generally, produced water is high in salt content and contains many unpleasant minerals including NORMs (Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material). Its disposal can represent a significant cost, and because increased water disposal reflects deteriorating well economics (since produced water volumes usually increase over time), installing water disposal infrastructure is often delayed.

Some numbers are helpful to illustrate the scope of the issue. A 2012 GAO report cited 56 million barrels of produced water daily, relying on a 2009 study. Back then the Shale Revolution was virtually unknown. U.S. crude oil production was 5.3 Million Barrels per Day (MMB/D), slightly over half of today’s level, while natural gas output is up by a third. Since injection of water into wells via fracking has further contributed to produced water, one would think produced water volumes have increased proportionally. However, a more recent study of 2012 data suggests that produced water hadn’t increased despite rises in oil and gas production.

One possible reason is that the water:oil ratio is higher in older conventional wells (estimates are 10:1) that are being replaced by new horizontal shale wells which have lower produced water ratios (3:1) after the initial flowback. Nonetheless, a lot of produced water must be disposed of and unlike conventional wells that can inject the water back into a reservoir, tight shale rock won’t accept it.

The result is that substantial quantities of water have to be moved by truck or (if infrastructure exists) by pipe to treatment centers for ultimate disposal. Other applications can include recycling water into new completions, irrigation and industrial cooling, depending on the presence of harmful elements in the water. But most of it gets injected back into the ground using deep wells specially designed for produced water disposal. A single oil well producing 1,000 barrels per day, even if it came with only three times as much water would still require 12 water trucks per day (one barrel = 42 gallons; 3,000 barrels of water = 126,000 gallons; assumed truck capacity of 10,000 gallons), to haul the water away. The 56 million barrels a day of produced water, which is cited by several researchers, is twice the daily flow over Niagara Falls. It’s why the industry often regards itself as being in the water hauling business more than the oil business.

That all this water disposal takes place without much media focus is testament to the already tight rules in place and the industry’s general adherence to them. The minor tremors in Oklahoma are often incorrectly blamed on fracking. In fact, the disposal of produced water into unstable rock formations is the primary cause. Although some of that water is likely the result of hydrofracturing, all oil wells generate produced water. Infrastructure for water disposal is a topic that increasingly draws questions from analysts on conference calls. Of course one man’s expense is another’s business opportunity, and MLPs are adding water disposal infrastructure to the services they provide. Crestwood (CEQP) provided water volume statistics on their most recent earnings call and is planning further investments in this area. COO Heath Deneke commented that, “…the water handling business is likely to grow to be an $8 billion to $10 billion per year business over the next five to seven years in the Delaware-Permian.”

Some worry that the growth of crude oil production in the Permian will be constrained by the challenges of safe water disposal, although the industry is working on solutions and the challenges are likely to be manageable.

We are invested in CEQP

In the debate over global warming, the environmentalists claim the moral high ground while the “non-believers” deny man-made climate change. The very question of whether you “believe” in global warming suggests religious conviction with little point in debate. This is what makes Alex Epstein’s moral defense of fossil fuels so intriguing.

We have clients across the political spectrum, and it’s a safe bet that they’re with us looking for strong investment results with little care for our views on other topics. However, there are some who concede to a certain moral precariousness in putting their green credentials alongside investments designed to profit from America’s Shale Revolution. For them, Alex Epstein presents an intellectual framework for conscience-free investments in energy infrastructure.

Epstein seizes the moral high ground by correctly defining the metric against which human development should be judged – namely, is it good for humanity? He argues that many environmentalists implicitly value human health and prosperity below other objectives, such as ensuring an unchanged environment. Cheap fossil fuel energy has powered an enormous leap in living standards, life expectancy and population over the past couple of centuries. He argues that humans have been changing their environment throughout history to make it safer and more receptive to human life. These undoubted benefits to the human race need to be balanced against the (oft-debated) environmental results. And while Epstein goes on to question to what degree human activity is warming the planet, the elegance of his insight is that the humanity standard allows one to be a fossil fuel supporting environmentalist. His preferred standard is, “What will promote human flourishing – realizing the full potential of life?” (italics in original).

Since burning fossil fuels supplies 81% of our energy needs, it’s reasonable to assume that government policies which impose constraints will increase the cost of energy through taxes or subsidies that favor renewables. The humanity standard doesn’t preclude this, it simply imposes a rigorous cost-benefit analysis. More highly priced energy may not damage human life in the developed world all that much, but in the developing world cheap, reliable electricity can mean life or death for hospital patients or a community in need of clean water.

Since cavemen lit fires and inhaled smoke while staying warm, humans have balanced energy use with changes to the environment. Still today, 38% of the world’s population uses traditional biomass for cooking, contributing to 3.5 million pre-mature deaths each year caused by household air pollution. Women and children disproportionately bear the cost to their health as well as spending enormous amounts of time gathering wood for fuel. 1950s London was notorious for thick fog caused by coal-burning homes and factories. Coal use was curtailed – Epstein’s standard doesn’t sanction unfettered pollution, it simply sets a standard against which to assess it.

As a society’s wealth increases, the trade-off shifts. When we’re safely housed against the weather, able to access sufficient food, water and medical care, concern for our natural surroundings can increase. But assuming humans are taking existential risks with the planet, a population without reliable electricity or clean water will more readily prioritize these over the environment compared with developed countries. In fact, the morality of fossil fuel use is strongest when applied to the poorest, whose lives are most easily improved. Advocates of the deepest cuts in global energy use must consider parts of the world using energy to reach western living standards. For example, in 2014 Secretary of State John Kerry, in a speech to Indonesians, exhorted them to “Make a transition towards clean energy the only plan you are willing to accept.” Such a call was no doubt well intentioned, but 33 million Indonesians lack access to safe water. Higher energy prices will hardly solve that immediate problem.

Globally, 1.2 billion people do not have access to electricity and have shorter life expectancy as a result, while many more don’t have access to reliable electricity. These people may rightly care about energy availability regardless of how it’s generated. Part of the moral dilemma revolves around sacrifices today to help later wealthier generations. It’s not an easy question, but is one that Epstein challenges his critics to consider more carefully.

The book does not question whether carbon dioxide emissions warm the planet but the degree to which they do, the consequences of such and the cost of cleaner energy on human life and the quality of human life today. This debate will probably continue beyond all our lifetimes and we’ll sidestep offering an opinion. Epstein offers some useful data to illustrate how humans have benefited from harnessing concentrated energy; the average human needs 2,000 calories a day to exist, roughly the same amount of energy required by a 100-watt lightbulb. As we go about our daily lives, we eat food produced and moved by machines; we are transported by machines and we occupy buildings whose construction relied on heavy equipment. Consequently, the average American’s daily machine energy use is 186,000 calories, or around 93 humans. Consider how energy has transformed agriculture, driving enormous increases in productivity and greatly decreasing the percentage of the population working on farms. Freed from a daily search for sustenance, humans have diversified into countless endeavors with time to create all the elements of industrialized societies. Fossil fuels have made modern society possible.

A key advantage of fossil fuels is their concentrated form. A gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 calories, the equivalent of a day’s energy for fifteen humans. By harnessing many multiples of our own physical ability, we have used hydrocarbons to shape our world. From the construction of the most rudimentary forms of shelter, we have adapted our environment to be protected from the elements.

The 2012 debate between Alex Epstein and Bill McKibben (a leading environmentalist), available on Youtube, probably changed few minds but nonetheless provided a useful public airing of views. CO2 emissions have risen along with fossil fuel use. But many measures of human well-being have improved including life expectancy, poverty and access to sanitation. It’s clearly not a coincidence. Every human, regardless of their opinion on climate change, wants a livable planet.

Whatever your views on human-caused global warming, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels represents a useful step towards greater intellectual rigor on the topic.