EUROPE’S ENERGY CRISIS IS KEEPING ENERGY PRICES AND INFLATION HIGH

America leads the world in oil and gas production. We believe midstream energy infrastructure offers predictable cash flows to investors..

Prognosticating the Effect of Higher Interest Rates

People often ask me how I think equity markets, including Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs), will perform when interest rates are rising. It’s a timely question, since bond yields have been moving higher for the past couple of months. The yield on the ten year U.S. treasury recently touched 2.5% as markets look ahead to a tightening […]

Interesting Perspectives from Plains All American's Investor Day

Plains All American Pipeline (PAA) held their Investor Day on Thursday. The presentations included a fascinating analysis of the global oil market with a view to forecasting prices as well as regional supply/demand, since these are important drivers of PAA’s planned infrastructure development. The chart at the left, reproduced from PAA’s Investor Day deck, plainly […]

The Enormous Misunderstanding About MLP Funds and Taxes

Inspiration for these posts often comes from conversations I’ve had with investors during the prior week. For a great many investors, the decision to invest in an MLP mutual fund or ETF goes something like this: 1) MLPs have generated attractive historical returns over (choose your time period) number of years 2) The yield on […]

U.S. Natural Gas Terms of Trade Continue to Shift

Data recently released by the Energy Information Agency (EIA)  highlighted the continuing shift in U.S. terms of trade regarding natural gas. The North East U.S. (NY, OH, PA, NJ, MD, DE and VA) was for the first time in 2014 no longer a net importer of natural gas from Canada, as production in the Marcellus […]

Another MLP Simplification Benefits From Favorable Depreciation Rules

Last week Williams Companies (WMB) simplified their structure by acquiring the assets of their Master Limited Partnership (MLP), Williams Partners (WPZ). As was the case with Kinder Morgan’s (KMI) move last year, the objective was to move to a simpler structure with a lower cost of equity driven by faster dividend growth supported by a […]