EPP first-quarter income up $100 million, crude volumes 100,000 b/d

Enterprise Products Partners (EPP) LP had net income attributable to common unit holders of $1.4-billion in first-quarter 2023, a roughly $100-million increase from first-quarter 2022. EPP’s crude oil pipeline transportation volumes rose 100,000 b/d year-on-year, reaching 2.3-million b/d.

Improvements on the crude side of the business were offset in part by reduced gross operating margins in EPP’s natural gas processing and NGL marketing segments, which slipped to $326 million from $415 million. This was the case despite fee-based natural gas processing volumes increasing 647 MMcfd to a record 5.5 bcfd in first-quarter 2023 compared with first-quarter 2022.

The largest contributors to the gas-processing increase were Enterprise’s Delaware basin, Midland basin, and Louisiana and Mississippi gas processing plants. Equity NGL-equivalent production volumes were 160,000 b/d this quarter compared with 180,000 b/d for the same quarter last year.

EPP said it is on schedule to put about $3.8 billion of assets in service in 2023. Second-quarter additions will include the company’s new 1.65-billion lb/year polymer-grade propyline PDH 2 plant and a 400-MMcfd expansion of its Acadian gas pipeline system, both of which are scheduled to be completed and begin commissioning.

In second-half 2023, the company is scheduled to complete construction of its twelfth NGL fractionator (150,000 b/d) at its Mont Belvieu complex in Chambers County, Tex., two natural gas processing plants in the Permian basin (300,000-b/d Poseidon in Midland basin and 300,000-b/d Mentone II in Delaware basin), and the first phase of its 60,000-b/d Texas Western products pipeline between Mont Belvieu and Grand Junction, Colo.